englisia november 2017 vol. 5, no. 1, 1-7 code switching and the development of linguistic system of simultaneous bilingual children leni amalia suek universitas nusa cendana kupang, indonesia leni.suek@yahoo.com abstract code switching and code mixing are the phenomena commonly seen done by a bilingual. this behavior is influenced by several aspects such as the linguistic system, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and language competence of the bilingual. if children are able to distinguish two different languages since early age, they will be considered simultaneous bilinguals. they show that they develop multiple, rather than single, linguistic systems. however, it was understood that code switching and code mixing were due to the failure in using proper words, language features, and sociolinguistic competence. yet, recent studies have shown that bilingual children are able to use both languages proficiently with no signs of confusion or failure in language use. this ability also does not hinder their cognitive development. keywords: code switching; code mixing; bilingual; sociolinguistics introduction code switching and code mixing are common behaviors of bilinguals. meisel argued that code switching and language mixing are natural phenomenon of communication among bilinguals (meisel, 2006, p. 9). since they acquire more than one language, there is a propensity to mix those languages in the interaction. however, there are several issues regarding this linguistic behavior particularly for children who acquire two languages as their mother tongues since early childhood. this is because of the debate among researchers about the development of linguistic and grammatical system of simultaneous bilingual kids. it is still a major issue code switching and the development of linguistic system of simultaneous bilingual children 2 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 whether the simultaneous bilingual children develop unitary linguistic system or dual linguistic system. when acquiring two languages, children develop their linguistic system that will assist them to access and get involved in the communication. this linguistic system including their ability to process grammatical features of two codes whether is developed by separating the system of both languages or not is still debatable. their development stages since early childhood to adulthood is also an issue that becomes major discussion among researchers. before discussing the topic in depth, it is important to clarify the terminology because the terms code switching and code mixing are used interchangeably. “code switching is a specific skill in the bilingual’s pragmatic competence” (meisel, 2001, p. 344). this means that when the bilinguals do code switching, this is due to their ability in analyzing sociolinguistic context of the interaction. therefore, they do code switching in order to fulfill sociolinguistic requirements such as interlocutor. on the other hand, “code mixing is the fusion of two grammatical system, i.e. a possible characteristic of a bilingual’s grammatical competence” (meisel, 2001, p. 344). this means that when they do code mixing they mix the grammatical rules of both languages. sometimes it is difficult to see whether they bilinguals do code switching or code mixing. the definitions sometimes do not show clear boundaries of the two terms. hence, people may use those terms not to show distinct but similar behavior that relates to one another. in this paper, code switching and code mixing refers to bilinguals’ linguistic behavior where they use both languages in the same linguistic situation. the aim of this paper is to discuss the development of linguistic system of simultaneous bilingual children and the relation with their linguistic behavior of code switching. there are several issues related to this topic that will be discussed along with the literature review and the discussion of findings from several studies. discussion simultaneous bilinguals are those who acquire two languages as their mother tongues since early childhood (hamers & blanc, 2005, p. 28). most of them learn those two languages simultaneously because they grow up in a mixed-lingual family. the fact that these bilinguals develop two languages at the same time has attracted leni amalia suek englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 | 3 researchers’ attention to conduct research to investigate their linguistic system as well as their linguistic behavior (genesee, 2000; genesee, nicoladis, & paradis, 1995; meisel, 2001). code switching is not just a linguistic behavior of bilingual children that occurs in the interaction, but it is also a phenomenon that represents their development of bilinguals’ cognition, memory and linguistic system. hence, there are several issues that researchers are keen to provide evidence to prove their hypothesis whether bilingual children behavior of code switching occurs because they have unitary linguistic system or dual linguistic system. they conducted research to reveal whether a bilingual kid has one or separate linguistic system for both languages (meisel, 2001). in addition, another major issue related to these bilingual phenomena is whether they are going through a phase of confusion when they simultaneously acquire two grammatical systems or not. evidence is needed to prove that the bilinguals’ children do not confuse and mix the grammatical rules of both languages. this leads to another issue whether code mixing occurs because the children are unable to differentiate both languages or not. since the children develop their mother tongues at early childhood, their pragmatic competence, and also mental awareness in using both languages appropriately and separately are doubtful. hence, the language experts in bilingualism conducted research to discuss this issue (heredia & altarriba, 2001). another major issue is related to the competence of bilinguals on both languages. is it true that code switching and mixing shows lack of competence in both languages. when bilinguals express their ideas, sometimes they find it more accessible to use their first language than their second language. hence, it is important to find out that whether this code switching occurs due to their incapability of using both languages comprehensively or not (genesee, 2000). all of the aforementioned issues have been investigated by the researchers, thus the evidence and findings of those studies are elaborated in the rest of this section. according to research conducted by meisel, he revealed that it is possible for simultaneous bilingual children to develop their grammatical system of both code switching and the development of linguistic system of simultaneous bilingual children 4 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 languages without going through a phase of temporary confusion (meisel, 2001, pp. 331-343). the bilingual children did not confuse the grammar of both languages. they can use the language separately with its own grammatical pattern. this is because children who acquire the languages simultaneously are capable of separating their languages (meisel, 2006, p. 9). even though the patterns are contradictory and distinct, they are to produce speech without confusing the grammar of those two languages. code switching is not a sign of bilinguals incompetency in separating the linguistic system of both languages (genesee, 2000, p. 2). this is because they can use languages appropriately with different people. code switching occurs due to language accessibility factors such as failure to retrieve correct word, frequency of language use, grammatical features, and sociolinguistic (heredia & altarriba, 2001, p. 165). code switching occurs not because of lacking of proficiency but because of failure to retrieve memory (altarriba & palomo, 1999, p. 3; genesee, 2001, p. 157). when bilingual children cannot retrieve the words that are suitable to express their ideas in their second language, it is more accessible to use words in their first language. in addition, the frequency of using the language also determines their ability to produce speech in their second language. if they rarely use the terms or words in their second language, it is easier for them to use their first language. bilinguals also do code switching not because of their lack of competence in their second language but because of their pragmatic competence. they are able to switch the language according to the interlocutors. for examples, when the bilingual children who are exposed to “one language one principle’, they are able to use a language to their father and use another language to their mother (genesee, 2001). children, in the early ages, are able to select language according to the sociolinguistics requirements (meisel, 2006, p. 9). one of the requirements is interlocutor, it has been proved that bilingual children are able to select and use languages according to their addressee. they can suddenly switch their languages from first language to second language when they speak to people who share the same language. in addition, they rarely violate grammatical rules of both languages, hence, they can separate grammatical system of both languages (genesee, 2001, p. 155; meisel, 2006, p. 9). leni amalia suek englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 | 5 findings of research show that bilingual children in their early development are able to use their languages according to their interlocutors. after examining 2 year-old bilingual kid where her mother consistently used french and her father consistently used english, the finding shows that the child is able to use and switch the language according to the addressee (genesee, nicoladis, paradis in genesee, 2001). the child used french when she spoke to her mother and she suddenly switched to english when she spoke to her father. children can differentiate both languages when they can speak different languages to each of their parents (genesee et al., 1995, p. 621). genesee et al (1995) conducted a research in montreal quebec by taking five families as their participants. in each case, their mothers speak english more frequently than their fathers. on the other hand, their fathers’ predominantly speak french. the transcription of the both video-and audiotaped conversation revealed that, in the interaction either with either of their parents or alone with one parent, the children used language that is predominantly spoken by their parents. when they speak to their mothers, they use english. on the other hand, when they speak with their fathers, they use french. this evidence revealed that they can differentiate and use both languages appropriately (genesee et al., 1995, p. 627). code mixing does not show that they are not able to separate two languages, it is a stage of their development (lanza, 1992, p. 641). simultaneous bilinguals kids acquire the language separately from the beginning (genesee, 2000, p. 2). findings of a longitudinal study shows (lanza, 1992) that sire whose father is norwegian and whose mother is american that are exposed to one-person-one language principle is able to separate both languages. the data consisting of audiotape recording of her speech in the interaction between sire and her mother, sire and her father, and family when she was only a child was collected. it revealed that in her early age, when she was two years old, sire was able to switch the languages. this shows that she already developed pragmatic competence and bilingual awareness. later on, when she matures, she will develop more complex pragmatic competence and bilingual awareness. this means that she is able to analyze sociolinguistic aspects in depth when involving in the conversation with people who share same mother tongues with her. code switching and the development of linguistic system of simultaneous bilingual children 6 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 in his study, meisel took two 12-month children who speak german and french (meisel, 2001). the principle of one-person-one language was also investigated. one recording per month was transcribed and analyzed to reveal the children’s linguistic behavior. they focuses on grammatical system particularly word order and subject-verb-agreement of french and german. miesel found that they are able to distinguish the grammatical pattern of both languages without going through a phase of confusion. meisel also argued that the children have dual linguistic not unitary linguistic system since early childhood. this claim is contradictory with the claim proposed by volterral and taeschner in 1978 that the children has to go through three stages of development before they develop duallinguistic system (meisel, 2001, p. 328). in his article, fred (genesee, 2001) discussed about pragmatic competence in relation to code mixing and bilingual syntactic development. fred argued that code switching should be viewed in terms of proficiency not their incapability to develop different linguistic system during their early phase of language acquisition (genesee, 2001, p. 157). in addition, code switching shows children development of their pragmatic skill. conclusion code switching and code mixing are natural phenomena occurring among bilinguals. this linguistic behavior covers several major issues such as linguistic system, language competence, sociolinguistic aspect, pragmatic and competence of bilinguals. simultaneous bilingual children in their early childhood are able to differentiate both languages. this shows that they develop not unitary but dual linguistic system. code switching which is a common linguistic behavior of bilinguals occurs not because they are lacking of competence in both languages but due to psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic factors. the failure to retrieve words, frequency of language use, grammatical feature, pragmatic competence, and sociolinguistic factors contribute to bilinguals’ behavior of code switching. research findings also show that the bilingual children in their early childhood are able to differentiate the grammatical system of both languages. in addition, as their pragmatic and bilingual awareness develop, they are able to switch their languages according to the leni amalia suek englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 | 7 addressee. one-person one-language principle was investigated during the research. it has been proven that they are able to speak different language to their father and another language to their mother either on one to one interaction or in family interaction. this shows that they do not go through a phase of temporary confusion. references altarriba, j., & palomo, o. (1999). language code-switching: a psychological analysis of why bilinguals mix spanish and english en la frontera. texas a & m international university. texas. genesee, f. (2000). simultaneous bilingual acquisition. canadian language and literacy research network. mcgill university. canada. genesee, f. (2001). bilingual first language acquisition: exploring the limits of the language faculty. annual review of applied linguistics, 21, 153-168. genesee, f., nicoladis, e., & paradis, j. (1995). language differentiation in early bilingual development. journal of child language, 22(3), 611-631. hamers, j. f., & blanc, m. h. a. (2005). bilinguality and bilingualism. cambridge: cambridge university press. heredia, r. r., & altarriba, j. (2001). bilingual language mixing: why do bilinguals code-switch? current directions is psychological science, 10(5), 164-168. lanza, e. (1992). can bilingual two-year-olds code switch? journal of child language, 19, 633-658. meisel, j. m. (2001). early differentiation of languages in bilingual children. in l. wei (ed.), the bilingualism reader (pp. 344-370). london: routledge. meisel, j. m. (2006). the bilingual child. in t. k. bhatia & w. c. ritchie (eds.), the handbook of bilingualism. blackwell publishing: malden. introduction introduction introduction englisia may 2017 vol. 4, no. 2, 90-98 social factors prompting adult bilingual speakers to code switch yunita reny bani bili universitas nusa cendana, kupang, indonesia reny_noe@yahoo.com abstract it has been long known that bilinguals can switch their speeches from one language to another when interacting within their own community. some experts argue that code switch occurs due to the lack of proficiency in languages, lazy choices and easy solutions in communicating, and impact of linguistic dominance. this paper describes the social factors which promote adult bilinguals in code switching. the paper focuses on three types of the social factors contributing to code switching.the first type deals with factors independent of specific speakers and circumstances such as prestige, cover prestige, and power relation. the second one is related to speakers’ competence both as individuals and members of a sub group. the last category refers to factors within the conversation where code switching emerges. to conclude, these social factors are highly relevant in prompting adult bilinguals to code switch. keywords: social factors; code switch; bilinguals; speakers; adults introduction it is undeniable that bilingual speakers switch from one language to other languages when they are interacting in bilingual environment. gardner–chloros (2009, p. 4) called this situation as code switching which simply refers to “the use of several languages or dialects in the same conversation or sentence by bilingual people”.there are a lot of reasons of switching languages. these reasons certainly depend on several pointsof views such as sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, grammar, acquisition process, and pragmatics perspectives both in adult as well as in children. nevertheless, this essay is focusing on the explanation of why adult yunita reny bani bili englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 91 bilingual speakers engage in code switching looking from a sociolinguistics point of view. discussion some scholars argue that code switching often emerges as inadequate language proficiency, an easy solution or a lazy option in communication, and the impact of linguistics dominance. this essay is going to discuss that there are other social factors beyond those factors which prompt the adult bilingual speakers to code switch. the discussion that follows will look at three types of social factor which contribute to code switching. first, it will begin by elaborating factors independent of particular speakers and particular circumstances, such as prestige, cover prestige and power relation. second, it will explain factors relating to speaker’s competence both as individual and members of a sub group. third, the explanation will be given to the factors within the conversation where code switching emerges. this writing argues that social factors are highly relevant and prompting to the emergence of adult bilingual code switching. some scholars argue that inadequate language proficiency is one of the main causes of code switching. herredia and altarriba (2001, p. 165) claim that bilingual speakers who do not know the language completely often code switch to their dominant languages in the conversation. this case often happens to less proficient second language learners. for example, an indonesian speaker, who is in the process of learning english for six months, tries to communicate with an australian who is fluent in indonesian. the indonesian speaker might code switch to indonesian if the speaker does not know some correct english words, such as perspectives, properly, explore, etc. this effort is merely done to compensate the insufficient knowledge of a language and maintain the flow of conversation. however, the inadequate language proficiency is not equivalent to the failure of retrieving correct words. inadequate language proficiency basically deals with insufficient linguistic knowledge of a language. failure of retrieving correct words, on the other hand, can be caused by the lack frequency of using words or a matter of incompetent linguistics performance. for example, an indonesian speaker tries to recall english word “rationalization”. the speaker will prefer to switch into indonesian because it is faster and easier (herredia & altarriba, 2001, p.165). this social factors prompting adult bilingual speakers to code switch 92 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 striking reason is in line with the result of ethnographic research which claims that code-switchers confessed code-switching as laziness or an easy solution to compensate the failure of finding a word required in certain language. the other claim about code switching cause is the influence of linguistics dominance. kroll and stewart (1994, as cited in herredia & altarriba, 2001) argued that the dominance of first language lexicons and information prompts the lexicons to be accessed faster than the lexicons of second language. this situation takes place out of speakers’ full awareness. an ethnographic research on code-switching proves that people living in the bilingual community were surprised when listening to an interview recording. the recording shows that the people produced enormous number of code swicthing then they predicted (gardner-chloros, 2009). it is obvious in the proof that the linguistics dominance of first language can influence the existence of code-switching. in spite of these factors, there are other social factors that really prompt the emergence of adult bilingual code switching. these factors are prestige, cover prestige and power relation. the clear cut example of prestige and cover prestige’s influence in the code switching is the case of north african code switching. code switching is seen as symbol of education and social status. in other words, it is compulsory for literate speakers to code switch from arabic into french; and it is notthe case with the illiterate ones. the educated speakers always code switch in the fields such as education, administration, mass media, and tech-related professions because of the strong presence of french (sayahi, 2007). furthermore, meyerhoff (2011, p. 91) explains power relation as“a vertical relationship between speaker and hearer in brown and levinson’s theory of politeness. along with distance and cost of imposition, power determines how much and what kind of redressive action the speaker might take with a face-threatening act.” the example of power relation’s impact on code switching is seen in the code switching used for directness. example 14 m1 : all right f1 : stop, how many days is the conference? m1 : guys, i wanna finish at seven o’clock f1 : i’m asking! how many days in the conference? yunita reny bani bili englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 93 m1 : ??? it’s half past six f1 : kiriemeniko, poses imeresine? mrmeniko, how many days is it? m1 : it will be around four days, i imagine f1 : ok, four days, good….and what time? (gardner-chloros & finnis, 2004 as cited in gardner-chloros, 2009, p. 86) the example shows that the failure to answer f1 speaker’s question made the speaker code switch into greek to avoid face threatening act which occurs in the repeated questions. code switching helps to constitute directness. in this example, code switch is mixed with humorous language because the speaker f1 perceived speaker m1 in the horizontal relationship rather than vertical one. however, the language of code switching is maybe a bit formal and less humorous if the speaker is in the vertical relationship. for example, code switching to a teacher, a boss, or older person. the examples of prestige, cover prestige and power relation have illustrated that such social factors are essential to be considered in accounting for the emergence of code switching. in addition, factors relating to speaker’s competence both as individual and members of a sub group really determine the existence of code switching. milroy and gordon (2003 as cited in gardner-chloros, 2009) claim that these factors are speaker’s competence in each variety, their social network and relationship, attitudes and ideologies. duran (1994) explains that speaker’s competence alludes to the degree of language competence in two languages. this competence serves to fill the linguistics gap and various communicative purposes. code switching, thus, plays pivotal role to maintain the flow of conversation and provide a word required in a language which becomes a gap between speakers of two languages. furthermore, milroy and wei (1995, as cited in milroy & musyken, 1995) point out that social network can create the patterns of code switching and language choice. the reason for this isthat social network is in the interaction with social variables such as gender, age, and occupations, so it is likely that the community member of the social network produces more than one variable. for instance, gumperz’s work on hindi and its range of dialect explains that the social network social factors prompting adult bilingual speakers to code switch 94 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 and speaker relationship have an effect on the language variety selection. it is proven in his work that most male speakers who travel significantly use village dialect to speak with local residents but employ regional dialect to talk with outsiders (nilep, 2006). in addition to that, nilep also maintain that code switching can also be affected by social events in which participants, setting and topics have an important role to determine situational code switching. for example, when a lecture of standard bokmål was delivered, a regional ranamål was employed to encourage the debate among the participants. another factor relating to speaker’s competence as an individual or member of a sub group is called attitude and ideologies. attitudes and ideologies are rarely found in the study of code switching. in fact, attitudes and ideologies can contribute to positive and negative attitudes toward code switching. for example, the study conducted by bentahila (1983) in 109 arabic-french bilinguals in morocco shows that most of the participants have negative attitudes towards code switching which vary from pity to antipathy. in addition, lawson-sako and sachdev (1996) also found similar attitudes in 169 tunnisian. code switching has lowest number compare to other language variations which were used in this community. it is argued that the reasons of gaining negative attitudes are likely to be insecure feeling about language use, imposition of doctrine about code switching in one’s linguistics culture, and threat of code switching towards someone’s main language. however, a study conducted in london greek cypriots community (gardner-chloros, 2009) presents positive attitudes toward code switching. this study was conducted under three variations, such as occupation, age and education. the result confirms that lower occupational groups like to code switch more than educated participants of the study. interestingly, younger participants viewed that code switching brought more benefits in conversation, while the older participants perceived it on the other way round (gardner-chloros, 2009). these positive and negative attitudes as well as ideologies about code switching have clearly figured out that people cannot merely claim that code switching is an easy or lazy option. adult bilingual speakers are categorized as mature speakers who have already had decision to value the benefits and drawbacks of code switching. yunita reny bani bili englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 95 moreover, the factors within the conversation also affect the emergence of code switching.such factors are, first, markedness model proposed by myers-scotton (1983). in this model, she emphasizes that each language of multilingual community has social roles, which are named rights and obligations (ro) by her (nilep, 2006). it is believed that speaking one language within a context implies that the speaker understands his role within the context. this same assumption also applies when the speaker speaks more than one language. it is undeniable that the speaker is attached to several related social roles within the conversation. due to the reasons, myers-scotton (1983) claims that an understanding of social meanings in each available code should be given to provide the basic understanding of using a particular code within the context to other interlocutors. based on the claim, the speakers can choose a form which implies the set of rights and obligations between speakers and addressees or this is called negotiation principle. this principle has unmarked choice maxim, marked choice maxim, and the exploratorychoice maxim. myers-scotton (1983, as cited in nilep, 2006, p. 11) defined these three terms as follows: “the unmarked choice maxim directs, “make your code choice the unmarked index of the unmarked ro set in talk exchanges when you wish to establish or affirm that ro set” (114). the markedchoice maxim directs, “make a marked code choice…when you wish to establish a new ro set as unmarked for the current exchange” (131). the exploratorychoice maxim states, “when an unmarked choice is not clear, use cs [code switching] to make alternate exploratory choices as candidates for an unmarkedchoice and thereby as an index of an ro set which you favor.” this model helps to make an assumption about the knowledge and understanding of interlocutors within the speech situation. although some claim that this model hinges much on the external knowledge, such as speakers’ understanding and belief, it is still argued that markedness model mostly influences the motivation of code switching. another factor that encourages adult bilingual speakers to code switch within the conversation are accommodation and audience design. meyerhoff (2011) states that accommodation theory refers to the process of adapting linguistics behavior social factors prompting adult bilingual speakers to code switch 96 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 and attitudes based on the interlocutors’ behavior by convergence or divergence strategy. convergence is basically the process of shifting manner of speaking to the custom of interlocutor for bringing out a similarity between the speakers and interlocutors. on the other hand, divergence means the process of preserving a distinction between the speakers and interlocutors. these two strategies are highly relevant to the theory of audience design because speaker can do convergence or divergence based on the addresses or listeners within the conversation (meyerhoff, 2011). the example to highlight the relationship of the discussed theory and code switching is the broad use of hindi-english code switching in asian television channel (gardner-choloros, 2011). in this television channel, code switching is used in several shows to include the largest potential audiences such as asian young second generation who speaks english as the main language, and parents and grandparents who use indian languages as main language but hindi as literacy language. it is evident that code switching is done in the television channel by convergence strategy, in which includes audiences who only speak english to understand the television program. thus, code switching can alsobe triggered by audience design and accommodation theory. the last factor emerged within conversation that causes code switching is gender differences. this factor happens in the greek cypriot community in which men and women code switch for different purposes (gardner-choloros, 2009). code switching is conducted for the reasons of humor, bonding and dampening directness. in addition, the women of greek cypriot are more encouraged to switch into greek because it is more polite and indirect than men. the following example of code switching used for bonding shows how women switch to maintain the positive politeness and solidarity. example 13 1. f1 : am i the only person that gets???by their parents already? 2. m1 : what, about getting married? 3. f1 : yeah, she started today. 4. f2 : ???manasou? your mother? (gardner-chloros & finnis, 2004 as cited in gardner-chloros, 2009, p. 86) yunita reny bani bili englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 97 the example discusses about a female speaker sharing her mother’s anxiety to find a husband and getting married. as the realization of positive politeness and solidarity another female speaker switches to greek which is illustrated in sentence 4. the reason for maintaining solidarity and positive politeness in this conversation is the greater impact of marriage topic towards women than men. gender can be concluded as one of the factors that produces code switching among adult bilingual speakers. regarding the three factors within the conversation, it is argued by nilep (2006) that the conversational analysis views code switching as a technique of managing conversational interaction and an approach to relate broader knowledge to continuing conversation. thus, it is clear that factors within conversation and code switching are interrelated. conclusion to sum up, the pros and cons arguments about the emergence of code switching have been proposed by various scholars. although many studies have been conducted from speakers’ insights about reasons of engaging in code switching, a sociolinguists approach is also crucial to describe this linguistics phenomenon. some scholars might argue that code switching often emerges as an inadequate language proficiency, an easy solution or a lazy option in communication, and the impact of linguistics dominance.in line with the arguments, code switching is merely done to compensate the insufficient knowledge of a language, maintain the flow of conversation and compensate the failure of finding a word required in certain language. besides that, the faster accessed of first language lexicon also determines code switching existence in adult bilingual speakers. however, these arguments cannot be used as a simple answer because the factshows that competent language speakers also code switch. some scholarsadditionally argue that it is not always easy to switch rather than not to switch. responding to the arguments, this essay has elaborated three social factors beyond those factors which prompt the adult bilingual speakers to code switch. the discussion has looked at factors independent of particular speakers and particular circumstances, such as prestige, cover prestige and power relation. this paper has social factors prompting adult bilingual speakers to code switch 98 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 also explicated factors relating to speaker’s competence both as individual and members of a sub group. the last factor that is important to be considered is the factors within the conversation which affect the emergence of code switching. references bentahila, a.(1983). language attitudes among arabic – french bilinguals in morocco. clevedon: multilingual matters. duran, l.(1994). toward a better understanding of code switching and interlanguage in bilinguality: implication for bilingual instruction. the journal of educational issues of language minority students, 14, 69-88. gardner-chloros, p. (2009). code-switching. cambridge : cambridge university press. heredia, r. and altarriba, j. (2001). bilingual code switching: why do bilinguals code switch?. current direction in psychological science, 10 , 164 180. lawson-sako, s. & sachdev, i. (1996). ethnolinguistics communication in tunisian streets. in y. suleiman (ed.). language and ethnic identity in the middle east and north africa. richmond: curzon press. meyerhoff, m. (2011). introducing sociolinguistics (2nd ed). london: routledge. milroy, l and muysken, p. (1995). one speaker, two languages cross-disciplinary perspectives on code-switching. cambridge: cambridge university press. myers – scotton, c. (1983). the negotiation of identities in conversation: a theory of markedness and code choice. international journal of the sociology of language, 44, 115 – 136. nilep, c. (2006). “code switching” in sociocultural linguistics. colorado research in linguistics, 19, 1-22. sayahi, l. (2007). diglossia and contact-induced language change. international journal of multilingualism, 4 (1), 38-51 englisia november 2016 vol. 4, no. 1, 55-65 national language & minority language rights faishal zakaria indiana university bloomington, usa faishal.zakaria @gmail.com abstract this brief paper highlights the perspectives of those proposing and opposing the idea of minority language right (mlr). then, the paper relates this discussion to the context of bi/multilingualism in indonesia by referring to cases of bi/multilingualism in different contexts. in particular, it is also discussed whether mlr is relevant to indonesian, a national language of indonesia, seen through historical, political, social, and economic perspectives of bi/multilingualism in indonesia. in the end, the author’s stance of mlr is asserted. keywords: bilingualism; multilingualism; minority language rights; national language introduction in bi/multilingual communities, it would be seemingly possible to see a majority language contributes to the death of one or more minority languages. this is just makes sense because speakers of minority language(s) would try to speak and use a majority language if they want to excel (socially, economically, or politically) in a community where a majority language is spoken. the notion of whether a minority language should be maintained or whether speakers of a minority language have the right to maintain and use their language on daily basis has been hotly debated by sociolinguists. despite its growing presence national language & minority language rights 56 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 in the field of sociolinguistics, minority language rights development faces some intellectual critiques. experts like may (2003, 2004, 2005, 2012), canagarajah (2005), grin (2005), and skutnab-kangas (1994, 2000, 2002, 2004) have discussed the notion of minority language right (mlr) from two conflicting views, views of the proponents and opponents of mlr. the dilemma may (2005, 2012) particularly lays out three main intellectual critiques aimed at the advocates of language rights. the first critique is the “problem of historical inevitability” which would mean it is a fact that a language will change and modernize from time to time in that it seems impossible to resist from linguistic modernization. the second critique is about the “problem of essentialism” that refers to the questionable relationship between language and ethnic identity. the second critique suggests that language does not necessarily mean ethnic identity. according to may (2005), the critique maintains that the language does not define but it touches on “a surface feature of ethnic identity, adapting another language would only affect the language use aspect of our ethnic identity, not the identity itself” (p. 328). then the last critique addresses the “problem of mobility and use.” this critique attracts our attention to the fact that using majority language may actually enhance someone’s mobility, mobility in term of social capitals and others. in other words, insisting on using and speaking a minority language will limit its speaker’s mobility as, for example, the language is only used in very limited circumstances. nonetheless, may (2005) suggests that minority language movement has, indeed, highlighted that the “processes of linguistic change are often the result of wider social and political processes” (p. 339). therefore, we might be able to question and challenge the “fixed” correlation between a majority language and its speaker’s mobility, progress or development. questioning whether human rights approach to language planning and policy enhances equality to diverse students, skutnabb-kangas (2002) points out his viewpoints by claiming that existing indigenous and minority education in the world is relevant to how the united nations defines the term linguistic genocide, in which the dominant languages kill other minority languages. he gives example of minority faishal zakaria englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 57 children educated in a formal school. these children will get educated through dominant or official language, as the medium of instruction. when they are adult, it is unlikely that they will speak the non-dominant language to their children; after one or two generation, the indigenous language seems to gradually disappear. in a broader sense, skutnabb-kangas (2002) then refers to what degree governments in the world respect for human rights; she analyzes this from how each government ratifies so called human rights documents. in relation to this, the author reviews the implementations of governments’ claims on the promoting education that is friendly to minority people. she found that most of the governments did not actually do what they say they would do. to support this assertion, skutnabb-kangas (2002) refers to sweden as an example. sweden has signed the european charter (which is relevant to “mother tongue medium education”) for languages: “sami, finnish, and meankieli as minority languages in sweden. sweden, however, does not “grant any educational rights whatsoever to speakers of romani or yiddish, whereas the other three languages all have the same rights.” (p. 192). although it sounds sad, skutnabb-kangas (2002) concludes that human rights approach to language policy and planning does not seem to be effective in advocating equal education to minority students. in a rather balanced voice, canagarajah (2005) particularly responds to arguments voiced out by either proponents or opponents of minority language rights (mlr) by analyzing the debates in context of language planning and policy in sri lanka; the promotion of tamil by military government in north and east of sri lanka. to do this, the author revisits the data he collected in jaffna society to see how tamil-only policy was welcomed in people’s daily life. it then seems inconsistent, according to canagarajah, to see english is ineluctably used in everyday interactions in spite of ‘nationalistic policy” of the political leadership. while the government is trying to promote a full use of tamil, it also still uses english. there are socio-political issues underlying this phenomenon. “while tamil is useful for the job and resources available in the local context, english functions as the economic and symbolic capital for translocal opportunities” (p.432). in this instance, canagarajah (2005) asserts that this inconsistency does not national language & minority language rights 58 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 mean that the policy is a complete failure as tamil has been increasingly utilized for official objectives in the tamil homeland; tamil people are not strangers in their own land anymore. in general, this article argues that the dichotomies made by either the proponents or opponents of mlr cannot always answer the complex nature of language planning and policy. for the case of sri lanka, canagarajah (2005) believes that “societal multilingualism” is aimed by the people. “they view multilingualism as a resource” (p. 441); in other words, they want both english and local languages exist since they can benefit from it at different situations or they will then be able to “shuttle” between the discourses of the two languages (see canagarajah, 2006a). he then invites policy makers to view policy as ideological and has to be in accordance with political, historical, social contexts of specific communities. like may (2005), grin (2005) scrutinizes the notion of ‘linguistic human rights’ (lhr) or ‘linguistic diversity’ and critiques it receives. in general, grin believes that even though the notion of lhr is one of the most crucial efforts to protect and maintain minority languages, it also shows some weaknesses. according to grin, proponents of lhr almost exclusively support their arguments with “moral considerations” which cannot pass the three objections; the feasibility of lhr movement, costs it might incur, and burden sharing. it is not always feasible to protect and promote a minority language since its rights-based arguments will only impress those who share the same view (e.g. public figures or political leaders). in this regard, grin points out that rights-based argument is also seen “philosophically weak, since it would imply a belief in the a priori superiority of the arguments of anyone who happens to agree with us” (pp. 451-452). lhr sometimes seems infeasible when communities whose languages are at risk of disappearing doubt or object to the efforts of preserving their languages. lhr-related policies can also incur additional cost. grin explains that “linguistic diversity carries both cost and benefits, and that whereas benefits increase at decreasing rate, costs increase at increasing rate, yielding the apparently innocuous, but politically far-reaching implication” (p. 453). supporting this faishal zakaria englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 59 assertion, grin refers to the case of guatemalan bilingual education. the policy for moving from monolingual to bilingual education has required additional expenses up to four to five percent of average per-capita expenditure. another weakness of lhr is “burden sharing”. according to grin, even if the abovementioned objections can be tackled by the proponents of lhr, lhr still raises questions regarding “the cost of the policy measures”; whether it gives benefits to the whole community. this is relevant to the fact that “some members of the society are likely to lose while others win from the policy” (p. 455). even though grin has shown the causes of insufficient arguments for advocating linguistic human rights, he does acknowledge lhr usefulness as it has already moved toward policy analysis; moving from “negative” to “positive” rights. the united nations’ declaration of the rights of persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities (1992) is taken as an example. the case of indonesia: what’s next? i think canagarajah’s (2005) article “dilemmas in planning english/vernacular relations in post-colonial communities” gives us a new way of looking at majority/minority language debates and “theoretical dilemmas” of minority language rights movements. particularities of a community very much determine the nature of government language planning and policy. in particular, the article assesses the language policies and practices in jaffna, a northern part of sri lanka which is the center for culture, religion, and politics for tamil people. canagarajah (2005) has pointed out that arguments for promoting and preserving minority language are “futile” as they are confronted by the needs of individuals for economic and social mobility, as discussed by grin (2005). these debates have then created a dichotomization. this situation may “lead to overstating the positions, simplifying reality, and destroying the utility important lpp (language planning and policy) constructs in favor of one ideological position or the other” (canagarajah, 2005, p. 420). he believes that these conflicting issues need to be viewed within specific communities that may have complexities in terms of “historical and geopolitical contexts.” here, i believe linguistic repertoires in indonesia indicate national language & minority language rights 60 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 such complexities considering indonesia’s unique historical and geopolitical contexts. in this sense, musgrave (2011) asserts that the use of national language in indonesia “has not led to a reduction the richness of linguistic repertoires of individual speaker” (p. 88). long before indonesia gained its independence, youths from different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds met on october 28, 1928 and they declared sumpah pemuda (youth oath) pledging to have one homeland, one nation, and one unifying language (indonesian). this oath was then followed series of other proindependence movements until indonesia gained its independence in 1945. after being independent, indonesian which was derived malay was then declared as the national language to unite the country. i personally agree with canagarajah’s assertion that we will likely perpetuate the dichotomy (proponents and opponents of mlr) if we blatantly propose that one position is better than the other, ignoring the historical, social and political complexities of a certain communities. for instance, i used to think that the policy of using a single language as our national language had caused other local languages to disappear. however, i then understood that it is a very crucial need for indonesian people to have a language that can be used and understood by people whose linguistic backgrounds are different. although there is no a single agreed upon consensus, many asserts that some 500-700 local languages exist in indonesia, steinhauer,1994, musgrave, 2014, and budiyanto, 2012. in fact, these local languages have contributed to the development of vocabulary of indonesian language (budiyanto, 2012) and this means that the death of local languages throughout indonesian archipelago might not necessarily be caused by the national language. even if some people stop using their local language, it does not automatically mean the policy forces them to do so. instead, i would think this indication is personally-dependent; they personally choose to only adopt the national language. therefore, the government has to be proactive to raise people’s awareness so that they will value their indigenous languages and eventually help them be preserved. faishal zakaria englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 61 for the case of in sri lanka, canagajarah explains that tamil-only policy in jaffna was particularly enacted by liberation tigers of tamil eelam (ltte) after it established its de facto state in 1990. this military regime, says canagarajah, use its military and political might to create a “state of homogenous tamil community” after a series of multilingual policies (english as ex-colonizer’s language and sinhala as the majority language) had failed. although there was endeavor of promoting the tamil-only policy, the implementation somehow shows inconsistency. the regime officials still used english in formal communications and tamil was very much used at informal settings though it was codified as the official language. ironically, the regime officials themselves use english in their formal interactions (e.g. when talking about the technology) despite the regime’s policy to use the local language in such a formal situation. i believe this is also happening in indonesia where the call for purification of the national language is voiced out; some officials still like to use “unpurified” version of the national language in their formal communications. for example, a member of the cabinet code-switches from indonesian to his or her local versions of the national language (oftentimes mixing with phrases or words taken from his or her local language) when talking to the media about his or her ministerial works. i think it is interesting to learn that both monolinguals and multilinguals in jaffna enjoy different but promising economic, social, and political power. “the bilinguals dominating the professions enjoy social status and economic … the monolinguals dominating the local administration and politico-military enjoy significant power” (canagajarah, 2005, p. 432). he further claims that it is also necessary for bilinguals in jaffna to be fluent in tamil to show their “ethnic solidarity” and for monolinguals to be capable of at least code-switching in english to show others that they are “educated” monolinguals. if i compare to indonesia, this case, however, seems to be different. if people insist on being monolingual or speak only their local language, they will not get the same opportunities as the multilinguals enjoy (as most indonesians speak more than two languages). being literate in indonesian language is indispensable for our mobility and access to higher statuses. even though indonesian language is not a national language & minority language rights 62 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 mother tongue for almost 80 % of indonesian population, the people are all able to speak it since they learn it from their formal education and from their daily exposure to the language. i take the position that multilinguals in indonesia maintain their indigenous languages (at least use it in particular circumstances) not only to show their “ethnic solidarity” but also to display their ethnic identity. i personally use my two local languages as part of my ethnic identity; when i speak a local language, i will then consider myself as belonging the ethnic group that use the language. further, i will use the national language when i speak to people from different ethnic groups whose languages i do not speak to indicate my nationalism as a citizen of indonesia. furthermore, indonesia is particularly unique in its language planning and policies. the indonesian national language, bahasa indonesia, was not taken from any local ethnic group but it was derived from varieties of malay language. for that reason, the adoption of bahasa indonesia as the national language would not lead any ethnic group to claim dominance over the others. moreover, the national language use is strongly associated with the sense of nationalism among indonesians (renandya, 2004, idris, 2014). i personally think these characteristics have helped indonesian language policy successful. like canagarajah, i also believe that examining a language policy through any possible particular contexts would help us better understand the nature language policy and planning, and language minority rights. to sum up, i would encourage parents to do everything they can to preserve their local languages so that these languages will continue to survive for many generations to come. one way to do this is by using the local languages to communicate at home or teaching the local languages as local contents within formal schools that use majority languages as media of instruction. even though bahasa indonesia, as the national language, might not necessarily kill local languages, providing a few or no opportunities to use the local language for the children will surely result in the death of the local languages. this is important because, when a language dies, “a considerable amount of the culture, identity, and knowledge that has been passed down from generation to generation through and faishal zakaria englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 63 within that language” (baker, 2012, p. 46) will also die. too many valuable things will disappear if a language if left to die. this is just sad! references baker, c. (2011). foundations of bilingual education and bilingualism. tonawanda, ny: multilingual matters. blommaert, j. (2005). situating language rights: english and swahili in tanzania revisited. journal of sociolinguistics, 9, 390-417. budiyanto, a. (2012). kontribusi bahasa daerah dalam bahasa indonesia. retrieved may 1, 2015, from badan pengembangan dan pembinaan bahasa: http://badanbahasa.kemdikbud.go.id/lamanbahasa/content/kontribusikosakata-bahasa-daerah-dalam-bahasa-indonesia brutt-griffler, j. (2002). class, ethnicity, and language rights: an analysis of british colonial policy in lesotho and sri lanka and some implications for language policy. journal of language, identity, and education, 1, 207-234. canagarajah, a. .. (2006a). toward a writing pedagogy of shuttling between languages: learning from multilingual writers. college english, 68(6), 589604. canagarajah, a. s. (2005). dilemmas in planning english/vernacular relations in post-colonial communities. journal of sociolinguistics, 9, 418-447. canagarajah, a. s. (2006b). understanding critical thinking. in p. k. matsuda, m. cox, j. jordan, & c. ortmeier-hooper, second-language writing in the composition classroom: a critical sourcebook (pp. 210-224). boston: bedford/st. martin's. canagarajah, s. (2002). reconstructing local knowledge. journal of language, identity, and education , 1(4), 243-259. d'sauza, j. (2006). language, education and the rights of the child. world englishes, 25, 155–166. errington, j. j. (1986). continuity and change in indonesian language development. the journal of asian studies, 45, 329-353. faingold, e. d. (2004). language rights and language justice in the constitutions of the world. language problem and language planning, 28, 11-24. grin, f. (2005). linguistic human rights as a source of policy guidelines: a critical assessment. journal of sociolinguistics, 9, 448-460. national language & minority language rights 64 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 hult, f. m. (2004). planning for multilingualism and minority language rights in sweden. language policy, 3, 181–201. idris, s. (2014). language policy and the construction of national and ethnic identities in indonesia. us-china education review b, 4(10), 691-705. keane, w. (1997). knowing one's place: national language and the idea of local in eastern indonesia. cultural anthropology, 12, 37-63. keane, w. (2003). public speaking: on indonesian as the language of the nation. public culture, 15, 503–530. lora-kayambazinthu, e. (2003). language rights and the role of minority languages in national development in malawi. current issues in language planning, 4, 146-160. lowenberg, p. h. (1991). english as an additional language in indonesia. world englishes, 10(2), 127-138. malone, s. (2004). language policy for successful multilingual education: what does it take? norrag news, 40-42. marshall, d. f. (1986). the question of an official language: language rights and the english language amendment. international journal of sociology of language, 7-75. may, s. (2003). rearticulating the case for minority language rights. current issues in language planning, 4, 95-125. may, s. (2004). language rights and the construction of minority language. norrag news, 13-14. may, s. (2005). language rights: moving the debate forward. journal of sociolinguistics, 9, 319-347. may, s. (2012). language and minority rights: ethnicity, nationalism and the politics of language (2nd ed.). new york: taylor & francis. mufwene, s. s. (2004). language birth and death. annual reviews of anthropology, 33, 201-22. musgrave, s. (2014). language shift and language maintenance in indonesia. in p. sercombe, & r. tupas (eds.), language, education and nation-building: assimilation and shift in southeast asia (pp. 87-105). new york: palgrave macmillan. nichols, r. l. (2006). 'struggling with language' indigenous movement for linguistic security and the politics of local community. ethnicities, 6, 27-51. faishal zakaria englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 65 nji, a. (2004). why some africans assume that higher education cannot be dealt with in a local language. norrag news, 32-34. patrick, d. (2005). language rights in indigenous communities: the case of inuit of arctic quebec. journal of sociolinguistics, 9, 369-389. paulston, c. b. (1997). language policies and language rights. annual review of anthropology, 26, 73-85. renandya, w. a. (2004). indonesia. in h. w. kam, r. wong, & w. k. ho (eds.), language policies and language education: the impacts in east asian countries in the next decade. singapore: cavendish square publishing. ricento, t. (2005). problems with the 'language-as-resource' discourse in the promotion of heritage langugages in the u.s.a. journal of sociolinguistics, 9, 348-368. rojas, e. d., & reagan, t. (2003). linguistic human rights: a new perspective on bilingual education. educational foundations, pp. 5-19. romaine, s. (2004). endangered languages: there's nothing benign about benign neglect. norrag news, 17-19. skutnabb-kangas, t. (1994). mother tongue maintenance: the debate. linguistic human rights and minority education. tesol quarterly, 28, 625-628. skutnabb-kangas, t. (2000). linguistic genocide in education or worldwide diversity and human rights? mahwah: lawrence erlbaum associates. skutnabb-kangas, t. (2002). marvelous human rights rhetoric and grim realities: language rights in education. journal of language, identity, and education, 1, 179-205. skutnabb-kangas, t. (2004). indigenous or immigrant minorities? who is at greater risk? norrag news, 15-17. smolicz, j. j., & secombe, m. j. (2003). assimilation or pluralism? changing policies for minority languages education in australia. language policy, 2, 325. steinhauer, h. (1994). the indonesian language situations and linguistics: prospects and possibilities. bijdragen tot de taal-, landen volkenkunde, 150, 755-784. englisia november 2013 vol. 1 no.1, 1-16 khairil razali state islamic university of ar-raniry banda aceh irhami razali australian development scholarship award student vocabulary acquisition concerns on how people expand the numbers of words they understand when learning a new language. knowing words in a second or foreign language is vitally important because the reader will be able to understand the written text well and the speaker will be able to communicate basic ideas through vocabulary even if the person does not understand how to create a grammaticallycorrect sentence. as madsen argued, “mastering vocabulary is the primary thing that every student should acquire in learning english” (harold, 1983). therefore, acquiring a sufficiently large vocabulary is one of the important tasks faced by l2 learners in order to comprehend the written texts in reading as one of the four basic features of language learning. keywords: reading comprehension, vocabulary, acquisition introduction at higher education, reading becomes important as a way of knowledge gaining. the reality reading takes roles in absorbing and disseminating information to readers. tony buzan stated in his book, “reading is understanding what the writer intended, taking in the written word, and also the assimilation of printed information” (buzan, 1991). reading is a process of extracting a message from a text which has been constructed by a writer using orthographic symbols, a writer encodes the message a reader decodes it (murphy, 1997). strategies in improving reading  comprehension through  vocabulary acquisition   strategies in improving reading comprehension through vocabularies acquisition 2 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 madsen stated in his book teaching technique in english as a second language, “mastering vocabulary is the primary thing that every student should acquire in learning english” (madsen, 1983). it is strengthened by michael lewis’s statement as cited by elena and raquel that acquiring a sufficiently large vocabulary is one of the important tasks facing second language (l2) learners (elena and raquel, 2020). in oxford’s taxonomy, stated “language learning strategies: what every teacher should know”, the strategies generally divided into two major parts: direct strategies and indirect strategies. both of them consist of three groups: memory strategies, cognitive strategies, compensation strategies and metacognitive strategies, affective strategies, social strategies. every single strategy has both advantages and disadvantages. researches explored the acquiring vocabulary through reading. subekti and lawson conducted researches together in the scope of vocabulary acquisition of postgraduate students. this study was then reported in a paper entitled vocabulary acquisition strategies of indonesian postgraduate students through reading. they used a taxonomy, which adapted from lawson and hogben (lawson and hogben, 1996). subekti and lawson grouped the strategies into non-elaboration strategies and elaboration strategies. furthermore, the strategies were then grouped into more specific sub-categories: passive, active non-elaboration, simple elaboration, and complex elaboration (subekti and lawson, 2007). this research focused on key issues on vocabulary acquisition strategies. they were strategies of english department students in encountering new english vovabularies in order to understand the meanings of the words. moreover, the study concerned about strategy do students applied the most effectively in acquiring vocabularies. reading comprehension hadley defined reading as communication since it connects the author and the reader. it involves a mental process of the reader to create her/his comprehension of the text based on her/his purpose of the reading (hadley, 2001). through khairil razali & irhami razali englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 3 reading, the reader processes knowledge and information thus it is an active or rereceptive rather than a passive skill. in addition, tony buzan describes that reading is understanding what the writer intended, taking in the written word, and the assimilation of printed information (buzan, 1991). readers use their background of knowledge and experience to compose meaning from the text in reading process. in this process, the readers connect the ideas in the text to what they already know in order to get the comprehension of the text. in addition, most people can understand the material they read after reading word-by-word and spending a lot of time repeating the difficult term. grabe & stoller, there are seven purposes of reading, those are reading to search for simple information, to skim quickly, to learn from text, to get an integrate information, to search information needed for writing, to critique texts and to achieve general comprehension (grabe and stoller, 2002). indeed, comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading which is defined as “the understanding of what is being read” (baker, 2008). reading comprehension is an interactive process as a transaction between the reader and the author through the text. moreover, comprehension is not something that happens after reading. it is the thinking done before, during, and after reading. the reader’s capabilities, abilities, knowledge, and experiences affect the act of reading (supono, 2009). in creating the meaning to comprehend the text a reader has to understand the text well. to read a perfect comprehension, henry states that 12 abilities to be mastered by the reader. here, the writer has summarized it into 5. 1. ability to associate the meaning and understand words based on the context. 2. ability to read and understand the phrase, clause sentence, paragraph and whole selection. 3. ability to get main idea, follow direction and draw inference. 4. ability to get involved in reading, organization of the text, tone, mood and writer intent. strategies in improving reading comprehension through vocabularies acquisition 4 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 ability to retain main idea and related it with reader experience (smith and emerald, 1961). vocabulary acquisition nuttal’s states that “vocabulary is a lexical item closely defined as any words or groups of words with meaning” (bahar, 2011). moreover, without sufficient vocabulary, even though a student learns grammar well, the communication cannot be facilitated. david walkins summed up the importance of vocabulary learning as quoted by thornbury that “without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed” (thornbury, 2002). this statement also strengthened by dellar h and hocking d’s idea “if you spend most of your time studying grammar, your english will not improve very much. you can say very little with grammar, but you can say almost anything with words” (quoted in thornbury, 2002). vocabulary acquisition concerns on how people expand the numbers of words they understand when learning a new language. knowing words in a second or foreign language is vitally important because the reader will be able to understand the written text well and the speaker will be able to communicate basic ideas through vocabulary even if the person does not understand how to create a grammatically-correct sentence. as madsen argued, “mastering vocabulary is the primary thing that every student should acquire in learning english” (harold, 1983). therefore, acquiring a sufficiently large vocabulary is one of the important tasks faced by l2 learners in order to comprehend the written texts in reading as one of the four basic features of language learning. vocabulary learning strategies the general ideas of vocabulary learning strategies is almost similar with language learning strategies as it is a subcategory in the framework of language learning strategies but it more focuses on vocabulary learning. khairil razali & irhami razali englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 5 takac defined vocabulary learning strategies as some activities, behaviors, steps or techniques used by learners to help them to discover lexical items of the word, meaning and form, and then store it in their brain. furthermore, when they need it they can retrieve and actively use it in language production (takac, 2008). besides, cameron stated a general definition of vocabulary learning strategies as “actions that learners take to help themselves understand and remember vocabulary” (cameron, 2001). in addition, cameron tried to imply that in learning vocabulary students apply some actions or steps that can help their learning. furthermore, catalan proposed a more details definition of vocabulary learning strategies. she defined vocabulary learning strategies as knowledge about mechanisms (process, strategies) which is used in order to learn vocabulary as steps or actions taken by students. it emphasizes sequential actions or steps that students take in applying the strategies or learning vocabulary, from finding out the meaning to applying the information in actions. vocabulary-learning might be "shallow" and "deep". learners read lots and learn fast, and ignore many unknown words used the “shallow” strategies to help them. these strategies are; guessing from the context, repeating a word several times and lead to poor retention of the words. on the other hand, the learners who learn slowly but lead to a greater retention preferred to choose the “deep” one. these strategies are; dictionary usage, associations and keyword method. taxonomies of vocabulary learning strategies over the years, the experts in vocabulary learning strategies had created several taxonomies based on their experiences during the research (i.e. sanoui, 1995; gu and johnson, 1996; lawson and hogben, 1998; schmitt, 1997; nation, 2001 as cited in ruutmets, 2005, thesis). therefore, this study adopts, schmitt’s taxonomy as the major theory adopted in the instrument. strategies in improving reading comprehension through vocabularies acquisition 6 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 schmitt categorized vocabulary learning strategies into six groups of two main categories, discovery strategies and consolidation strategies, and fifty-eight individual strategies. 1. discovery strategies are the strategies that learners used to discover denotation of new words when they first encounter them. a. determination strategies (discov-det): are used to discover a new word’s meaning without recourse to another’s person expertise. b. social strategies (discov-soc): are used to understand a new word by asking someone who knows it. 2. consolidation strategies are the strategies that learners used to consolidate meanings when they confront the words again. a. social strategies (cons-soc): are used to understand a new word by having group work. b. memory strategies (cons-mem): are the approaches, which related new materials to existing knowledge. c. cognitive strategies (cons-cog): are the manipulations or transformations of target language created by the learners. d. metacognitive strategies (cons-met): are defined as a conscious overview of the learning process and making decisions about planning, monitoring or evaluating the best way of study (cited in rummets, 2005). this study only explored several schmitt’s vocabulary learning strategies in the questionnaire. they are there are discovery-determination (discov-det), four strategies from discovery-social (discov-soc), seven strategies from consolidation memory (cons-mem) and two strategies from consolidationcognitive (cons-cog) strategies involved to collect expected data. research design this study was a quantitative descriptive. the researchers applied questionnaire to collect data. in addition, the questionnaire was adopted schmitt’s khairil razali & irhami razali englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 7 taxonomy. the samples of this study were 73 third year students of english departdepartment, tarbiyah faculty of institute agama islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh. the samples were students of three classes of reading comprehension. one of important concern that participants already took 8 credits hours of reading comprehension course. data collection process questionnaire the researchers distributed questionnaires as the major data collection instrument. it consisted of 21 closed-ended items and an opened-ended item. the questionnaire (items 1-21) was adapted from schmitt’s (1997) taxonomy of vocabulary learning strategies. the questionnaire was administered to the third year students of english department of three units. data analysis and discussion this part reveals the result of the study. the result would be discussed descriptively. the questionnaire from the total numbers of 73 students, 14 students missed the questionnaire distribution due to several reasons. from the statistical calculation, the highest score of vocabulary acquisition strategy of english department students through reading was “guessing the meaning with the help of the words that they have known in the sentence or paragraph” (question no 5). conversely, the results indicate that asking the teacher to put new word in another sentence (question no. 11) was not as popular as other strategies since the informants responded to this question was relatively low ( = 2,31 ).the strategies were divided into three levels, which are mostly used, averagely used and latest used. mostly used strategies ranged from 4,0 points to 5,0 points, the averagely used strategies ranged between 3,0 points and strategies in improving reading comprehension through vocabularies acquisition 8 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 4,0 points, and the least used strategies ranged from the lowest one up to 3,0 points. furthermore, the researchers grouped students into two groups, namely; students of higher gpa score and students of lower gpa score. in addition, the higher gpa score ranges from 4.0 to 3.5 (33 students), and the lower gpa score ranges from 3.49 to the lowest one (26 students). in this analysis part, the researchers discussed 8 questions of 21 closedended questions in questionnaire to compare students of higher gpa score and students with lower gpa score. the first four questions were grouped into mostly used and the other four were the last four least used strategies. four of most used strategies firstly, question “i guess the meaning with the help of the words that i have known in the sentence or paragraph” obtained the highest mean scores reached 4, 75 points. therefore, if we combine between usually and always, we found a different of the result among students which the highest score (72,7%, n=24 students) and the lowest score (50%, n=13 students). in could be concluded that the higher gpa students perceive that guessing new words meaning assisted by familiar words would be helpful. at the mean time, there was 50% of students believed on it. but, most of participants agreed that this strategy came at first of more applicable. secondly, dictionary became a beneficial reference book and be more helpful not only for new language learners but also for everyone. the fact that the dictionary believed helps language learners. the statistical data shows that participants stated 39, 4%, n=13 students stated always used dictionary when they found new words. on the other hand, students with the lower score mostly chose often level (30,8%) as the answer, therefore, this strategy become the third choice chosen by them (see chart 5.3 for detail). carrying dictionary for some students was a burden since it is a little bit heavier than the other books. however, this question became the second highest mean score result as it reached 4,56 points. khairil razali & irhami razali englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 9 thirdly, english notebook was the third strategy mostly used by the third year students to help them obtaining the meaning of vocabularies in reading. let’s see the chart below for the detail. english notebook at some points is necessary. jotting a list of new words in it facilitates readers to re-open dictionary when they forgot about the meaning. statistically proved that 33,3% students with the higher score and 30,8% students with the lower one always write every new single words into their notebook. they believed that notebook could improve their vocabulary acquisition during reading. additionally, this strategy became the second choice for lower gpa students and the fifth choice for higher gpa students (see chart 5.2). fourthly, since using monolingual dictionary came as the alternative way of carrying bilingual dictionary. therefore, it is no doubt that the 7th question became the fourth choice for students. the chart below will describe the different in result between the higher gpa students and the lower one. generally, dictionary is divided into two types, bilingual dictionary and monolingual dictionary. in previous chart (chart 5.5), we found that bilingual dictionary appeared to be the second highest mean scores in vocabulary acquisition strategies chosen by most of students. here, looking meaning of new words from a monolingual dictionary is the fourth highest choice. furthermore, what a fantastic and various result showed in chart 5.7 that related to the question no. 7 “i look it up in a monolingual dictionary”. students with the higher gpa score dominated the result by reaching 30,3% in always level, and only 7,7% from students with the lower one who believed so. in spite of the fact that it became the fourth choice, one student with lower gpa score still never used a monolingual dictionary when they stuck with new english words. moreover, the strategy stood at the fifth choice for lower gpa students and the third for higher gpa students. four of least used strategies the last four of the least used strategies will be discussed too by focusing on the different between students with higher gpa and students with lower gpa. the last four strategies were (1). i ask the teacher to put new word in another sentence, strategies in improving reading comprehension through vocabularies acquisition 10 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 (2). i create semantic networks of a word to remember it, (3). i write down the new word along with my own drawings or pictures, and (4). i ask the teacher to explain the meaning of the word in mother tongue. firstly, question no. 11 “i ask the teacher to put new word in another sentence” is the first lowest mean scores by reaching 2, 31 points among another 21 questions. 48,5% (16) of students with the higher gpa score accompanied by 38,5% (10) of students with the lower gpa score rarely used that kind of strategy in order to help them maintain the meaning of new words. furthermore, several students never asked their teachers to a new word into a sentence in order to help them finding new words meaning. it is proved by the chart that 27,3% of students with higher gpa and 19,2% of students with lower gpa put their answers in never level secondly, using english notebook in acquiring vocabulary meaning was a helpful strategy for most of students. however, when students were demanded to create semantic networks, the strategy ended up as the second least used strategies for them. from the 16th question out of 21 is about creating semantic networks of a word to remember it. 38,5% (10) of lower gpa students stood between rarely and often level where sometime level become their choice accompanied by 21,2% (7) of higher gpa students. additionally, the higher gpa students had taken led in rarely level as the answer with 11 students or 33,3% voices compared with only 4 students or 15,4% of the lower gpa students. furthermore, 18 students (9 or 27,3% of the higher and 9 or 34, 6% of the lower) never create a semantic network to help themselves maintaining the new words meaning. at the end, with 2,37 points of mean score, the strategy end up to the second lowest result. thirdly, reading a book with pictures inside it able to help the reader in understanding the meaning that lied behind it, such as reading a comic book. however, not in this case, here, the readers were demanded to draw their own drawings or pictures in order to assist them in comprehending meaning of new words. the chart reveals that 34,6% (9) of lower gpa students stood at rarely level khairil razali & irhami razali englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 11 and 23,1% (6) at sometime level whereas the higher gpa students stopped at never level by reaching 33,3% (11) and 27,3% (9) at rarely level. based on the above result, the writer concluded that only several students who interested in drawing a picture or a drawing, therefore, no doubt, if the strategy became the third lowest strategy used by students in acquiring vocabulary during reading by ending up at 2,47 points. lastly, question no 9 is a little bit similar with the question no 11 where teacher was involved in the strategy. asking teacher to translate the meaning of new words into their mother tongue was not an appropriate strategy to be used by students since the result showed that most of students’ answer found in sometime level and rarely level. students with higher gpa score put most of their answer (45,5%) in sometime level whereas the lower gpa students stood in rarely level (34,6%) as their choice. in addition, besides 21 closed-ended questions in questionnaire there was an opened-ended question asking students to share about the strategy that they used other than 21 strategies mentioned above during reading process. unfortunately, there was not any new strategy found in the answers, most of them stated what had been mentioned in the questionnaire. discussion to figure out the answer to the research questions, the data from questionnaire measured and correlated to each other. the first research question is about strategies, which english department students use when they encounter with new english words in order to understand the meanings of these words. in accordance with questionnaire results, the first four of the highest students’ response that the writer found were 1). guessing the meaning with the help of the words that readers have known in the sentence or paragraph as the first highest with 4,75 points of mean scores, 2). looking it up in a bilingual dictionary as the second highest by reaching 4,56 points of mean score, 3). writing down new words on my strategies in improving reading comprehension through vocabularies acquisition 12 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 english notebook with 4,36 points ended up as the third highest and, 4). looking it up in a monolingual dictionary as the fourth highest by reaching 4,25 points. additionally, there were several strategies, which become the last choice for most of students, namely; 1). asking the teacher to put new word in another sentence with only 2,31 points as the first latest strategy used, 2). creating semantic networks of a word to remember it by gaining 2,37 points, 3). writing down the new word along with the readers own drawings or pictures as the third latest one, and act. therefore, based on the result above, it can be concluded that the most frequent strategy of the third year students of english department through reading was “guessing the meaning with the help of the words that readers have known in the sentence or paragraph”. in the case of the result of the study, there was a slight different between the present study and the previous one in result. subekti and lawson, the previous researchers, found that using dictionary was the first frequent strategy used by indonesian postgraduate students in australia and guessing strategy became the second choice. it was in contradiction with the present study result, where guessing the meaning with the help of the words that readers have known in the sentence or paragraph stood at the top of the strategies’ list, then followed by using dictionary and english notebook. factor that perhaps influenced their decision for choosing “guessing strategy” as the dominant one was their lecturers’ suggestion to do not always rely on the dictionary when they got problems with vocabularies during reading. furthermore, with the a little help from their vocabulary retention, the readers felt confident to guess the meaning of new word from the sentence even though sometime they found it incorrect. in conclusion, every single strategy has it advantage and disadvantage. however, everything is depend on the reader him/herself, when the reader felt that kind of strategy suit him/herself well, then it is better to apply it in their daily. in addition, if it does not, leaving it will be the best decision to make. khairil razali & irhami razali englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 13 from the total of 21 strategies adopted from schmitt’s taxonomy, the first four strategies mostly used by english deparment students were 1). guessing the meaning with the help of the words that readers have known in the sentence or paragraph, 2). looking it up in a bilingual dictionary, 3). writing down new words on english notebook, 4). looking it up in a monolingual dictionary. the most frequent strategy used by english department students is guessing the meaning with the help of the words that readers have known in the sentence or paragraph. in conclusion, the least frequent strategy used is asking the teacher to put new word in another sentence. although dictionary was not the first most strategy used, however it is still the best reference in looking for the meaning of the words. both students with higher gpa score and students with lower gpa score had the same idea only in choosing the first most frequent strategy and the first less one. conclusion strategies in improving reading comprehension through vocabularies acquisition 14 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 references buzan, tony. (1991). speed reading. new york. a plume book. baker, t. (2008). applying reading research to the development of an integrated plan, english teaching forum, 46/1, 22-29. p. 25. retrieved from exchanges.state.gov/englishteaching/forum/archives/docs/08-46-1-d.pdf, on august 13, 2011. cameron, l. (2001). teaching languages to young learners. cambridge: cambridge university press. grabe, w. dan f. stoller. (2002). teaching and researching reading. great britain: pearson education. hadley, a. o. (2001). teaching language in context. third edition. usa: thomson learning. madsen, harold s. (1983). teaching technique in english as a second language, new york. lawson, m. j., & hogben, d. (1996). the vocabulary learning strategies of foreign language students. language learning, 46. murphy, a richard. (1997). from practice of performance: reading comprehension. washington d.c: english language programs division usa information agency. ruutmets, k. (2005). vocabulary learning strategies in studying english as a foreign language. unpublished ma thesis. university of tartu. retrieved from https://dspace.utlib.ee/dspace/bitstream/handle/10062/1055/ruutmets.pdf?sequen ce=5 , on september 6, 2011 smith p, henry and emerald v, dechani. (1961). psychology in teaching reading. usa: prentice-hall. s. s. elena and v. m. raquel. (2002). vocabulary acquisition strategies. didactica (lengua and literatura) jurnal, 14. subekti, n b and lawson, m j. (2007). vocabulary acquisition strategies of indonesian postgraduate students through reading. international education journal. supono, l s. (2009). the effectiveness of story grammar strategy to improve students’ reading comprehension of narrative text. unpublished thesis, bandung; universitas pendidikan indonesia. khairil razali & irhami razali englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 15 takac, v.p. (2008). vocabulary learning strategies and foreign language acquisition. series editor: david singleton, trinity college, dublin, ireland. toronto: multilingual matters ltd. thornbury, s. (2002). how to teach vocabulary. longman. englisia may 2016 vol. 3, no. 2, 91-104 irony in charles dickens’ oliver ika kana trisnawati, sarair, & maulida rahmi universitas muhammadiyah aceh, indonesia *ika.arraniry@gmail.com **sarairoid@gmail.com ***maulida.rahmi@muhammadiyahaceh.ac.id abstract this paper describes the types of irony used by charles dickens in his notable early work, oliver twist, as well as the reasons the irony was chosen. as a figurative language, irony is utilized to express one’s complex feelings without truly saying them. in oliver twist, dickens brought the readers some real social issues wrapped in dark, deep written expressions of irony uttered by the characters of his novel. undoubtedly, the novel had left an impact to the british society at the time. the irony dickens displayed here includes verbal, situational, and dramatic irony. his choice of irony made sense as he intended to criticize the english poor laws and to touch the public sentiment. he wanted to let the readers go beyond what was literally written and once they discovered what the truth was, they would eventually understand dickens’ purposes. keywords: oliver twist; verbal irony; situational irony; dramatic irony introduction literature has always been part of our life. we find literature in books, stories, poems, and other writings. in a broad sense, literature refers to any type of written works that expresses imagination, interests, or ideas with exquisite styles (“literature”, n.d.). to achieve the effect of rich and beautiful expressions, literature usually makes up the events and the crises. nevertheless, literature still allows us to get the benefits of it. one way or another, it allows people to grow their personality and intellectuality. also, it helps people to be more sensible and sympathetic towards one another, irony in charles dickens’ oliver 92 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 and the other living things. robert and jacobs (1987, as cited in marpaung, 2010, p. 1) defines literature as the “compositions that tell stories, dramatize situation, express emotion, and analyze and advocate ideas.” following the definitions of literature, its content mostly centers on the humans’ life stories and feelings, and also nature. the form of literature chosen is different from one author to another since it reflects the way the author delivers the content in his/her literary style. as literature aims at conveying people’s thought or feelings, therefore it is common that authors use figurative language to deliberately stir the readers’ emotions and thinking. the figurative language, more often than not, usually carries out ambiguity although sometimes this is also the intention of the authors (roberts and kreuz, 1994). figurative language, or also known as figure of speeches, such as hyperbole, metaphor, irony, personification, and simile, among others is “the use of language ... in which words are used in other than their literal sense, or in other than their ordinary locutions, in order to suggest a picture or image or for other special effect” (“figure of speech”, n.d.). one type of figurative language that has the effect of contrasting the real meaning with what is said is irony. the use of irony in literature is often to provide the readers with moral lessons since irony lets the readers see “a disparity between what the characters think can, should, or will happen and what actually transpires” (thompson, 2014). as di yanni (2002, p. 93) states that irony refers to any “contrast or discrepancy” that exists within a thing in relation with another. he also adds that the contrast may occur of “what is said and what is meant” of or “what happens and what is expected to happen”. this is another way of saying that irony can help create conflict, which is a key part of a written work. the emergence of conflict will lead to the climax, and this is the most important and the biggest feature in, for instance, a story. another definition of irony by wilson and sperber (2007, as cited in reyes, rosso, & buscaldi, 2012, p. 4) is “a communicative act that expresses the opposite of what is literally said.” irony, however, is not an uncommon concept. it is, in actuality, always used by people as we humans, by nature, like to show the “ambiguities and complexities” of life. irony expresses that life, in fact, does not follow one’s expectations. it is ineviika kana trisnawati, sarair, & maulida rahmi englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 93 table that in life, even between loved people, there are anger and bitterness bound to happen in relationships. hence, irony in life has always been involved in some human’s feelings. it may not be easily understood, nevertheless (di yanni, 2002). in the case of a story, irony will touch upon almost all characters and situations of the plot. the authors may use this figurative language to let the readers get a better idea of why a speech is perceived as ironic. there are two major kinds of irony, namely verbal and situational irony (reyes, rosso, & buscaldi, 2012). in the verbal irony, according to colston & gibbs (2007, as cited in reyes, rosso, & buscaldi, 2012), a speaker produces words that have the opposite meaning to what is actually said. for example, someone may say “what a beautiful day” when actually the weather is cloudy to express the contrast reality since he/she cannot go anywhere. the situational irony refers to a great difference between the purpose of a particular action and result, or a contradiction between what one expects and what actually happens (“situational irony,” n.d.). in “harry potter” by j.k. rowling, the readers expect that the protagonist harry potter can defeat voldemort, the villain, by killing him. however, contrary to the readers’ belief, in order to kill voldemort, harry potter must be killed first to make voldemort a mortal and then eventually die (“situational irony,” n.d.). this plot twist is an example of situational irony. in addition to above types of irony, there is dramatic irony, which is commonly found in a situation (“dramatic irony”, n.d.). this type of irony is also usually used in a drama. this irony makes readers realize the character’s action or expectation is inappropriate to the actuality of the story. for example, in shakespeare’s play, romeo and juliet, when romeo finds juliet in a drugged death like sleep, he assumes that she passed away and kills himself. then, juliet is awake and finds her love dies beside her, so that she kills herself with his knife. both of the characters do not know the reality, but the audience does. both juliet and romeo assume that their lover passed away although actually they do not. they lack of knowledge of the reality while the audience do not show this situation as dramatic irony (“irony”, n.d.). in this present paper, we would like to focus on the irony utilized by charles dickens in his famous novel, oliver twist, and the reasons for the choice of irony. irony in charles dickens’ oliver 94 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 oliver twist was selected due to dickens’ heavy use of irony throughout the novel. it is clear that dickens had wanted to let the readers find out the hidden intention of his in the novel. not surprisingly, the setting of the novel also plays a role in that dickens strongly criticized the laws established within the british society at the time, the poor laws. this paper used descriptive analysis method to study the sentences and events in order to figure out the irony in oliver twist. the purpose was to make a clear and systematic description about the irony used in the story. however, we only selected some of the chapters in the novel as the sample. the purposive sampling technique was utilized to choose the chapters considering the main concern of the study, the three types of irony: verbal, situational, and dramatic. the selected chapters were chapters 2, 3, 6, 13, 16, and 37. several examples of irony within the chapters are displayed below, by mentioning the facts such as the dialogues, actions and the statements of the characters. content analysis method was also used to analyze the sentences. the method comprised several steps such as reading the sentences first, then summarizing the story, explaining the extrinsic and intrinsic elements, identifying and categorizing the types of irony set in the novel by underlying the sentences, and then finally analyzing and explaining the meaning of each irony found in the novel. discussion some examples of verbal, situational, and dramatic irony in select chapters of oliver twist are presented below (as cited from rahmi, 2015). 1. verbal irony chapter ii 'you've had a long walk, you know, or i wouldn't mention it. now, will you take a little drop of something, mr. bumble?' 'not a drop. not a drop,' said mr. bumble, waving his right hand in a dignified, but placid manner. (p. 6) ika kana trisnawati, sarair, & maulida rahmi englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 95 the irony here is that mr. bumble actually wanted to drink some water but said not to; however, he eventually drank after mrs. mann offered gin to him, as described below: '...you are a humane woman, mrs. mann.' (here she set down the glass.) 'i shall take a early opportunity of mentioning it to the board, mrs. mann.' (he drew it towards him.) 'you feel as a mother, mrs. mann.' (he stirred the gin-and-water.) 'i—i drink your health with cheerfulness, mrs. mann'; and he swallowed half of it. (p. 6) what a novel illustration of the tender laws of england! they let the paupers go to sleep! (p. 9) above sentences are the cynicism expressed by dickens towards the poor laws, which in fact were very harsh for the paupers. chapter xiii 'what are you up to? ill-treating the boys, you covetous, avaricious, in-sa-tia-ble old fence?' said the man, seating himself deliberately. 'i wonder they don't murder you! i would if i was them. if i'd been your 'prentice, i'd have done it long ago... (p. 73) here, the man seemed to be able to do something bad to the old man; however, in fact, he could not do anything. chapter xvi 'delighted to see you looking so well, my dear,' said the jew, bowing with mock humility. 'the artful shall give you another suit, my dear, for fear you should spoil that sunday one. why didn't you write, my dear, and say you were coming? we'd have got something warm for supper.' (p. 95) the irony here can be understood from the jew’s expression in which the jew said he was happy that oliver seemed very well, yet the jew mocked him while bowing. chapter xxxvii 'my dear,' said mr. bumble, 'i didn't know you were here.' irony in charles dickens’ oliver 96 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 'didn't know i was here!' repeated mrs. bumble. 'what do you do here?' (p. 27) mr. bumble stated he did not know that his wife was there, yet in fact, he knew it. it is another verbal irony. verbal irony is divided into two types: understatement and overstatement. a). understatement in understatement or litotes, the utterance does not fully show the importance of a situation, which is done by the speaker on purpose (“understatement”, 2017). the examples are below (as cited from rahmi, 2015): chapter ii 'now don't you be offended at what i'm a going to say,' observed mrs. mann, with captivating sweetness. 'you've had a long walk, you know, or i wouldn't mention it. now, will you take a little drop of something, mr. bumble?' (p. 6) above sentences illustrate that mrs. mann offered some water to mr. bumble; however, she said “a little drop of something” to indicate her intent. her choice of “a little drop of something” is an understatement of a glass of water. chapter iii 'yes, oliver,' said mr. bumble. 'the kind and blessed gentleman which is so many parents to you, oliver, when you have none of your own: ... and all for a naughty orphan which nobody can't love.' (p. 29) the use of “a naughty orphan which nobody can’t love” by mr. bumble is an understatement of the real value of oliver as a child worthy of love. chapter xxxvii he was degraded in their eyes; he had lost caste and station before the very paupers; he had fallen from all the height and pomp of beadleship, to the lowest depth of the most snubbed hen-peckery. (p. 424) ika kana trisnawati, sarair, & maulida rahmi englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 97 here, “he” refers to mr. bumble, who had lost his power and thus, lived as if his soul had had gone. his condition is described in an understatement: “the lowest depth of the most snubbed hen-peckery”. b). overstatement overstatement or hyperbole refers to “the meaning that ordinarily attaches to what is said is an exaggeration of what the speaker uses it to mean” (“critical concepts: verbal irony”, n.d.). chapter ii 'goodness gracious! is that you, mr. bumble, sir?' said mrs. mann, thrusting her head out of the window in well-affected ecstasies of joy. '(susan, take oliver and them two brats upstairs, and wash 'em directly.)—my heart alive! mr. bumble, how glad i am to see you, sure-ly!' (p. 5) the expression of mrs. mann’s “my heart alive” is an overstatement since she overreacted her feelings verbally. chapter iii “well! of all the artful and designing orphans that ever i see, oliver, you are one the most bare-facedest.” (p. 18) the sentence means that mr. bumble overreacted toward oliver. the phrase “the artful and designing orphans” is called overstatement as if orphans could be very deceitful persons. to make it more of overstatement, mr. bumble even exclaimed that oliver’s condition was very much clear in doing so. chapter vi 'oh, you little wretch!' screamed charlotte: seizing oliver with her utmost force, which was about equal to that of a moderately strong man in particularly good training. 'oh, you little un-grate-ful, mur-de-rous, hor-rid villain!' and between every syllable, charlotte gave oliver a blow with all her might: accompanying it with a scream, for the benefit of society. (p. 36) irony in charles dickens’ oliver 98 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 here, charlotte’s expressions towards oliver are very exaggerated in that her utterances of “oh, you little wretch!” and “oh, you little un-grate-ful, mur-de-rous, hor-rid villain!” show that she made oliver as if he were a very despicable boy. chapter xvi 'fair, or not fair,' retorted sikes, 'hand over, i tell you! do you think nancy and me has got nothing else to do with our precious time but to spend it in scouting arter, and kidnapping, every young boy as gets grabbed through you? give it here, you avaricious old skeleton, give it here!' (p. 95) the phrase “avaricious old skeleton” shows that sikes expressed that the old man was an extremely greedy person. 2. situational irony chapter ii 'will you go along with me, oliver?' said mr. bumble, in a majestic voice. oliver was about to say that he would go along with anybody with great readiness, when, glancing upward, he caught sight of mrs. mann, who had got behind the beadle's chair, and was shaking her fist at him with a furious countenance. he took the hint at once, for the fist had been too often impressed upon his body not to be deeply impressed upon his recollection. 'will she go with me?' inquired poor oliver. 'no, she can't,' replied mr. bumble. 'but she'll come and see you sometimes.' (p. 7) the situational irony in this case is the discrepancy between oliver’s wish and mrs. mann’s expectations. it can be seen from oliver’s expressions of wanting to say his going along with mr. bumble; however, he instead asking whether mrs. mann could go as well, realizing that she did not allow oliver to go. 'i hope you say your prayers every night,' said another gentleman in a gruff voice; 'and pray for the people who feed you, and take care of you—like a christian.' ika kana trisnawati, sarair, & maulida rahmi englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 99 'yes, sir,' stammered the boy. the gentleman who spoke last was unconsciously right. it would have been very like a christian, and a marvellously good christian too, if oliver had prayed for the people who fed and took care of him. but he hadn't, because nobody had taught him. (p. 9) the irony can be seen here from the gentleman’s understanding of “taking care” oliver. he was very sure that oliver had lived well in his previous place, yet, in truth, oliver had not received a good life. 'well! you have come here to be educated, and taught a useful trade,' said the red-faced gentleman in the high chair. 'so you'll begin to pick oakum to-morrow morning at six o'clock,' added the surly one in the white waistcoat. (p. 9) what can be ironic here is that the gentleman ensured oliver that he would get proper education while actually oliver would not, and he would begin to work since early morning. the members of this board were very sage, deep, philosophical men; and when they came to turn their attention to the workhouse, they found out at once, what ordinary folks would never have discovered—the poor people liked it! it was a regular place of public entertainment for the poorer classes; a tavern where there was nothing to pay; a public breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper all the year round; a brick and mortar elysium, where it was all play and no work. 'oho!' said the board, looking very knowing; 'we are the fellows to set this to rights; we'll stop it all, in no time.' so, they established the rule, that all poor people should have the alternative (for they would compel nobody, not they), of being starved by a gradual process in the house, or by a quick one out of it. with this view, they contracted with the waterworks to lay on an unlimited supply of water; and with a corn-factor to supply periodically small quantities of oatmeal; and issued three meals of thin gruel a day, with an onion twice a week, and half a roll of sundays. (p. 9-10) the irony being shown here reflects the discrepancy of the rule for the poor to choose between gradual and quick starvation. yet, it did not have very much difference: the poor must accept the rule with the same outcomes. irony in charles dickens’ oliver 100 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 oliver twist and his companions suffered the tortures of slow starvation for three months: at last they got so voracious and wild with hunger,... the evening arrived; the boys took their places. the master, in his cook's uniform, stationed himself at the copper; his pauper assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served out; and a long grace was said over the short commons. the gruel disappeared; the boys whispered each other, and winked at oliver; while his next neighbors nudged him. child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. he rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said: somewhat alarmed at his own temerity: 'please, sir, i want some more.' (p. 11) here, the situation of being starved for three months had caused oliver and other kids to hope for a lot of meal. however, the irony is that in reality, they only received one time serving of meal, which was not adequate for their hunger to disappear, and therefore they wanted to ask for more meal. 'please, sir, i want some more.' the master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. he gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. the assistants were paralysed with wonder; the boys with fear. 'what!' said the master at length, in a faint voice. 'please, sir,' replied oliver, 'i want some more.' the master aimed a blow at oliver's head with the ladle; pinioned him in his arm; and shrieked aloud for the beadle. (p. 11) the irony here is the discordance between the reality and oliver’s wish. he asked for more meal but was not granted. instead, he received a blow from the master. chapter vi charlotte treated him ill, because noah did; and mrs. sowerberry was his decided enemy, because mr. sowerberry was disposed to be his friend; so, between these three on one side, and a glut of funerals on the other, oliver was not altoika kana trisnawati, sarair, & maulida rahmi englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 101 gether as comfortable as the hungry pig was, when he was shut up, by mistake, in the grain department of a brewery. (p. 34) the irony occurs due to the difference between mrs. sowerberry’s and mr. sowerberry’s likeness on oliver. this was rather too violent exercise to last long. when they were all wearied out, and could tear and beat no longer, they dragged oliver, struggling and shouting, but nothing daunted, into the dust-cellar, and there locked him up. this being done, mrs. sowerberry sunk into a chair, and burst into tears. (p. 36) it can be understood here that it is a situational irony in which mrs. sowerberry’s attitude had been very sorry towards oliver after abusing him. chapter xvi 'they belong to the old gentleman,' said oliver, wringing his hands; 'to the good, kind, old gentleman who took me into his house, and had me nursed, when i was near dying of the fever. oh, pray send them back; send him back the books and money. keep me here all my life long; but pray, pray send them back. he'll think i stole them; the old lady: all of them who were so kind to me: will think i stole them. oh, do have mercy upon me, and send them back!' with these words, which were uttered with all the energy of passionate grief, oliver fell upon his knees at the jew's feet; and beat his hands together, in perfect desperation. (p. 96) the irony here is reflected in oliver’s statements that people would think he stole things although in fact oliver had been innocent. chapter xxxvii 'have the goodness to look at me,' said mr. bumble, fixing his eyes upon her. (if she stands such a eye as that,' said mr. bumble to himself, 'she can stand anything. it is a eye i never knew to fail with paupers. if it fails with her, my power is gone.') whether an exceedingly small expansion of eye be sufficient to quell paupers, who, being lightly fed, are in no very high condition; or whether the late mrs. corney irony in charles dickens’ oliver 102 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 was particularly proof against eagle glances; are matters of opinion. the matter of fact, is, that the matron was in no way overpowered by mr. bumble's scowl, but, on the contrary, treated it with great disdain, and even raised a laugh thereat, which sounded as though it were genuine. (p. 419) the discordance here is that mr. bumble expected the matron to feel intimidated, yet, instead the matron was not scared at all and even belittled him. it is also a situational irony. 3. dramatic irony chapter vi 'ah! mercy indeed, ma'am,' was the reply. i only hope this'll teach master not to have any more of these dreadful creatures, that are born to be murderers and robbers from their very cradle. poor noah! he was all but killed, ma'am, when i come in.' 'poor fellow!' said mrs. sowerberry: looking piteously on the charity-boy. (p. 36) the characters above assumed they had beated oliver hard enough that he should have been dead already. however, it was not so. the readers here know that oliver had not died yet. the characters’ lack of knowledge and the readers’ understanding of the reality is an example of dramatic irony. conclusion as discussed above, dickens often used irony to state the characters’ intents implicitly. it is clear from the beginning that dickens preferred irony to emphasize the difference in treatment for the poor and the rich by the british society during the period. further, related to the novel settings, dickens also exerted his thought on the english poor laws by explicitly describing oliver’s and the poor’s condition in the workhouse. analyzing the irony employed by dickens should also consider the development of plots, characters, settings, and other elements of the novel, oliver twist. as dickens wanted to draw the readers’ attention to the state of the lower classes in ika kana trisnawati, sarair, & maulida rahmi englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 103 general, he was very generous in expressing his social criticism. in this regard, irony helped him achieve the goals. it is interesting to note that the biggest irony in the novel is the characteristics of oliver. as the story narrates until the end, oliver remains an innocent figure. here, dickens intended to show the readers that oliver, as the poor struggling with hardships and faced with the poor laws, in actuality, was the one who stayed uncorrupted. in addition, dickens’ portraying of oliver stands as a central issue in the novel since he meant to illustrate that the treatment for the poor during the time had been worthy of criticism as well as the establishment of the poor laws. irony, for dickens’ purposes, is the figurative language that allows him to give satirical expressions towards the social life. references dickens, c. (2003). oliver twist. london: penguin books di yanni, r. (2002). literature: reading fiction, poetry and drama. new york: mcgraw hill company dramatic irony. (n.d.). retrieved march 03, 2016, from https://literarydevices.net/dramatic-irony/ figure of speech. (n.d.). retrieved march 03, 2016, from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/figure-of-speech irony. (n.d.) retrieved february 11, 2016 from https://literarydevices.net/irony/ literature. (n.d.). retrieved march 03, 2016 from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/literature marpaung, rama r. (2010). an analysis of racial issues in some langston hughes’ poems, thesis. medan: university of north sumatera. retrieved from http://repository.usu.ac.id/bitstream/123456789/13371/1/10e00485.pdf rahmi, m. (2015). the literary analysis of irony in oliver twist: a novel by charles dickens, unpublished thesis. banda aceh: universitas muhammadiyah aceh reyes, a., rosso, p., & buscaldi, d. (2012). from humor recognition to irony detection: the figurative language of social media. data & knowledge engineering, 74, 1-12. roberts, r. m., & kreuz, r. j. (1994). why do people use figurative language?. psychological science, 5(3), 159-163. https://literarydevices.net/irony/ http://repository.usu.ac.id/bitstream/123456789/13371/1/10e00485.pdf irony in charles dickens’ oliver 104 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 situational irony. (n.d.). retrieved february 11, 2016 from https://literarydevices.net/situational-irony/ thompson, v. (2014, may 03). what impact does the irony have upon the reader? retrieved march 03, 2016, from http://education.seattlepi.com/impact-ironyupon-reader-7000.html understatement. (n.d.). retrieved february 11, 2016, from https://literarydevices.net/understatement/ critical concepts: verbal irony. (n.d.). retrieved february 11, 2016 from http://www.k-state.edu/english/baker/english320/cc-verbal_irony.htm. https://literarydevices.net/understatement/ http://www.k-state.edu/english/baker/english320/cc-verbal_irony.htm englisia november 2013 vol. 1 no.1, 136-154 chamisah state islamic university of ar-raniry banda aceh this article aims to explain an analysis of cooperative learning approach advantages in teaching writing. accordingly, learning writing by using cooperative learning makes the students easier in developing the ideas to write. this approach is more than just putting students into groups, but the students can work together, share information, and they are responsible for completion of the tasks in group as well. besides, in this approach, the students can transfer their information and knowledge to the others and help each other in getting the ideas to develop in written communication during teaching-learning process. keywords: cooperative learning approach, writing introduction nowadays, some teachers as well as language teacher have provided various materials in teaching to gain the purpose of study and to improve the students’ ability in learning. they tried to create many othentic materials and bring them to the class and ask the students to master these.they are sure this situation will create good aatmosphere in the classroom to motivate their students and guide them to reach their learning goals. however, the teacher do not realize that the students need not only the contents or materials in learning but also the approaches how to present the materials. an analysis on the advantages of  cooperative learning approach in  teaching writing  chamisah englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 137 to antisipate this problem a language teacher must be creative and innovative to choose suitable approach. one of them is communicative approach. according to some scholars it will motivate students to learn. this approach is also effective to improve students’ learning ability. (johnson and holubec: 2006), stated that cooperative is working together to accomplish shared goals. within cooperative situation, individuals seek outcome beneficial themselves and all other group members. cooperative learning is instructional used small groups through which students work together to maximize their and each others’ learning. it may be constructed with competitive learning in which students work against each other to achieve an academic goal such as grade of a. thus, from the explanation it can be concluded that cooperative learning approach can help the students to solve their problem together and to achieve shared learning goals. by implementing this approach, students will be more active . they have responsible to their own learning in their group during teaching learning process. moreover, they feel happy and motivated to learn and try to understand the context because of their responsible as teachers to transfer information and knowledge to the others.this approach is also suitable to apply in teaching writing as well as reading, speaking, and listening. cooperative learning approach cooperative learning approach has been defined into various definitions. richard said that “cooperative language learning (cll) is part of more general instructional also known as collaborative learning (cl) and cooperative learning is an approach of teaching with activities involving in groups of the students in classroom.” (donald et al: 2006) said that cooperative learning involved a small group of the students working together as a team to solve a problem or accomplish a common goal; it is formally called students team learning. futhermore an analysis on the advantages of cooperative learning approach in teaching writing 138 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 jacob mentioned that “cooperative learning is a diverse group of instructional method in which small groups of students work together and aid each other completing academic tasks. in other word, class members are organized into small group after receiving instruction from teacher. then they work through the assignment until all group members successfully understand and complete it. moreover, (larsen: 2004) stated that this type of learning essentially involves students learning from each other in group, it is not the group configuration that makes cooperative distinctive but it is the way that students and teacher work together. in cooperative learning, teachers teach students in group where they can work together more effectively. in deed cooperation is not a way of learning but also a theme to be communicated about and studied. in addition, cooperative learning also known as collaborative learning which is defined as umbrella term for variety of educational approaches involving joint intellectual effort by participants and facilitator together. from the above explanation, it can be concluded that cooperative learning or collaboration learning can share and solve the students’ problem because they work together for mutual benefit and achievement of goal. the teacher should apply an appropriate approach in teaching learning process in order to help the students in reaching their learning goals. in short, cooperative learning is an effecive approach that motivate the students to learn. besides, cooperative learning is also a team process where members support and rely on each other to achieve an agreed upon goal. (richard and m. felder: 2008) observed that cooperative learning should; a. develop and share a common goal. b. contribute your understanding of the problem, question, insights and solutions. chamisah englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 139 c. respond to and work to understand, other’s question, insights and solutions. each member empowers the other to communicate and contribute and to consider their contributions. d. be accountable to others, and they are accountable to you e. tie students to depend one anothother, based on the statement above, it can be concluded that teamwork and collaborative are important for the students to develop their idea, to understand the problem, to analyze them, and to elaborate on solutions. in addition, (olsen and kagan: 1992) also proposed some key elements of successful group-based learning on cooperative learning, that is, positive independence, group formation, individual accountability, social skills, structuring and structures. positive independence occurs when group members feel that what help one member helps all and what hurt one member hurts all. it is created by the structure of cooperative learning tasks and building of spirit of mutual support within the group. group formation, leads students stay together in the same groups for a period of time so they can learn how to work better together. the teachers usually assign students to the groups so that the groups are mixed. this allows students to learn from each other and also gives them practice in how to get along with people different from themselves. individual accountability, involves both group and individual performance, for example, by assigning each student a grade on his or her portion of a team project or by calling at the students randomly on sharing information with whole class, with group member, or with another group. social skills, determine the way students interact with each other as teammate. usually some explicit instruction in social skills is needed to ensure successful interaction. it also involves an explicit teaching of appropriate leader an analysis on the advantages of cooperative learning approach in teaching writing 140 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 ship, communication, trust and conflict resolution skill so that the team can function effectively. structuring and structures refer to the way of organizing students’ interaction. it means that the teams periodically assess what they have learn how well they are working together and how they might do better as a learning teams. moreover, (harmer: 2001) stated that “group work seems to be an attractive idea for number of reason. when all students in group are working together to produce, for instance, an advertisement, they will communicate each other. cooperative learning creates the students responsibility in problem solving.then, through cooperative learning the students also should be able to give ideas or solutions of a problem, to listen and to appreciate their friends’ idea. furthermore, cooperative learning is one of the instructional approaches that appear to support the success of teaching learning process. cooperative learning attempts to redefine the roles of both teacher and learner through a methodology which relies less on teacherdirected teaching and more on groups activities. in cooperative learning, (richard and charles: 2006) stated that the teacher role’s is to share the responsibility for managing both interaction and learning with students. structure the learning environment so that students cooperate to obtain learning goals. stimulate interactive language use through group work and collaborative problem solving. choose class task which involve information sharing, cooperative reasoning, opining sharing, values cl(arification. coordinate group activities and provide clarification, feedback, and motivational support. in addition, an important role for teacher is as facilitator of learning. in his or her role as a facilitator, the teacher should move around the class helping the students in groups. (harel:2001) stated that additional roles are also assumed for teacher in cooperative learning approach, such as, interact, focus, question, clarify, support, expand, celebrate, and empathize. the teachers as facilitators are giving feedback and directing the group with the task, supplying chamisah englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 141 the material, managing conflict, observing the students, and encouraging them to think and to solve its own problem during learning process. the role of student is that each member of group must work on task with other group members. the students have to learn teamwork skills. they also direct, monitor, and evaluate their own learning that is viewed as a compilation of lifelong learning skills. however, learning is something that requires students’ direct and active involvement and participation.therefore, cooperative learning also requires the students to be active and responsible for their learning which the students also learn to solve their own problems and have social interaction among the students in their group member. both teacher and students have their own tasks in the teaching learning process, which teachers create their own roles within the classroom based on the theories of teaching and learning and kinds of classroom interaction they believe best support these theories. therefore, the teachers need to be able to manage students’ interaction in the classroom which allows all the students get equal opportunities to participate; the students also need to learn how they are expected to interact in the classroom. in short, the relationship between the students and the teacher in the classroom build an effective atmosphere in the teaching learning process. according to (johnson & johnson: 2009), cooperative group is defined as two to five students who are tied together by a common purpose to complete the task and to include every group member. cooperative groups differ from typical classroom groups in the following ways: 1. in typical groups, one leader is chosen by the teacher; in a cooperative group, leadership is shared so that all students are responsible for completion of the task and all group members are included. 2. in typical groups, groups are homogeneous in nature; in cooperative groups, members are selected by the teacher. threfore, the groups are heterogeneous. an analysis on the advantages of cooperative learning approach in teaching writing 142 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 3. in typical groups, members create their own product, have their own materials and have rewards based on individual accomplishment. in a cooperative group, the group creates one product and/or shares materials, and/or has a group reward based on the success as a group. 4. in typical groups, students are told to "cooperate" with no attempt to teach social skills. in a cooperative group, social skills are defined, discussed, observed and processed. 5. in typical groups, the teacher interrupts group work to solve problems, warn students and remind them. in a cooperative group, the teacher encourages group problem-solving. he is an instructor rather than an intervener. 6. in a typical group, the top priority is to accomplish the task get the job done. in a cooperative group, the top priority is to accomplish the task and to include every member through each person's use of social skills. the advantages of cooperative learning approach (harmer: 2009) explained that there are some advantages in teaching learning process in cooperative learning approach (learning in group). the advantages are as the following; 1. groups can help the students develop communication skill, leadership skill, and cooperation skill. 2. groups motivate the students who are bored. 3. groups allow the students to work and interact independently without necessary guided of teacher, thus promoting the students independence. 4. it recognizes the old maximum that ‘two heads are better than one’ and in promoting cooperation helps the classroom to become a more relaxed and friendly place. chamisah englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 143 5. it is relatively quick and easy to organize. 6. group can improve students’ achievement. based on the above explanation, it can be concluded that the advantages of cooperative learning activity are that the students are easy to take part in a discussion. it helps the students to express their idea, enjoy the discussion and share the knowledge. the disadvantages of cooperative learning approach based on the advantages mentioned above cooperative learning approach also have some weaknesses. the disadvantages of cooperative learning are as follow; 1. time consuming to organize a group work. 2. the teacher has less control over what students are doing in group work than in a normal class. 3. group work in a large class will be noise. 4. not all students enjoy it since they would prefer to be focus on the teachers’ attention rather than working in their group. 5. during the group activity, the teacher cannot control the language used by the students. 6. the actual choice of pair group or group work can be problematic, especially if students frequently find themselves working with some they are not keen on. however, these disadvantages can be overcome both by teacher and the student; for example, the teacher gives an interesting topic to the students, in order to motivate them to enjoy the discussion in teaching – learning process. therefore, the teacher and the student can anticipate the problems during the teaching learning process. an analysis on the advantages of cooperative learning approach in teaching writing 144 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 writing writing, as one of important skills in english, plays an important role in language learning process. the aim of teaching writing is to help the students to understand and recover meaningful information for various purposes. writing is different with speaking. in speaking the speaker can use the intonation and stressing to give more explanation to what they say, but in writing the writer needs to think how to show ideas and language to make the reader understand what they mean. writing is a way to communicate that cannot be explained by speaking. halliday as stated in( nunan : 2001) suggested that writing has evolved in societies as a result of cultural changes creating communicative needs which cannot be readily met by the spoken language. furthermore, writing is also a verbal way to communicate with others, as stated by (meyers: 2005) .it is a way to produce language, which you do naturally when you speak. it is also communicating with others in a verbal way. writing in this case is also an action-a process of discovering and organizing your ideas, putting them on a paper and reshaping them. in addition, writing is not an easy and spontaneous activity. it needs some steps before we consider it a good one. it is needed some strategies to compose and develop the text. in line with this, (harmer : 2006) argued that a piece of writing, however, with mistakes and half-finished sentences, etc. would be judged by many native speakers as illiterate since it is expected that writing should be ‘correct’. furthermore, (hedge: 2000) also stated that writing is the result of employing strategies to manage the composing process, which is one gradually developing a text. it involves a number of activities: setting goals, generating ideas, organizing information, selecting appropriate language, making a draft, reading and reviewing it, then revising and editing. it is a complex process which is neither easy nor spontaneous for many second language writers. chamisah englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 145 on the other hand, writing can be used to perform acts and ideas. byrne defined, “writing is a primary means of recording speech, even though it must be acknowledged as a secondary medium of communication”. another definition of writing is given by michael stated in syahid, “writing can be a systematical visible and permanent representation of this explanation, it can be concluded that writing is the speech that written in paper, it is a permanent form of communication. writing as stated above is a productive skill that is written to show the language ability of student. according to enre the aims of writing are: a. desire to explain or to inform b. desire to tell something as it was looked and heard c. desire to tell something about something happened d. desire to convince someone. moreover, writing gives a range of functions in modern world. it gives an important contribution to human work. it can be a sign, information and entertainment. writing is an active process which requires the writer to be active in his writing for getting information. teaching writing through cooperative learning approach teaching learning process which is done by a teacher should have a goal to be achieved at the end of class because teaching is an attempt which is consciously done systematically to the improvement of students’ knowledge and behavior. this improvement should be done through the teaching-learning process. before teaching learning process occurred, the teacher should make a lesson plan in preparing the implementation of cooperative learning approach. the following are the ways of the teacher in carrying out writing classroom through cooperative learning; an analysis on the advantages of cooperative learning approach in teaching writing 146 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 1. preparation of teaching material the teacher should prepare the material before coming into the class. the materials could be various; it depends on the students’ ability, environment and interest. those are intended to make the teaching learning process to be more active. then, the teacher gives instruction to the students on how doing the writing assignment. 2. explanation of the context the teacher may begin the lesson with a short introduction such as inntroduce the students to unfamiliar cultural aspects and explains unfamiliar words and phrases in order to comprehend the context. after knowing the context, the students are easy to develop the idea to write. 3. asking questions in order to know whether the students have understood the writing material given, the teacher asks some questions. based on the students’ answer, the teacher knows the students’ ability, and gain the purpose of learning writing. the steps above are important, and the teacher is suggested to run them in teaching learning process. the teacher can use one of the varieties of writing tasks to evaluate the students in comprehending the context. by using one of the writing tasks, the teacher will find out the students’ ability in writing. in teaching and learning process, students should follow the steps of writing when they produce a paragraph or text since the students should have used all aspects included in writing. brown mentions that those writing aspects consist of content, organization, discourse, vocabulary, syntax, and mechanics. all of them are taught in several levels in learning. in first level, commonly students focus on writing a complete sentence grammatically with proper punctuation, capitalization, and spelling. they also learn to choose the proper word for the certain purposes. later, they will learn to connect the sentences with proper connecting word to make the paragraph. they will learn to add some details chamisah englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 147 related to the topics to support their paragraph as well. then they will try to organize some paragraphs into the logical and coherent text. in this level, students are able to follow the writing steps since they have found out the aspects in writing. brown divides writing performance into four categories to make students easier to master each aspect of writing. each category reflects the uniqueness of the skill area; that is imitative, intensive, responsive, and extensive writing. he explains that in imitative writing students are focused on basic tasks of writing letter, words, punctuation, and very brief sentences. it means that the students’ mastery of mechanics have been begun in this level. in intensive writing, students are expected to produce the written language to show their competence in grammar, vocabulary, idiom, and sentence formation. then in responsive writing, brown argues that students begin to connect some sentences to be a paragraph logically. the genres of writing such as narrative, descriptive, report, summary, brief responds to reading and interpretation of charts of graphs are introduced in this level. in extensive writing, the students involve in longer texts such as full-length essays, papers, project reports, theses, and dissertations. the focus on this writing is achieving the purposes, organizing and developing ideas logically, using details to support or illustrate the ideas. in responsive and extensive writing, students become involved in the process of writing, all aspects in writing should also be considered by the students because they will produce a real writing. in addition these pieces of writing are considered as a progressive activity. this means when students write something, such as an essay, they have something in mind to be conveyed, have been thinking about what they want to say, and to whom they want to say it. after finishing this activity, they should read over what they have been written and make some changes and corrections. therefore, writing is not a one-step action but it has several ones. an analysis on the advantages of cooperative learning approach in teaching writing 148 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 a. categories of evaluating writing are the components of writing that is needed to make a good writing. according to (brown: 2009) there are five categories that can be used to evaluate writing, they are organization, logical development of ideas, grammar, punctuation/ spelling/mechanics, and style/quality of expression. each category of this assessment has different score. there are 30 point for content, 25 point for organization, 10 point for vocabulary/ diction, 25 point for grammatical rules/ sentence structure , 10 point for spelling b. content: a writer needs to master this component. content is expanding of ideas that are written trough personal experience, illustration, facts and opinions. to write content, the writer needs to develop their thoughts and think creatively. as heaton stated, “treatment of content: the ability to think creatively and develop thoughts, excluding all irrelevant information. c. organization: coherence means that the writer’s paragraph is easy to read and understand because the supporting sentences are in some kind of logical order and the ideas are connected by using of appropriate transition signals. d. vocabulary/diction: vocabulary is an important role in a language, especially in writing activity. the choice of vocabulary could describe the writer’s knowledge. to master the vocabulary we can use reading or listening. e. grammatical rules/sentence structure: this rule consists of phonology, morphology and syntax. in writing, phonology rule has no role at all, while morphology and syntax rules have very important roles. it deals with the effective use of the right affixes, conjunction, prefixes and composition, the structure of the sentences. f. spelling: one of the most difficult and confusing aspects of the english language is spelling system. there is often a difference between the chamisah englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 149 pronunciation of a word and its spelling. we cannot always know how to spell a word by its pronunciation and vice versa. so the writer needs to be aware of this aspect. furthermore, if the teacher does not pay more attention and make a good preparation during the group activity process, the students face several difficulties, such as the students prefer to work alone, and do not want to work together in their group so that the teacher may require further counseling and give explanation to the students about the importance working together among them. therefore, the teacher has to create well-organized learning environment in the classroom during teaching learning process. in this light, the chosen of approach is very important. one of the appropriate approaches that might be applied in teaching writing is cooperative learning. helmet : 2010) stated that the key to success in this area include explaining clearly what students are to do and how to do it before moving to another group, circulating, around the room at times to monitor seat-work and to give feedback to students in different group, explaining a head of time what students are to do if they finish an assignment early, and preparing all materials ahead of time to ensure smooth, systematic transition from working one group to work with another. it means that the teachers should follow certain step. so that, learning writing by using cooperative learning can help the students to solve their problem together and to achieve sharing learning goal. in other words, learning writing by using cooperative learning makes the students easier. its approach is more than just putting students into groups, but the students can work together, share information, and they are responsible for completion of the task in group also. in this approach, the students are transferring their information and knowledge to the others and help each other in developing the ideas to write during teachinglearning process. from the explanation above, it can be concluded that applying cooperative learning approach is very useful to motivate the students to write and to de an analysis on the advantages of cooperative learning approach in teaching writing 150 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 velop the ideas communicatively, because the students can discuss together and solve their problems in their own group. learning is an active process of a student in developing his knowledge. therefore, it is not passive process where the student just accepts speech from teacher. as a consequence, if learning does not give opportunity to student to share actively, the study opposes concept of learning; active student is importance for the agenda of forming creative generation, productive that benefit him and others. therefore, learning does not only mean to hear teacher’s reading and his describing for items, but also to transfer knowledge from teacher to students. in the opposite, learning means to facilitate students with experiences that support them to actively construct their understanding, manage it to be a skill, applies it and uses it as a source for proper behavior in their life. teacher has to create various activities in teaching-learning process that support different student competencies; students product also should be assessed and showed out in front of class or in announcement board of school . students are forced to be productive as according to their potency. difference of existing potency does not be made as obstacle, but it is exactly made opportunity for worthwhile product to each other learning and equipping. creative learning tends not to be a learning dogmatically. the students are forced to be sceptic toward material of learning. they are offered opportunity to find out truth in their way that more useful and quicker. students are invited to look for alternative, to study positive and negative side, take decision as well as conclusion of the study. in an effective learning, students need to be involved actively in learning process, because they are the centre of learning and activity. students have to participate in directional question and answer, and look for resolving to various learning problem. educational participation must be forced to students to interpret and mind the information that can accept by common sense. this strategy chamisah englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 151 needs mutual-transfer of mind between students and teachers, discussion, and debate to reaching same understanding to each standard item through effective and meaningful learning. through effective learning, knowledge and competences of students would be improved, saved in brain and would shape their personalities through “sensible process”. good planning is highly recognized as the underlying strength to successful teaching. inspiration and spontaneity are sprinted, energizing qualities that add high interest to many lessons. however without a solid, functional plan there is no guarantee that effective instruction will automatically occur. teacher must have a process to guide in teaching learning to create a plan for interaction that help students learn, and will let them evaluate their learning success. based on the explanation above, it can be concluded that applying cooperative learning approach is very useful to increase the students’ ability in reading, because they can discuss the ideas that they have read together and solve their problems in their own group.morever, all students are responsible for completion of reading task and all group members are included.this situation directs the students to have positive independence, group formation, individual accountability, social skills, structuring and structures. conclusion based on the explanation above, it can be concluded that applying cooperative learning approach is very useful to increase the students’ ability in writing, because they can discuss the ideas that they have read together and solve their problems in their own group.morever, all students are responsible for completion of writing task and all group members are included.this situation directs the students to have positive independence, group formation, individual accountability, social skills, structuring and structures. an analysis on the advantages of cooperative learning approach in teaching writing 152 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 references andrian doff, teaching english (australia: cambridge university, 1994), p. 9. arthur w. heilment. timothy r. blair and william h. rupley, principles and practices of teaching reading 6th ed. (ohio, charles, e. merrill publishing co, 1991), p.489. bosworth, k.,& hamilton, s.j, collaborative learning: underlying process and effective technique,1994 in oonseng tan. enhancing thinking through problembased learning approach: international perspective, foreword by george watson, ph. d (unidel professor of physics and astronomy university of delaware: by thomson learning, 2004), p.134. brenda d. smith, breaking through college reading 4th ed., (harper collin: college publishers, 1995),p. 23. david stepherd, comprehensive high school reading methods, (columbus ohio, a bell and howel company, 1978), p.18. diane larsen–freeman. technique and principle in language learning teaching (new york: oxf ord universty press,2000), p.16. donald r. cruickshank, deborah bainer jenkins, and kim k. metcalf, the act of teaching 4th. ed., (mcgraw: hill companies, 2006), p. 238. evely jacob, cooperative learning in context educational innovation in every day classroom, (new york state university: new york press, 1999), p.5. franciose grellet, developing reading skill: a practical guide for reading comprehension exercise, (cambridge: cambridge university, 1986), p.7. harel y, teacher talk in the cooperative learning classroom, .in c. kesser (ed.), cooperative language learning: a teacher’s resource book,1992: in jack c. richards and theodore s. rodgers, approaches and methods in language teaching 2nd( new york: cambridge university press, 2001), p. 199. jack c richards and theodore s rodger, approaches and method ..…”, p. 192. jack c. richards and charles lockhart, reflective teaching in second language classroom, (new york: cambridge university press, 1996), p. 103. jeremy harmer, the practice of english language teaching 3rd ed., (longman, 2001), p .41. chamisah englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 153 lois a. hirst and christy slavik, cooperative approach to language learning, (online), http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/nali10.html, accessed on tuesday, 27th 2009. nurs and hough, reading and english second language students, 1992, p. 16. olsen, r., and s. kagan, about cooperative learning. in c. kessler (ed.),cooperative lenguage learning : a teacher’s recource book,1992 in jack c richards and theodore s rodger, approaches and method in language teaching (cambridge: cambridge language teaching library, 2001), p. 196. r. johnson and e. holubec, cooperative learning in the classroom,1994, in jack c richards and theodore s rodger, approaches and method in language teaching (cambridge: cambridge language teaching library, 2001), p. 195. richard m felder, cooperative learning in technical course: procedures, pitfalls, payoffs (north coralina: state university and rebecca breth/http://www.stuygs.net /cooplearn, november 15th 2008, p. 17. sally burgess, katie head, how to teach for exam in serial editor jeremy harmer (longman personal education limited, 2005), p. 27. englisia november 2013 vol. 1 no.1, 100-118 muna muhammad state islamic university of ar-raniry banda aceh language shift is a notion on the change in the use of a person’s heritage language that results in a loss of that person’s ability to use his or her heritage language. likewise, cultural shift is a change in participating in one’s heritage culture that results in a loss of understanding and adherence to one’s cultural heritage. in her study, withers suggests some factors that affect a shift in language and culture: the prestige of the dominant language and the comparatively lesser status of the heritage language, the lack of societal support for the ethnic group and its heritage language, the perception of the heritage language as unnecessary by subsequent generations, a decrease of group identification through the heritage language, a low level of acquisition of the heritage language at the time of decreased use of that language, an increased amount of contact with the dominant culture, an increased use of the dominant language instead of the heritage language with children, and attitudes against keeping the heritage language. keywords: bilingualism, language choice introduction as a person who was raised as an acehnese-indonesian bilingual, i have never considered being one as such of privilege, until one experience hit me and left me with a big question mark in my head. i was in my dentist’s waiting room for my regular check up. that day, i took my 3 years-old nephew with me so that i would have a companion to talk with when i was waiting. my nephew was a very talkative child. we talked a lot while i was waiting for my turn. while we were talking in acehnese of course a small girl, i believe she was 4 to 5 years-old, approached us. acehnese­speaking parents’ choice of  language of the children: parents’  attitude towards bilingualism in  acehnese­indonesian context  muna muhammad englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 101 i could tell that she wanted to make friend and to play with my nephew. she started asking some questions, in indonesian, which were replied with silence by my nephew. this girl did not give up. she kept trying to get my nephew to play with her. she took his hand and finally they were in the middle of a play, with my nephew was still in silence. while they were playing, i started a conversation with the girl’s mother, in acehnese (she was an acehnese and spoke acehnese fluently). suddenly, in the middle of the play, the girl run to her mother and asked her, in indonesian, why my nephew did not want to talk to her. hearing that question, i told her that he wanted to talk to her but it is not easy for him because he did not speak indonesian as good as he spoke acehnese. shortly after that, my nephew approached me and said some things to me (i cannot recall what he was telling me) in acehnese. hearing this, the girl’s mother made a surprising remark, in indonesian, “lihat adek itu, dia pintar sekali”. “dia bisa bahasa aceh!” (“look at the little boy, how smart he is”. he can speak acehnese!”). discussion background of study acehnese language is one of 727 languages spoken in indonesia as recorded. this number consists of 726 local languages and 1 official (national) language: indonesian language. indonesian is a combination of malay language, local languages, and foreign languages. indonesian language is aimed as the lingua franca of the country to unite the citizens who are from different ethnicities and speak completely different languages. this position makes indonesian as the dominant language used throughout indonesia, with approximately all indonesian who have ever gone to school would speak the language (information was retrieved from the official website of national coordinating agency for surveys and mapping of indonesian government). as other local languages, that are the languages of certain ethnicity in certain area in indonesia, acehnese is the language of acehnese people who originally live acehnese-speaking parents’ choice of language of the children 102 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 in aceh province – indonesia. however, over years, the use of the language is declining, from the only language used for all purposes to the language used only within family at home or with certain friends in informal occasions. indonesian government policy to have indonesian as the only language used in formal occasions, contributes to the decline. it is not uncommon to hear an acehnese speaks indonesian at school, business transaction, government and public offices, etc., instead of acehnese. the absence of acehnese also continues to the media. this means an acehnese would be more exposed to indonesian language than to their mother tongue, acehnese. thus, it is comprehensible that in acehnese context, being bilingual, having acehnese as l1 and indonesian as l2 is a necessity (read: obligatory). acehnese people, who traditionally acquire acehnese at home from parents and other family members and start to acquire indonesian when they go to school, have a new pattern in acquiring their l2. instead of waiting for the children to learn indonesian at school, acehnese-speaking parents presently introduce the l2 simultaneously with the l1. this new pattern affects the result of l1 acquisition. with the environment is very much exposed with indonesian language (all media, school, friends, market, etc.), the children tend to acquire indonesian faster and easier than acehnese. this leads to the dominance of l2 to l1. the very high and important status of indonesian language, even leads some bilingual parents to choose not to speak acehnese anymore to their children. it is ironic to see acehnese-speaking parents speak in acehnese to each other while they speak in indonesian to the children. however, it is very common now, especially for parents who live in cities. looking back at the illustration given in the beginning of this article, i question myself: “who is responsible when a child is not “smart enough” to speak his own mother tongue?” “who is responsible when a child cannot be a bilingual when s/he has a complete potential to be one?” the girl’s mother’s remark implies that it is the girl’s fault for not being “smart enough” to speak acehnese. but, is it? doing this study, i want to understand more about what acehnese-speaking parents have been experiencing while living in an environment that is very much ex muna muhammad englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 103 posed with indonesian language, especially in regard to the development of their children’s bilingualism. as i mentioned previously, my inspiration for this study comes from the phenomena that many acehnese-speaking young parents do not speak acehnese anymore to their children. i hope this study is able to answer my question about acehnese children and the language(s) their parents chose for them. in other words, by doing this study i am expecting to gain practical experience and explicit examples of the attitude of acehnese-speaking parents towards bilingualism for their children. review of related research the present study focuses on how acehnese-speaking parents perceive and use acehnese and indonesian languages under the influence of social variables; means it is examining the attitudes of acehnese-speaking parents toward the learning and maintenance of acehnese language for their children. the available researches on language attitude always involve the discussion of the minority language and the majority/dominant language; means the language of the minority group and the majority group. in acehnese-indonesian context, the case is quite different. there is no majority group that imposed its language to the minority group. acehnese is the language of acehnese people, but indonesian is not language of indonesian people because there is no group or culture called indonesia. as mentioned previously, indonesian is a hybrid language that was created by combining malay, local, and foreign languages. it aims to be the lingua franca for people from different groups and cultures in indonesia. thus, in indonesian language context, there is no major culture that dominates other culture, unless, a notion of indonesian culture, as the manifestation of the “melting pot”, is acknowledged. until then, indonesia is just a name of a country where people from different ethnicities originated. this fact gave me difficulty to find the most related research to the phenomenon discussed previously. therefore, for this study, i have simplified the phenomenon by giving acehnese the term “minority language” and acehnese-speaking parents’ choice of language of the children 104 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 indonesian as the “majority language. the choice of these terms based on the fact that indonesian language has wider use than the acehnese and, somehow, it is taking the place of the latter language. researches available on parents’ attitudes toward language of their children mostly discuss the parents’ choice and perception on the language of instruction at school. researches on hmong language (withers, 2004), vietnamese parents (young and tran, 1999), linguistics minority parents (lee, 1999) imply that parents are more favourable to have their children to study in a bilingual program, so that the heritage language of the children will be maintained. this result suggests that parents have positive attitude toward bilingualism of their children. a study on how language minority parents help their children become bilingual in the family context (li, 1999) gives closer understanding to acehnese context. this study concluded that language minority parents who communicate on a daily basis with their children have a crucial influence on the development of their children's bilingualism. it is better for them to take initial actions to enable their children to develop both their l1 and l2, and to get together with the two respective cultures, rather than wait passively for schools and communities to reach out to them. the study showed that language minority parents' positive attitudes toward both languages and cultures and supportive interactions with their children at home are very important to the children's bilingualism and identity establishment. the result of the above study suggests that it is the parents’ choice to raise their children as a monolingual, bilingual, or even multilingual. i would say that it is quite a loss when parents choose not to raise their children as bilingual when they have all the potential to be one. another question then is raised. what factors influence parents’ choice in raising their children to be monolingual or bilingual? some previous researches have some perspectives on this issue. even though it did not come from similar situation as in acehnese-indonesian context, the schumann’s (1986) acculturation model might be useful to help to illustrate the condition of language choice in aceh. this model highlights factors of eth muna muhammad englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 105 nic group relations and associates language learning with three primary social factors: social dominance, integration strategy, and enclosure. social dominance covers discussions on the perceived political, cultural, technical, or economic superiority of a group affects the likelihood of groups learning each other’s languages. in indonesia, the role of indonesian language is so powerful. as the main language used for all forms of activity in all levels, indonesian is the language that one should know and speak to be successful. the domination of indonesian and the absence of acehnese in many aspects of life affect how the languages perceived. the second social factor of acculturation is integration strategy, which includes three degrees: assimilation to the dominant culture and language, preservation of one’s native culture and language, and adaptation to the host culture while maintaining one’s native culture and language. during the new order era (19651998), the only president in the era, suharto, had a bhinneka tunggal ika (united in diversity) campaign that promoted the melting pot for all citizens. as a new country, after fighting for independence from dutch colonialism for more than 350 years, indonesian people needed to feel united. therefore to decrease the differences, the government tried to “indonesianize” the country by preventing the citizens to use their ethnic symbols in formal occasions and places throughout the country. this includes the discouragement to use the native language in most places. the social factor of enclosure refers to the lack of shared social institutions, such as schools and professions that might influence the need and opportunities to learn l2s. as mentioned previously, indonesian government policy has created the absence of the use of acehnese language (l1) in formal places: school, business, offices, etc. the application of the acculturation model of schumann leads to comprehension that indonesian language is the high variety and acehnese language is the low variety of languages in acehnese-indonesian context. these varieties are based on the use of the languages for different purposes and functions at different situa acehnese-speaking parents’ choice of language of the children 106 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 tions. for example, high variety is usually used as written content in formal institutions and low variety is used as informal language at home (wu, 2005). these varieties may affect the attitude towards the languages. thus, one will have more positive attitude toward the high variety than the low one. the discussion above leads me to understand that the acehnese-speaking parents do not have hesitation to have their children acquire indonesian as the l2 or even as the l1 because they have positive attitude towards indonesian language. another question, then, is raised. do the parents have negative attitude towards acehnese language (l1) due to the fact the use of indonesian (l2) is so dominant in almost all aspects? a study by wu (2005) on chinese parents’ attitudes towards bilingualism explained this phenomenon. the result of the study shows that chinese parents have positive attitudes toward maintaining heritage language but feel hopeless in some ways. they think it is important for their children to maintain chinese as well as to learn english well for academic purposes. however, because of pressure from the mainstream society, they all agree that it is hard for their children to maintain chinese proficiency. this picture, i believe, corresponds to the situation in aceh. when it comes to what language to speak to the children, parents often feel weak and hopeless. they want to maintain the native language, since it is part of the identity to be an acehnese, but in the same time they have to consider the need of their children to be well educated. parents want to make sure that their children are fully proficient in the language of the instruction when they start the school. therefore, they focus more on whether their children can speak indonesian, so that they can be successful, than whether they can speak acehnese, which is their mother tongue. as encountered by previous discussion, practical advantages, such as social status, education and job opportunities, play a role in the choice of language. however, cultural aspect, such as self image and having ability to communicate to people from the same culture, is still the significant factor in the choice (lao, 2004). therefore, a campaign to promote “proud” to be part of a culture would help to maintain the feeling of ownership of the culture. in acehness-indonesian context this muna muhammad englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 107 would be a shift from the notion of “melting pot” to “salad bowl”. as part of indonesian big family, all acehnese should feel as one union with other indonesians of different ethnicities. in the same time, acehnese people should be proud of their identity by maintaining the culture and the language of aceh. this is urgently needed to avoid the emergence of negative attitude toward acehnese culture and language, since it may lead to language and cultural shift. language shift is a notion on the change in the use of a person’s heritage language that results in a loss of that person’s ability to use his or her heritage language. likewise, cultural shift is a change in participating in one’s heritage culture that results in a loss of understanding and adherence to one’s cultural heritage (withers, 2004). in her study, withers suggests some factors that affect a shift in language and culture: the prestige of the dominant language and the comparatively lesser status of the heritage language, the lack of societal support for the ethnic group and its heritage language, the perception of the heritage language as unnecessary by subsequent generations, a decrease of group identification through the heritage language, a low level of acquisition of the heritage language at the time of decreased use of that language, an increased amount of contact with the dominant culture, an increased use of the dominant language instead of the heritage language with children, and attitudes against keeping the heritage language (withers, 2004). other prominent factors include the use of the primary language of the dominant culture exclusively in at least some areas, a change in the environment in which the heritage language is used, and an infiltration of words or phrases from the dominant language into the minority language (withers, 2004). most of the factors were part of the previous discussion in this present study. thus, the phenomena of language and cultural shift are happening in acehnese-indonesian context. overall, researchers suggest that individuals have agency to make choices for them, especially in their language acquisitions. this can be the parents, government, more dominated culture, etc. in language minority discussion, this perspective acehnese-speaking parents’ choice of language of the children 108 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 has often led to deficiency perspectives toward minorities (monzó, 2005) that may lead to the negative attitude of its language and culture. therefore, this study aims to find how linguistic and social aspects influence the perception and the attitude of acehnese-speaking parents towards acehnese and indonesian language. in the same time, it aims to find the rationale behind acehnese-speaking parents’ choice of the language of their children, regarding to their bilingualism. research methodology as it has been stated in previous discussion, this study is devoted to find the answer on how acehnese-speaking parents perceive acehnese and indonesian language and the attitudes they might have towards the languages. in the same time, it tries to find the attitude of the parents towards their children’s bilingualism. the perception and attitude of the parents, as has been explained in the literature review, are proved to have relation on the choice of the language the parents choose to raise their children. there four main questions on the topic are raised in this study. they are: 1. what is acehnese-speaking parents’ perception on acehnese and indonesian language? 2. what are acehnese-speaking parents’ attitudes toward their children’s language and literacy learning in acehnese and indonesian language? 3. what do the parents think of their children’s abilities in acehnese and indonesian? 4. how do parents act or what have they done based on their attitudes to support (or to not support) their children’s bilingual development? the main resource for data collection is the questionnaire and the researcher’s observation. in this study, acehnese-speaking parents—the mother or the father from 10 families—were asked to fill in the questionnaires. the questionnaire is in open-ended form and it includes some questions about respondent’s characteristics, muna muhammad englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 109 general family information, attitudes toward bilingualism, and children’s acehnese learning experiences. for the effectiveness sake, the questionnaire is in indonesian language. any necessary information was translated into english for the purpose of data analysis. the characteristics of the participants for this study are purposely the ones who live in banda aceh, the capital of aceh province, and already have one child, at least. the parents were the only member of the family being asked to fill in the questionnaire. the participants have acehnese ethnicity and speak acehnese language fluently (the mother, the father, or both). the participants are also acehneseindonesian bilingual. the participants are young parents between age 20 to 40 years-old, taking to consideration that parents within this range of age can give better and reliable data since they are still “raising” their children. other characteristics such as parents’ and children’s age, parents’ and children’s birth place or living place, etc. are not taken into consideration. the participation for this study is voluntary and the participants were chosen randomly. the questionnaires were distributed through an email-list where the researcher is a member. the first ten responds that were qualified with all the requirements mentioned previously were taken immediately as the participants of the study. the name of the participants were kept anonymous and for further discussion in this study they will be addressed as family 1, family 2, .........., family 10. when a specific parent is mentioned, s/he will be addressed as ‘the mother’ or ‘the father’. analysis and discussion general family information since each family only need to provide answers for one questionnaire, having only the mother or the father as the representative of the family is all it takes. the questionnaires were filled in by eight mothers and two fathers. the questionnaires were constructed in indonesian. therefore, all the answers are also in indonesian. acehnese-speaking parents’ choice of language of the children 110 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 the following discussion is based on the answers provided in the questionnaires and the personal observation and experience of the researcher as she is also an acehnese and an acehnese – indonesian bilingual who was born and raised in banda aceh. all parents both the mother and the father who participated in this study consider themselves as holding acehnese ethnicity. all of them are acehnese indonesian bilinguals, regardless of their language performance quality. some parents mentioned that they also speak english. parents from family 6 speak japanese moderately since they lived in japan for few years. all parents agree that the main language spoken outside the home is indonesian, for both the mother and the father, and also for the children. from ten families, seven families have indonesian as the main language in the family and only two families (family 3 and family 10) have acehnese as the main language to communicate within family context. one family (family 9) has english as the main language in the family since they lived in the united states for 7 years. but they are back in banda aceh now. it is interesting to acknowledge that although all parents are acehnese and they speak acehnese language, only parents from five families speak acehnese to each other (family 3, family 4, family 6, family 7, and family 10). the other parents speak indonesian to each other with little bit code-switching of acehnese once in a while. based on the researcher’s observation and experience, this phenomenon usually is the result of how and where the parents met and started the relationship. acehnese is a family language. therefore, one tends to speak in indonesian when having relationship outside a family context. if this is the case with the parents of this study, it is not too surprising that the parents do not speak acehnese to each other because they started the relationship in indonesian language environment. this usually continued to the time they got married and had a family. the families whose parents speak acehnese to each other might have completely different case with the previous one. they might meet and start their relationship in acehnese environment so that the language they used while they were dating continued to be used while they are having their own family now. muna muhammad englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 111 however, it is shocking to know that from five families whose parents speak acehnese to each other, only two families have their children speak acehnese at home. parents from the other three families decide to speak indonesian to their children (family 4, family 6 and family 7). the reason for this avoidance is provided in the next discussion. in addition, parents who speak indonesian to each other also speak indonesian to the children. the children from the families that have acehnese as the main language speak acehnese not only to the parents but also to the sibling(s). the other children from other families speak indonesian to the sibling(s) since this is the only language they know to speak. only children from family 9 speak english to each other. the nature of conversation is mutual, means the children speak to the parents in the language the parents speak to them. however, children from family 9 always have english – indonesian switching when they speak to the parents while the parents always speak indonesian to them. parents from family 10 mentioned that even though they always speak acehnese to the children, the children sometime switch to indonesian. this is due to the fact that the children are in their first years of school and they just learned their indonesian language. in addition, children from family 3 constantly speak acehnese to the parents. and the other families have their children speak indonesian to the parents. attitudes towards bilingualism all parents have very positive attitude towards acehnese. for them acehnese is important because it is part of their identity. since all the parents are acehnese and this makes their children also hold acehnese ethnicity, they agree that it is also important for the children to be able to speak and to maintain acehnese language. however, indonesian language is important as well for both the parents and the children. the importance of indonesian is due to the fact that the language is the only language used at school, offices, markets, etc. not being able to speak indonesian will lead to handicapped situation for the whole family, while not being able to acehnese-speaking parents’ choice of language of the children 112 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 speak acehnese will not give big effect since everybody who have experience in indonesian educational system, speaks indonesian and does not have any hesitation to speak the language. when it comes to the literacy, the parents agree that a skill for indonesian literacy is a must, for them and for the children. similar as the reason previously provided for indonesian speaking ability, skill for the literacy is a need for survival reason because everything is written in indonesian. on the contrary, the parents do not really think that acehnese literacy is as important as indonesian. this is understandable since presently acehnese language literacy has been transformed into latin transcription (traditionally, it is written in arabic transcription). therefore, in logic, if one is able to read and to write indonesian (indonesian is written in latin transcription), s/he will be able to read and to write in acehnese. in addition, acehnese is a language that is not transferred formally in classroom. it is a family language that is transferred from generation to generation through oral tradition. this nature adds the hesitation on the importance of acehnese literacy. for the parents, having their children able to speak both acehnese and indonesian is preferable. however, they agree that indonesian is more important language to acquire than acehnese. while the parents are in favour to have the children speak both acehnese and indonesian, the environment itself is not supportive to create that situation. as mentioned previously, acehnese is a family language. once the children outside the home, the main language they are exposed to is indonesian. the neighbourhood is not encouraging to have the children to be able to speak acehnese. children experience of acehnese learning all parents have positive attitude towards their children bilingualism (acehnese indonesian). however, only parents from family 3 and family 10 who really did some efforts to make their children speak acehnese (indonesian usually will be start acquired automatically once the children enter their first school. in some muna muhammad englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 113 cases, it can be earlier with all the expose of indonesian language from the neighborhood and media). the most visible effort is by speaking in acehnese to the children. in addition, parents from family 3 also provide entertainment in acehnese such as acehnese songs, film, etc. unfortunately, there is no family that provide reading in acehnese as the material to enhance the children’s acehnese language ability. parents who have acehnese speaking children admitted that their children show better communication performance in their indonesian than their acehnese. this is not surprising since the children’s language ability in acehnese is limited inside the scope of the family. compare it with indonesian that is used in more various situations: school, market, friendship, etc. in addition, since most of the media are in indonesian, it is expected to see the children perform better in indonesian that in acehnese. conclusion based on the discussion provided previously, it is clear that all parents have positive attitude towards bilingualism. they agree that being bilingual give more benefit than only being monolingual. this positive attitude is caused by the fact that all the respondents are acehnese – indonesian bilingual and they hold acehnese ethnicity. therefore, being able to speak acehnese is important for them since it is part of their identity. and being able to speak indonesian is a necessity for survival reason. the children who are acehnese are seen as having importance to keep their acehnese identity by speaking acehnese language. unfortunately this positive attitude does not correspond with the fact within the family. the data from questionnaires show that from ten families participated in this study, only two families have acehnese as the main language in the family. the other parents tend to speak indonesian to the children although in the same time they speak acehnese to their spouse. this avoidance of speaking the mother tongue with acehnese-speaking parents’ choice of language of the children 114 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 in the family context is the result of the very high status indonesian has. parents consider indonesian as the more important language to be acquired by the children. in addition, the data also show that there is no attention paid for acehnese literacy. the parents from two families that have acehnese as the family language mentioned that they do not provide any mean of literacy in acehnese for their children. however, some entertainments such as song and film in acehnese are available in the house. having been raised in a multilingual and multicultural country like indonesia, children from acehnese-speaking parents have all the potential to be bilingual or even multilingual. however, the gradual process of assimilation and acculturation in indonesia leads to language loss of native languages and language shift to indonesian. parents tend to think that children learn their native languages automatically. therefore, it would be better to speak indonesian to the children so that they will be ready with the language when they are entering school. contradictorily, children then failed to acquire their native language and then the native language is typically not maintained and is rarely developed. to conclude, from all data provided in this study, it is understood that when acehnese is considered as important for emotional reason, indonesian is important for practical reason. and in this acehnese – indonesian context, practical reason wins! muna muhammad englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 115 references li, x. (1999). how can language minority parents help their children become bilingual in familial context? a case study of a language minority mother and her daughter. bilingual research journal, 23 (2&3). lee, s. k. (1999). the linguistic minority parents’ perceptions of bilingual education. bilingual research journal, 23 (2&3). lao, c. (2004). parents’ attitudes toward chinese-english bilingual education and chinese-language use. bilingual research journal, 28 (1). monzó, l. (2005). latino parents’ “choice” for bilingual education in an urban california school: language politics in the aftermath of proposition 227. bilingual research journal, 29 (2). schumann, j. h. (1986). research on the acculturation model for second language acquisition. journal of multilingual and multicultural development, 7 (5). soanes, c. & stevenson, a. (eds.) (2004). concise oxford english dictionary, eleventh edition. oxford university press. wu, c. (2005). attitude and behavior toward bilingualism for chinese parents and children. in cohen, j., mcalister, kara t., rolsttad, kellie., & macswan, jeff. (eds.), proceedings of the 4th international symposium on bilingualism. cascadilla press somerville, ma. withers, a. c. (2004). hmong language and cultural maintenance in merced, california. bilingual research journal, 28 (3). young, r. l. & tran, m. t. (1999). viatnemese parents attitudes toward bilingual education. bilingual research journal, 23 (2&3). national coordinating agency for surveys and mapping of indonesian government. retrieved from http://www.bakosurtanal.go.id/ englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2021. vol. 9, no. 1, 50-62 exploring curriculum approaches and issues: a descriptive analysis habiburrahim habiburrahim universitas islam negeri ar-raniry, banda aceh, indonesia habiburrahim@ar-raniry.ac.id manuscript received j u l y 1 3 , 2021, revised august 15, 2021, first published november 1, 2021, and available online november 7, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i1.10829 recommended apa citation habiburrahim, h. (2021). exploring curriculum approaches and issues: a descriptive analysis. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(1), 50-62. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i1.10829 abstract a curriculum is a set of guidelines used to attain an educational goal, and it has at least four key elements: objective, material, method, and evaluation. the purpose of this descriptive study is to describe several curriculum approaches that are commonly employed in teaching and learning activities. furthermore, this study discusses curriculum changes, the reasons that influence such changes, and the obstacles that each curriculum change presents. the study first elaborates on the disciplinary curriculum approach, emphasizing the idea of exploring a certain subject of science through singlefocused lenses without integrating it into other connected sciences. following an examination of the disciplinary curriculum approach, the study gives considerable information on multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary curriculum approaches that have the potential to improve students' critical thinking skills. this study concludes by delving into curriculum change as well as its motivating factors and challenges. keywords: curriculum development; curriculum approach; curriculum changes; higher education. 1. introduction the issues of curriculum development in higher education are constantly intriguing to examine and discuss, as the evolution of higher education is very dynamic and constant. curriculum changes continue to occur as a result of advancements and changes in the worlds of education and work, which always require college graduates to possess qualifications, experience, knowledge, and a high-quality education in order to compete in an increasingly competitive job market (habiburrahim, 2018). as a result, habiburrahim habiburrahim englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 51 education professionals, particularly curriculum experts, continue to develop learning techniques that are believed to be capable of enhancing the quality of human resources through a variety of curricular approaches. additionally, experts acknowledge that there is no super curriculum capable of nurturing the best generation studying several years at a university. there is also no guarantee that a world-class curriculum developed by a renowned university can be successfully replicated at other universities and countries. this is due to a variety of circumstances, including the universities' or countries' facilities and infrastructure, human resources, and other varied supporting features. curriculum experts, in addition, claim that the curriculum is a method of instruction that enables educators and students to establish a learning objective to be accomplished as a result of the teaching and learning process. thus, the curriculum as a vehicle for teaching and learning can be created around specific objectives and in accordance with a given society's culture. this descriptive analysis aims to outline numerous curriculum approaches that may be used at the secondary and postsecondary levels as well as curriculum changes and their driving factors that may always occur. 2. disciplinary curriculum the meaning of disciplinary learning is described as a method for organizing and studying occurrences (dressel & marcus, 1982). the debate over disciplinary-based learning continues to run rampant, with theorists on both sides. on the one hand, disciplinary-based learning advocates that each discipline provides a set of rules through which students learn to view the world; for example, biology practitioners view the world through the nature and constellations of knowledge within biology (lattuca, 2002; rainey, maher, & moje, 2020). when disciplinarians are conducting knowledge development projects, they believe that each of their projects has to be viewed through the lens of a given discipline. in essence, discipline is linked to knowledge because it knits together chemists and chemists, psychologists and psychologists, historians and historians. it "connects academics with academics, who share a certain specialty, be it knowledge-based or skills-based" (clark, 1983, p. 29). lattuca (2001) also ascertains that discipline-based knowledge emerged in the us throughout the latter quarter of the 20th century, peaking then and eventually declining. the study uncovered that, at that moment, students were being introduced to different subjects at the elementary school and college levels, as well as being taught to understand and recognize a specific academic value through inquiry learning, which was discipline-based. multiple academic researchers have investigated what learning is like in schools, and it turns out they are organized around the following subjects: science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) (beberman-shalev, sabbagh, resh, & kramarski, 2011; tchudi & lafer, 1996). many experts believe that providing a foundation in either higher education or vocational/professional learning to students is a good first step (tran, 2013; valles, exploring curriculum approaches and issues: a descriptive analysis 52 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 2012). scholars are empowered to apply their specialties and focus to areas of expertise with an expectation that this will lead to a more profound, more valuable, and broader understanding of their given subject matter. the major goal of professional and vocational education, according to anderson (2009), is to prepare students to master particular skills in order to contribute to the growth of their country. anderson's description of the goals of academic and career training encourages increased productivity and profits in industry by (1) helping businesses meet their growing skill needs and obtain more competent workers by training the current generation and (2) ensuring students leave schools with the necessary training to earn a living and contribute to economic prosperity (skills for work). also notable is the usa's advancement of disciplinary education, in which students study for academic progress in helping science develop as well as for developing citizens' ability to participate in the country's economic life (chettiparamb, 2007). in comparison, karseth (2004) believes that a discipline should be a form of apprenticeship into ways of knowing that are extremely strong and that teaching students how to master conceptual structures and styles of reasoning is key. through this approach, the goal of education is to train everyone to become professional scholars by making them skilled in the essential material of their particular academic area (karseth, 2004). a lot of notable literature showcases the effort to investigate the contribution of disciplines. for example, turner (2000) contends that disciplinary education has the capacity to educate students in a manner that prepares them to do a particular skill with a level of proficiency that cannot be acquired by general education. turner believes disciplines are "collectives that identify their special interests, but that are also divisions of labor that are dedicated to the production of people who are taught in a specific way'" (p. 55). he further argues that "disciplines might help supply standardised training, which teaches students what they will need to know to succeed in the market" (p. 52). in contrast to turner's views, henkel (1999) claims that learners will gain both personal abilities in community building and career self-empowerment through engaging with the essential values of disciplines. he has made the statement that learning from the key ideas, concepts, theories, and controversies of a field enables people to gain a better understanding of subjects, develop valuable skills, and get training to do a better job in the workforce and grow the economy. though it may prepare people for the job market, it may also be fantastic preparation for work. many scholars believe they fulfill their obligation to their pupils’ best by doing this. though discipline learning has plenty of positives, it is not without disadvantages. opponents say that learning disciplines can forget about information that is outside their boundaries, since "the restriction of its limits influences a discipline to only be aware of the quantity of knowledge accessible to it" (chettiparamb, 2007, p. 9). many say that habiburrahim habiburrahim englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 53 the "actual world" should be viewed from many perspectives rather than just one static dimension (becher, 1989). 3. multidisciplinary curriculum the phrase ‘multidisciplinary' has various definitions, depending on what each individual has in mind for study. for example, hammer and soderqvist (2001) write that interdisciplinary "references typically refer to when people bring different theories, skills, data, and insights into a single problem" (p. 2). a similar definition comes from chettiparamb (2007), who defines multidisciplinary as "a juxtaposition of many disciplines, sometimes with no obvious link between them, e.g. music + mathematics + history" (p. 19). from the perspective of developing and conducting research that utilizes a variety of methodologies to explore one subject or that promotes interdisciplinary partnerships, the term ‘multidisciplinary' can be used to describe what is being done (those that have connections with each other and those that have not). a multidisciplinary curriculum represents the basic efforts of various disciplines working together to address a problem without breaching disciplinary boundaries, as explained by newhouse and spring (2010). davies and devlin (2007) claim that, in the case of a multidisciplinary curriculum, the various disciplines are considered to be independently separate. higher education is usually focused on a single topic, but the introduction of additional courses, like those that expand the student's intelligence, gives students more flexibility. students who take up a certain field of study should also explore subjects of allied disciplines, say davies and devlin. for instance, an accounting student might study some finance disciplines, as well as economics, in addition to their main concentration. students could be interested in subjects in areas outside of their major, such as history or music (see figure 1). students may consider this interdisciplinary idea while making decisions about their course selections. it emphasizes the importance of learning relevant content in addition to their major and is designed to help students better utilize their time in school. there have been multiple studies conducted on interdisciplinary learning. students who learn many different things are more likely to be better learners and thinkers, and charlton (2006) agrees that it is essential to teach multi-learning and thinking skills to students while not disregarding other beneficial study methodologies. in order to prepare students for future jobs or further education, multidisciplinary study aims to help students acquire cognitive flexibility (charlton, 2006). higher education should provide an opportunity for students to learn about multiple fields and their related information and skills. learning these interrelated subjects as early as possible allows students to broaden their horizons as they choose a field of expertise. exploring curriculum approaches and issues: a descriptive analysis 54 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 figure 1. multidisciplinary approach adopted from (drake & burns, 2004, p. 9) figure 1 above demonstrates the link between many topics that revolve around a similar subject. the information points to the fact that many multidisciplinary methods emphasize individual fields. students learn to appreciate the interplay between the many sub-disciplines through understanding their relationship to the actual world through the framework of multidisciplinary learning, said drake and burns (2004). drake and burns think that teachers should provide a multidisciplinary approach, where students learn through several methods and acquire skills, information, and attitudes. 4. interdisciplinary approach a closer look at the meaning of "interdisciplinary" reveals that it means utilizing several ways of researching one subject. according to jacobs (1998), interdisciplinary is "a knowledge view and curricular approach that purposefully applies methodology and terminology from more than one field to analyze a central theme, issue, problem, topic, or experience" (p. 8). both chettiparamb and newell have made similar perceptions in regards to interdisciplinary work. in her definition of interdisciplinary studies, chettiparamb (2007) includes a description of the interactions between disciplines, explaining that an interdisciplinary course is defined as one in which several disciplines are involved and the goal is to look at a common problem from different angles. the interactions are dynamic and multifaceted, ranging from a common technical framework to diverse ways of managing and developing education. according to chettiparamb (2007), when such disciplines intersect, anything from simple transmission of ideas to reciprocal integration of organizing concepts, techniques and processes to epistemologies, terminologies, and data can occur. this can result in the organization of research and education in a very big field. newell (2001) adds that interdisciplinary learning involves a broad view of the world through using the knowledge of several fields and combining it into a single habiburrahim habiburrahim englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 55 unified concept. interdisciplinary study uses a more complete perspective, synthesizing several disciplines, to form a better understanding. the interdisciplinary study also deals with studying complex topics that other disciplines struggle to examine alone. this is because they tackle the topic from a number of perspectives, rather than only utilizing a single disciplinary methodology. newell (2001) describes interdisciplinary research as a process in which researchers must answer a question, solve a problem, or explore a topic that cannot be covered sufficiently by a single discipline or profession. hammer and soderqvist (2001) say "interdisciplinary" means people and ideas from several fields all working together to come up with solutions. a main component of this project is the merger of two distinct disciplines, physics and education, under the framework of education technology. in line with hammer and soderqvist's definition, newhouse and spring (2010) go on to define ‘interdisciplinary' as a rational connection between disciplines that generates reciprocal interactions. this unity encourages common methods, knowledge, or perspectives. in addition, klein (1990) and hammer (2001) advocate for a unified curricular approach, which "invokes a common epistemology of convergence" (p. 11). interdisciplinary studies incorporate the information and thought patterns of two or more disciplines. this makes it possible for learners to deepen their comprehension, for example, investigating phenomena, posing further questions, and finding answers to a problem (mansila & gardner, 2003).numerous interdisciplinary thinkers agree that the benefit of integration is the ability to use subjects and disciplines as tools for a new purpose (klein, 2002, p. 9). integration is also known as a crucial idea within the interdisciplinary procedure (lattuca, 2001) since it incorporates knowledge and thinking methods from different academic disciplines to more completely understand the topics being studied (mansila & gardner, 2003). golding (2009) further states that in interdisciplinary subjects, students investigate and combine several disciplines and areas of competence, as they would integrate multiple perspectives (p. 3). interdisciplinarity focuses on "process and skills" rather than on knowledge and facts (newell & klein, 1996, p. 164). exploring curriculum approaches and issues: a descriptive analysis 56 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 figure 2. interdisciplinary approach adopted from drake and burns (2004, p. 12) in the interdisciplinary approach, teachers design curricula that are relevant to all students by focusing on learning experiences shared by several subject areas. using the evidence of projects designed and built by students as demonstrations, drake and burns (2004) highlight the value of interdisciplinary learning and the importance of it to students in the learning process. as a creative activity, students read a tale about kites and electromagnetic. students may have learned about proportional and ratio-based ideas while studying electromagnetism, which is important for building a kite. in addition to this interdisciplinary approach, drake and burns say that students have acquired considerable general skills in cooperation and teamwork, as well as research, and design. 5. curriculum change and its influencing factors various studies reveal that when curricular reform occurs, the process aims to strengthen and augment the creation and utilization of academic knowledge (barnett, et al., 2001). the push for curriculum reform in higher education is viewed as a realistic and long-term strategy for increasing the quality of education (ladwig, 2010; akala, 2021). ladwig claims that modern curriculum development is anchored in a commitment to progress and reform because development and education means change in modern times. ladwig's statement points to a mission of impacting students’ futures through innovative curriculum changes. with their standardized curriculum and training, higher education institutions have the ability to create graduates who are skilled and knowledgeable enough to do well in their lives. orrell and higgs (2012, p.41), state that "universities have the potential to be sources of solutions to economic and social problems and challenges, such as producing a properly educated and skilled workforce, reducing inequality and unemployment, and habiburrahim habiburrahim englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 57 serving as sources of new knowledge that contributes to the advancement of economic endeavors and the well-being of the general public". at the heart of curriculum improvement is a primary priority that a university gives students a chance to study and succeed both socially and economically. furthermore, teaching and learning at a university can be enriched significantly by regularly evaluating the curricula and courses that are offered. to promote any meaningful changes, it is important to have a clear understanding of why they are happening. ramsden (2003) argues this stage is the starting point. what sort of alterations do we like to see? to better understand these topics, clark proposes doing a critical review of the most major elements influencing curricular reform, including government and university policies and the relevant labor market or industry trends. 6. government and university policy university curricula have experienced major revisions because of political changes and government policy. many countries, including indonesia, have been obliged to accept the realities of our globalized society. to boost their countries' economies, governments all around the world support educational initiatives relating to human capital (rizvi & lingard, 2010). in aceh, indonesia, for instance, the implementation of islamic law in this region has affected the acehnese education systems and approaches. the new policy has moved the focus of faculty objectives, making it more particular. this change allows graduates of the university to master both general and islamic education. in responding to these government needs, the english education department of universitas islam negeri (uin) ar-raniry fosters strong cooperation with both the national education ministry and the religious affairs ministry in formulating suitable curricula for students studying at this islamic higher education institution. it is expected that students will have a wide range of opportunities to study sciences while retaining their core beliefs through the enrichment of their islamic education and teachings. in a broader perspective, the english education department sees this policy as an opportunity to strengthen the curriculum in order to better prepare acehnese youth for the future. the change could be very important in improving the department's mission of nurturing graduates who have qualifications in the english language and in islamic related teachings. this government and university policy has brought about significant reformation in developing the department's curriculum. it is believed that this curriculum reformation could improve the quality of human resources, particularly in this region in the near future. 7. adapting to labour market people have moved to introduce elements of work into classrooms, reflecting the changing workplace outlook (darling-hammond, 2010; down, et al., 1999; gruba, moffat, sondergaard, & zobel, 2004; hess, 2010). the research by darling-hammond exploring curriculum approaches and issues: a descriptive analysis 58 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 (2010) indicates that as societies have become more complicated, nations in all parts of the world have placed more importance on getting their students to be able to address these challenges with new technologies and the skills to work cooperatively to overcome any problems. to accomplish this, the goals and curriculum of schools are being redesigned. moreover, certain universities, especially in australia and the uk, have highlighted that holding certain knowledge and abilities can help enhance the employment chances of graduates, which confirms that broader traits such as being well-rounded are now fundamental to some university curricula (gibbs, 2012; knight & yorke, 2004). schools and courses must be changed to accommodate students' future job opportunities. as such, educational institutions need to ensure their curricula address the market trends, which will help graduates' employment prospects. a department-level curriculum change is seen as a beginning point for empowering education, and will enable schools to better serve the interests of their various stakeholders, including to support graduates who are moving on to be teachers or other professional workers, helping them expand their job prospects (muluk, habiburrahim, zulfikar, orrell, & mujiburrahman, 2019). because english is thought of as an asset for many different jobs in indonesia, students of the english education department are encouraged to both acquire proficiency in english and other current core competences that will enhance their future education and career opportunities. 8. challenges of curriculum change it is acknowledged that the introduction of new curricula has the potential to result in conflict (burgess, 2004; little, 1993; zembylas, 2010). research demonstrates that school change generates several issues, such as conflict, opposition, unpredictability, and a decline in self-image (zembylas, 2010). in a university context, the hardest issue is dealing with resistance to change (harpe & thomas, 2009). according to arnold and civian (1997), top academics in powerful and prominent positions can be a possible source of opposition. as such, change often results in loss, being anxious, and being put into a stressful situation (fullan, 2007). supporting and protesting changes in the curriculum both occur frequently during the course of developing a new curriculum (qun & wanjin, 2007). various scholars believe that higher education institutions have extreme difficulty when seeking to undertake changes to the curriculum. wormley (2004) asserts that one of the biggest problems organizations encounter in implementing a new reform is dealing with a lack of time, dedication, cooperation, infrastructure preparation, and other important issues like having available resources. most reformists agree that having a better understanding of the change process and a solid relationship with relevant individuals is the most important element for successfully managing change (fullan, 1997; harpe & thomas, 2009). to prepare for potential resistance to their efforts to implement change, fullan (2007) advises leaders to cultivate relationships with many various individuals and habiburrahim habiburrahim englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 59 organizations, especially those who are skeptical of the necessity of change. fullan proposes that curriculum developers must consider a big and small picture (in other words, to think about small, frequent changes versus one big change or a long-term shift) when planning any curriculum changes in order to minimize any potential disagreements in designing and developing a new curriculum. large-scale changes to the course of study normally need a massive overhaul of the university as a whole, whereas even a little adjustment to the curriculum can only be made by the faculty or by each department. but whatever the reform may be, it frequently causes potential obstacles (oliver & hyun, 2011; wormley, 2004). 9. conclusion this paper has highlighted various significant curriculum approaches that can be used in an attempt to empower the educational quality at higher education institutions. those three curriculum approaches; disciplinary, multidisciplinary, and interdisciplinary curriculum approaches have their strengths and weaknesses. however, to improve the analytical skills of students at the tertiary level, an interdisciplinary or integrated curriculum is considered more appropriate. the integrated curriculum allows a student to see an issue from a different perspective, including linking religious values into the sciences and other general education or vice versa. with regard to curriculum changes and their driving factors, in addition, this research shows that the curriculum changes occurred due to changes in government policies and universities themselves and also adjustments to the current employment orientations. finally, the research notes that curriculum changes also have an impact on several important aspects, including resistance from people having side effects from such changes and the unpreparedness of all stakeholders in facing new situations and conditions. therefore, to ensure the changes run well, 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(2010). teacher emotions in the context of educational reforms. in a. hargreaves, a. lieberman, m. fullan & d. hopkin (eds.), second international handbook of educational change new york: springer. http://search.proquest.com/docview/1352129909?accountid=10910 englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2021. vol. 9, no. 1, 183-196 quillbot as an online tool: students’ alternative in paraphrasing and rewriting of english writing tira nur fitria institut teknologi bisnis aas indonesia, surakarta, indonesia tiranurfiria@gmail.com manuscript received j u l y 1 2 , 2021, revised august 8, 2021, first published november 1, 2021, and available online november 7, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i1.10233 recommended apa citation fitria, t. n. (2021). quillbot as an online tool: students’ alternative in paraphrasing and rewriting of english writing. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(1), 183-196. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i1.10233 abstract quillbot is an online application to paraphrase writing, avoid plagiarism, summarize long sentences and improve grammar to be more precise and look professional. the objective of this research is to review the quillbot as an artificial intelligence (ai) tool system for students’ in paraphrasing and rewriting english writing both in the free and premium versions. this research applies descriptive qualitative. the data used is an english abstract article. the results show that quillbot paraphrasing tools use several ways to paraphrase the text: 1) paraphrasing by using equations or synonyms, 2) paraphrasing by changing the form of the word, 3) paraphrasing by using active or passive sentences, and 4) paraphrasing by changing the order of words in sentences. this paraphrasing uses standard mode, which serves to balance changes to the text when users input them but still keeps them from changing the actual (original) meaning of the text, also making the result look more original. quillbot is one of the paraphrasings and summarizing tools that can be used by students for rewriting any content based on a state-of-the-art ai system. this tool can be the students’ alternative which provides a solution by helping paraphrase when students do not have the idea to paraphrase english writing manually. however, a good knowledge of vocabulary and understanding of english grammar, of course, will help students or other users (s) both in using online or manual paraphrasing to be better or the best quality. keywords: quillbot; artificial intelligence (ai); online tool; writing; paraphrasing 1. introduction writing is an aspect of language that is interrelated with aspects of writing other languages. this aspect conveys the ideas that have been prepared by the author in quillbot as an online tool: students’ alternative in paraphrasing and rewriting of english writing 184 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no. 1, november 2021 conveying facts through his writings or the media mass. in the process of writing, a writer must know how to choose a structured language, paraphrasing, vocabulary (fitria, 2018, 2019b). this means that writing is an ability that requires all skills meant to compile ideas that will be conveyed to the reader. election the right words according to the paragraphs that are arranged. compilation paragraphs require sentences to form unified content. then paragraphs must be determined by the rules of syntax, vocabulary, and mastery of correct diction (fitria, 2019a, 2020c). in addition, a paragraph must be composed with the expression of ideas that have been created for the imagination and creation of the author (usman, 2015). writing essays or paragraphs takes a lot of practice (al hassan & ahmed, 2019). writing english is also difficult; therefore, it is not uncommon for students to plagiarize (fitria, 2020a). in the application of writing sentences, essays, or paragraphs in english, one of the techniques that can be used by students is the paraphrasing technique. with this technique, students are expected to be able to develop and sequence ideas correctly, logically, and following the logic of the language so that it will not change the meaning of a text/essay in the essay. the ability to develop and show our comprehension of concepts via paraphrasing is an essential academic skill in writing (hudson, 2006). while na, nhat, and xuan (2017) also state that paraphrasing is a crucial skill in academic writing, it is a cognitive skill that involves higher-order thinking as well as strong reading and writing skills. basori (2017) states that limitations to reformulating the meaning content and changing the structure of the sentence can encourage to use of paraphrasing techniques. paraphrasing is often difficult for students because they tend to want to simply repeat the original text (o’reilly, 2012). this statement is in line with the research from shi (2012) that the students have difficulties in understanding how to paraphrase to avoid plagiarism. paraphrasing is the practice of rewriting a section from a written text in the manner and style of the paraphraser rather than the original author (soles, 2003). this statement also is supported by wilhoit (2003, p. 58) that paraphrase is not likely to be the same because each writer chooses what information to include, what language to use, and how to organize their para, no two are likely to be identical. there are several ways to rewrite a sentence or paraphrase. writers should follow these several steps to paraphrase sentences/paragraphs effectively. they should pay attention to each step to create a good paraphrase (ramadhani, 2019). these methods include using word equations or synonyms, changing the order of words in sentences, changing word forms, and changing sentence forms from active sentences to passive sentences, or vice versa (fitria, 2020b). several previous studies were conducted in relation with paraphrase. the first research was written by usman (2015) aimed to improve students' capacity to paraphrase poetry into prose and to describe how the paraphrase technique improves students' ability to paraphrase poetry into prose. the method could improve secondgrade students’ skill to paraphrase poetry into prose at smp al-ittihat pekanbaru. the tira nur fitria englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no. 1, november 2021 | 185 second research was written by basori (2017) focusing on methods and approaches for paraphrasing phrases in a passage that substantially improved academic writing by presenting reasoning for academic objectives, providing examples, and providing succinct processes. the third research was done by waningyun, suwandi, & setyawan (2018). their findings revealed that the paraphrasing technique could: 1) improve short story writing skills by 70% for pre-cycle, 76 percent for the first cycle, and 80 percent for the second cycle; 2) increase the percentage of students passing the minimum score by 52 percent for pre-cycle, 74 percent for the first cycle, and 80 percent for the second cycle; and 3) improve the percentage of students passing the minimum score by 52 percent for pre-cycle, 76 percent for the first cycle, and 80 percent for the second cycle. the fourth research by ramadhani (2019) found that the availability of paraphrase could be a means of avoiding plagiarism. writers might use their own words to paraphrase a straight quotation from someone. the fifth research by nurhana, siddik, and ridhani (2020) revealed that the development of instructional materials for short story writing using paraphrase methods received a 95 percent average score. with a very excellent category, the validation findings yielded an average score of 93.52 percent. the practicality of teaching materials for short story writing using paraphrase methods had an average value of 67.8 and 86.7 posttests, as well as field trials with an average value of 73.75 and posttests with an average value of 88.18 percent in the very good category. based on these previous studies above, research discussing about quillbot as one of online paraphrasing tool is still understudied. as those studies explored about conventional paraphrasing techniques, the researcher is interested to investigate on an automatic paraphrasing tool named quillbot. quillbot is one of the most popular free, paraphrasing tools. quillbot offers a product that uses artificial intelligence (ai) to suggest paraphrases (dale, 2020). according to fitria (2021), the ai method blends deep learning with some approaches to natural language analysis. what it does is automatically takes away, adds, or changes words to create a brand new sentence. quillbot provides a solution by helping paraphrase when teachers and students do not have the idea to paraphrase writing manually (kusuma, 2020a, p. 64). the use of this tool is simple. quillbot rewrites texts after we write or paste the texts and then press the paraphrase button (kinga & gupta, 2021). in light of these discussions, the objective of this research is to review the quillbot as an ai tool system for teachers and students’ in paraphrasing and rewriting english writing both in free and premium versions. 2. literature review 2.1. paraphrasing murray (2012) states that when we paraphrase another writer, we must doublecheck our work to verify that our interpretation of their idea(s) is entirely correct. quillbot as an online tool: students’ alternative in paraphrasing and rewriting of english writing 186 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no. 1, november 2021 paraphrasing is just writing something in our own words that convey the original concept of a section in a book or other research source (trivette, 2020). a paraphrase is an attempt to restate ideas expressed by someone else in a new form (fandl & smith, 2014). with the ever-increasing need for paraphrasing tools as a means of avoiding plagiarism automatically (bairagi & munot, 2019). from the explanation above, it can be concluded simply that in paraphrasing activities, we make new words and/or sentences in a paragraph without losing the meaning of the paragraph. it's like we listen to a story from someone else and retell it in our own words without changing the meaning. paraphrasing is an operation that makes the source text easier to understand while keeping the original meaning intact and only slightly changing its structure. 2.2. paraphrasing tools a paraphrasing tool is a program that allows people to edit text so that it has different words without changing their meaning (bin & michael, 2019). we have probably heard the terms "paraphrase" or "rewrite" and here is how they work. the paraphrasing tool works with two text sources: the copied text that you used and the original text (if available). the program reads the source text and then generates a new text containing the same meaning (kinkead, 2015). quillbot is an affordable paraphrasing tool available on the market that uses state-of-the-art ai to paraphrase any piece of content (class, 2020). it is supported by yadav (2021). quillbot's paraphraser takes our sentences and adjusts them, allowing you to easily rework and rewrite our content. the tool's goal is to rewrite material by altering the structure of sentences and replacing words with synonyms while maintaining the original content's meaning. quillbot was established in 2017 by rohit gupta, anil jason, and david silin, three computer science students. since then, they've been adding new features and increasing the product's quality daily (kusuma, 2020b). quillbot not only provides a paraphrasing tool, but also a summarizing and grammatical checking tool all in one place. quillbot is an online application that is used to help paraphrase writing to avoid plagiarism, summarize long sentences and improve grammar to make it more precise and look professional (williams & davis, 2017). this application has been trusted to help students, writers, bloggers, teaching staff, and so on (chapelle & sauro, 2019). quillbot has a limit of up to 400 characters that can be paraphrased in the free version. this application consists of two versions, namely free and premium. the advantage of this application is that it is time-efficient, and can quickly paraphrase sentences in english. in the premium version, this tool can increase the maximum limit to 10,000 characters. quillbot has seven useful features, including 1) standard mode, which serves to balance changes to the text that you input by keeping it from changing the actual meaning of the text and making it look more original; 2) fluency mode, which is a tira nur fitria englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no. 1, november 2021 | 187 feature that focuses on making text look natural and using correct and proper grammar in english. this feature makes only minor changes to the text, but it will retain the original meaning of the text well; 3) creativity mode, which focuses on changing as much as possible in the inputted text. however, this may result in the meaning or overall coherence of the results being altered. this mode can be useful if your text wants to look very different from the original text; 4) creative+mode, which is used to make changes that are more intuitive and more grammatical in-depth, such as common phrases or sayings; 5) formal mode, which is a mode that functions to change the text so that it sounds more appropriate for a formal audience. this mode is great if you are writing in an academic or business context; 6) shorten mode, serves to shorten the text as much as possible while maintaining the meaning in it. shorten mode is especially useful if you are trying to reduce the word count or the overall size of the text; and 7) expand mode, serves to try to increase the length of the text by adding more words if possible. this mode is useful if you want to have a higher overall word count. quillbot free users can only access standard and fluency modes. meanwhile, creative, creative+, shorten, expand, and formal modes are only available for the premium version. 3. method this research applied a descriptive qualitative method. in general, the main purpose of qualitative research is about descriptive, understanding, and interpretation (lichtman, 2010). in collecting data, this research used document. given (2015) states that documents can be used as the sole focus for data collection and analysis. the document used in this research is an english abstract of a journal article (fitria, 2021b). in analyzing the data, this research chose the text of an english abstract, copied the text into quillbot both in a free and premium version, delivered the result of paraphrasing in several pictures, analyzed the paraphrasing results (texts), and described them descriptively. 4. findings the objective of this research is to review the quillbot as an ai tool system for students’ in paraphrasing and rewriting english writing. in this research, there are several findings related to the paraphrasing of the english abstract by using quillbot both in a free and premium version, as follows: quillbot as an online tool: students’ alternative in paraphrasing and rewriting of english writing 188 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no. 1, november 2021 4.1. first examples of quillbot free vs premium versions picture 1. paraphrasing texts using quillbot free version (1) the picture above shows the result of paraphrasing using quillbot in the free version especially in standard mode. the “standard mode” is the quillbot default setting. this mode strikes a balance between making modifications to the text and preserving the message and making it seem as natural as possible. on the left side is original text, while on the right side is the paraphrasing result (orange text). as we can see, in original text, the word “impact” is paraphrased into “effect”, the word “development” is paraphrased into “advancement”. the sentence “the purpose of this research is to know…” is paraphrased into “this study is to learn about”. the word “weaknesses” is paraphrased into “limitations”. the clause “this research applies” is paraphrased into “the study employs”. the word “implementing” is paraphrased into “adopting”. the word” was made” is paraphrased into “was created”. this means that there is using equations or synonyms of the word. the sentence “itb aas indonesia began implementing e-learning to support face-to-face classrooms in the academic year 2020/2021” is paraphrased into “in the academic year 2020/2021, itb aas indonesia began adopting e-learning to supplement face-to-face classes”. it means that there is changing the sentence order). in the original text, the adverb of time “in the academic year 2020/2021” is located in the beginning, but the paraphrasing result shows that the adverb of time is located at the end of the sentence. while the other example also shows similar proof. the phrase “e-learning platform” is paraphrased into “the platform for e-learning…”. it means that there is changing of word order. the clause “the study shows” is paraphrased into “the study found”. it means that the changing of tenses of the simple present into simple past in paraphrasing result. then, the clause “that can be accessed at the institution website” is paraphrased into “which may be accessible through the institution website”. this clause seems quite convoluted. tira nur fitria englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no. 1, november 2021 | 189 picture 2. paraphrasing texts using quillbot premium version (1) picture 2 above shows the result of paraphrasing using quillbot in the premium version especially in standard mode. this shows that more change in synonym. standard mode is the quillbot default setting. this mode strikes a balance between making modifications to the text and preserving the message and making it seem as natural as possible. on the left side is original text, while on the right side is the paraphrasing result (orange text). as we can see, in original text, the word “impact” is paraphrased into “effect”, the word “development” is paraphrased into “advancement”. the word “using” is paraphrased into clause “via the use”. the clause “the result of the study shows” is changed into “the research found”. it means that the changing of tenses of the simple present into simple past in paraphrasing result. then, the clause “that can be accessed at the institution website” is changed into “that can be accessible via the institution’s website”. this clause seems quite convoluted. the sentence “the purpose of this research is to know…” is changed into “this study is to learn about”. the word “strengths” is changed into “limitations”. the clause “this research applies” is changed into “the study employs”. the phrase “began implementing” is changed into “started using”. the word” was made” is changed into “was created”. this means that there is using equations or synonyms of the word. the sentence “itb aas indonesia began implementing e-learning to support face-to-face classrooms in the academic year 2020/2021” is changed into “in the academic year 2020/2021, itb aas indonesia started using e-learning to supplement face-to-face classes”. it means that there is changing the sentence order). in original text, the adverb of time “in the academic year 2020/2021” is located in the beginning, but the paraphrasing result shows that the adverb of time is located at the end of the sentence. while the other example also shows similar proof. the phrase “e-learning quillbot as an online tool: students’ alternative in paraphrasing and rewriting of english writing 190 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no. 1, november 2021 platform” is changed into “the platform for e-learning…”. it means that there is changing of word order. 4.2. second examples of quillbot free vs premium versions picture 3. paraphrasing texts using quillbot free version (2) picture 3 shows the result of paraphrasing using quillbot in the free version especially in standard mode. on the left side is original text, while on the right side is the paraphrasing result (orange text). as we can see, in original text, the word “several” is changed into “various”. the word (conjunction) “but” is changing into “however”. the word “several” is changed into “numerous”. the word “weaknesses” is changed into “limitations”. the word “implementation” is changed into “deployment”. the clause “several menus available” is changed into “a variety of meals are offered”. it shows that “menus” is changed into “meals”, and “available” is changed into “are offered”. the word “a lot of” is changed into “large amount”. the phrase “look good” is changed into “appear nice”. the word “opened” is changed into “viewed”. then, the word “making” is changed into “creating”. here, there are changes of a word based on the synonym. the clause “based on the implementation of e-learning…” is changed into “…based on the application of e-learning,…”. it shows that there is changing the position of the sentence order. in original text, the clause “based on the implementation” is located in the beginning, but the paraphrasing result shows that the clause is located in the middle of the sentence. tira nur fitria englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no. 1, november 2021 | 191 picture 4. paraphrasing texts using quillbot premium version (2) the picture above shows the result of paraphrasing using quillbot in the premium version especially in standard mode. this shows more changes in synonyms. on the left side is original text, while on the right side is paraphrasing result (orange text). as we can see, in original text, the word “several” is changed into “many”. the word “implementation” is changed into “application”. the word “such as” is changed into “including”. the word (conjunction) “but” is changing into “however”. the word “several” is changed into “numerous”. the word “weaknesses” is changed into “limitations”. the clause “several menus available” is changed into “a variety of meals are offered”. it shows that “menus” is changed into “meals”, and “available” is changed into “are offered”. the phrase “look good” is changed into “appear nice”. the word “opened” is changed into “viewed”. then, the word “making” is changed into “creating”. the word “material” is changed into “content”. the clause “there may be the possibility…” is changed into “it’s possible that…”. this paraphrasing to be simpler but still same meaning. here, there are changes of a word based on the synonym. the clause “sending material incorrectly” is changed into “to be sent improperly”. the word “incorrectly” is changed into “improperly”, while the word “sending” as ving (present participle/present continuous” and the active form is changed into “to be sent” or “to be + v3” as passive form. the sentence “this application does not have the facilities…” is changed into “there are no features…in this program”. this uses other words but still shows the same meaning. the word “facilities” is changed into “features”. the phrase “this application” is changed into “this program”. there is also changing the position of the word order in the sentence. the sentence “in making multiple-choice question assignments, there is still a manual import feature” at the beginning of a sentence, this clause is changed into “there is still a manual import option for making multiple-choice question assignments” to be at the end of the sentence. there is changing position of word order in the sentence. besides, the word “feature” is changed into “option”. the sentence “equillbot as an online tool: students’ alternative in paraphrasing and rewriting of english writing 192 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no. 1, november 2021 learning does not have a video conference feature” is changed into “there is no video conferencing option in e-learning”. this example shows that changing the word order in the sentence. the clause “video conference” is changed into “video conferencing”. these words are still in the same meaning. the sentence “in printing grades into a file pdf, an additional application is required” is changed into “a separate program is needed to print grades into a pdf file”. here, there is changing the position of word order in the sentence. several words also changed, such as the word “required” is changing into “needed” which shows the synonym with the same meaning. the word “in printing” present participle form is changed into “to print” to be “to + infinitive” form. the sentence “e-learning cannot record learning and participants in a video” is changed into “video recording of e-learning and participants is not possible with e-learning”. this paraphrased is quite different but still in the same meaning. then, the sentence “this application does not have an installer version on the android/smartphone” is changed into “this program does not have an android/smartphone installation version”. the phrase “application” is changed into “program”. the phrase “an installer version of the android/smartphone” is changed into “an android/smartphone installation version”. there is changing of word order in this sentence. the word “installer version” is changed into “installation version”. 5. discussion in this research, this paraphrasing of quillbot used standard mode, which serves to balance changes to the input text while still keeping it from changing the actual (original) meaning of the text and making the result look more original. in making paraphrases by using quillbot, there are several ways of paraphrasing analyzed in this research, they are as follows: 1. paraphrasing using equations or synonyms synonyms or synonyms are when two different words have the same meaning or meaning. in indonesian, for example, the words can and can have the same meaning but are two different words. by changing a few words in a sentence, it can be said that the sentence has been changed. this method is the most basic in paraphrasing. the thing to note is the use of the right synonyms because two words can have meanings that at first glance are similar but are different. when paraphrasing it is necessary to change some of the vocabulary, but not all of it. therefore, it is necessary to identify which words/phrases cannot be changed (chin et al., 2012). 2. paraphrasing by changing the order of words in sentences changing the word order is another way to paraphrase. in changing the order of words, so that the sentence remains following the applicable rules, sometimes there are additions or subtractions of words that need to be done. the easiest way to change the word order is in a compound sentence by changing the clauses used. paraphrasing can also be a combination of changing the order of words in a sentence and using word equations or synonyms together. tira nur fitria englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no. 1, november 2021 | 193 3. paraphrasing by changing the form of the word the form of the word referred to in this section is the type of word whether the word is a verb, adjective, adverb, and so on. to keep the meaning of the sentence the same and not violate the rules of grammar, sometimes other words need to be changed, added, or removed. 4. paraphrasing by using active or passive sentences in sentences that have subjects, verbs, and objects, they can be changed from active sentences to passive sentences, or vice versa, from passive sentences to active sentences. the study also found that in quillbot, a free account is one created by a user and is available for use without payment. there are three modes available, three synonyms settings, and the ability to paraphrase up to 700 characters at once. in contrast, a premium account of quillbot is connected with a paid subscription. these accounts include all of the same features as free accounts, including others that are only available to premium users. the following are some of the advantages that premium accounts, are: 1) increased character limit: premium accounts now can paraphrase and summarize up to 10,000 characters at a time. 2) a premium account enables four more modes: creative+, shorten, expand, and formal. 3) the highest synonyms option: the highest level allows you to use synonyms to replace as many words as feasible. 4) faster processing: premium accounts' content is paraphrased more quickly. 5) compare settings: this function allows users to compare findings by seeing a single text in various modes at the same time. 6) freeze words: the paraphraser's ability to prevent particular words or phrases from being changed. 7) show longest unaltered words: this allows users to view the longest portion of your text after paraphrase that stays the same as the original. paraphrasing is a way of conveying an idea or concept in another relevant language, without reducing or adding to the original content. paraphrasing is used as an alternative to the quoting method in writing. besides, the purpose of using paraphrasing is to avoid the possibility of plagiarism, especially in writings that use many reference sources in the writing process. with the exponentially increasing need for paraphrasing as a tool to avoid plagiarism, students who may have problems in paraphrasing can use quillbot as an alternative to paraphrase source texts. paraphrasing is one way to borrow ideas from a source without plagiarizing. paraphrasing, or recasting source material in our own words, is one way to avoid the choppiness that can result from a series of quotations (hopko, scott, & garrison, 2017). writing english by using the paraphrasing technique is an alternative that uses the students’ words to express the same idea. besides, in making ideas easier to understand, paraphrasing can also be used to maintain coherence and coherence in the flow of their writing. quillbot is a paraphrasing and summarizing tool that helps millions of students and professionals reduce their writing time in half by rewriting any phrase, paragraph, quillbot as an online tool: students’ alternative in paraphrasing and rewriting of english writing 194 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no. 1, november 2021 or essay using state-of-the-art ai. to paraphrase our content using quillbot, we can copy and paste the text we wish to paraphrase into the editor or upload our document from your computer. after that, we must choose from standard, fluency, creative, creative+, formal, shorten, and expand modes. the quality of the paraphrased text is mostly determined by these styles. apart from that, adjacent to the modes is a “synonyms” slider. we may modify the frequency of the words substituted in the paraphrased results by changing the corresponding slider. using quillbot paraphrasing tools has several advantages, including: first, saving time when writing. quillbot's paraphrase tool uses cutting-edge ai to rewrite a sentence, paragraph, or article. quillbot may help the users enhance writing immediately by removing superfluous words and assisting the users in delivering a clear message. second, quillbot help identifying the correct synonyms. quillbot has a builtin thesaurus feature that allows the users to quickly alter specific words to get the right term every time. third, it boosts clarity and meaning. quillbot's writing modes allow users to write in users preferred style. they will receive the results they need right away, whether it's for grammar, brevity, or originality. fourth, it has rich vocabulary. quillbot's word flipper allows the users to quickly alter more (or less) of texts. fifth, it is integrated. quillbot works with microsoft® office, google docs, and google chrome directly. sixth, it is trusted by millions of users such as students, authors, bloggers, and business people all around the world. quillbot is used by over 2 million people who want to write better, quicker, and more clearly. seventh, it is available in a premium version. quillbot premium may help the users experience better features. 6 . conclusion quillbot is a convenient paraphrasing tool available on the market that uses stateof-the-art ai to paraphrase any piece of content. the tool's main goal is to rewrite text material by altering the structure of sentences and replacing words with synonyms while maintaining the original content's meaning. this tool can be the students’ alternative to paraphrase when students do not have 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(2021). contemporary research in management. bhilai, india: orangebooks publication. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2023. vol.10, no.2, 164-178 english learning motivation and pragmatic competence: correlational study of non-english major postgraduate students in java muhammad syahied hidayatullah*, nur hidayanto universitas negeri yogyakarta, indonesia manuscript received september 28, 2022, revised november 8, 2022, accepted november 13, 2022, and published online may 7, 2023. recommended apa citation hidayatullah, m. s., & hidayanto, n. (2023). english learning motivation and pragmatic competence: correlational study of non-english major postgraduate students in java. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(2), 164-178. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.15130 abstract this research aims to investigate the significant relationship between english learning motivation and pragmatic competence of non-english major postgraduate students and their current pragmatic competence. 350 non-english major postgraduate students from javanese provinces (west, central, and east java) participated in this study. this study was quantitative research in the form of a correlational study by using one adapted questionnaire (attitude and motivation test battery (amtb)) for english learning motivation and two kinds of adapted pragmatic competence tests (multiple-choice discourse completion test (mdct) and written discourse completion test (wdct)). the data were analyzed by using normality test, linearity test, bivariate pearson product moment, and descriptive statistical analysis by ibm spss 26. the finding indicated english learning motivation correlated with english pragmatic competence. although the correlation degree was 0.563 which had a moderate degree of correlation, they have a positive correlation which means the english learning motivation has contributed to the pragmatic competence. the current level of the non-english major postgraduate students’ pragmatic competence in javanese provinces was categorized as still developing because the students hardly understand responses in the pragmatic competence test, especially in pragmatic awareness. keywords: english learning motivation; pragmatic competence; correlational study *corresponding author: muhammad syahied hidayatullah universitas negeri yogyakarta jl. colombo yogyakarta no.1, karang malang, depok, kabupaten sleman, diy, 55281, indonesia email: syahiedsahed@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.15130 muhammad syahied hidayatullah & nur hidayanto englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 165 1. introduction some linguists defined pragmatics as a study of contextual meaning related to spoken utterance in specific speech situations (leech, 1989). language learners can understand the contextual meaning in speech situations if they have self-ability to recognize and comprehend the context in a certain communication, particularly in speech acts (requests, offers, apologies, etc.) (yule, 2017). the self-ability refers to language learners’ assumptions, expectations, and purposes or goals in their communicative activities like speech acts. therefore, language learners’ self-ability to understand the context in various speech acts is developed by linguists to reduce incorrect interpretations of a context in communicative activity (lavinson, 1983; leech, 1989; yule, 2017). the linguists called self-ability pragmatic competence. canale and swain (1980) proposed pragmatics competence as an important component of communicative competence. if there is a pragmatic error between locutors and interlocutors, a serious misinterpretation of spoken utterance will occur in their communicative activities. pragmatics competence is comprised of two easily understandable components: pragmatics knowledge and pragmatics processing (ziashahabi, jabbari, & razmi, 2020). pragmatics knowledge is the ability to comprehend and produce speech acts. meanwhile, pragmatics processing refers to the ability to apply pragmatic knowledge in various daily communicative situations (farashaiyan & tan, 2012). farashaiyan and tan (2012) asserted that pragmatic knowledge contributes to grasping and producing language learners’ assumptions and perspectives. a factor that influenced language learners’ assumptions and perspectives in the acquisition of their second language (henceforth l2) is the learning environment (farashaiyan & tan, 2012). tajeddin et al., (2014) proposed that the l2 learning environment has an important role to create l2 learners’ comprehension of social contextual meaning, especially in spoken utterances as part of pragmatic competence. as a result, the social-learning environment contexts influence the l2 learner’s assumptions and perspectives, and then the assumptions and perspectives enable them to provide interactive opportunities in the l2 communicative activities easily and to enhance the acquisition and production of interlanguage pragmatic (henceforth ilp) in l2 learning. the interlanguage pragmatic (ilp) research focuses on examining how non-native speakers comprehend and carry out linguistic action (speaking and comprehending or writing and reading) in their language target, as well as how they acquire pragmatics knowledge during the second language acquisition process (astia, 2020; tajeddin & moghadam, 2012). tajeddin and moghadam (2012) claimed that l2 acquisition is not only influenced by the social environment but also by l2 learners’ individual differences themselves. individual differences refer to personal characteristics applying to everybody and on which people differ by degrees (dornyei, 2015). dornyei (2015) mentioned personal characteristics as individual differences which consist of some attributes like anxiety, self-efficacy, self-confidence, self-control, and motivation. english learning motivation and pragmatic competence: correlational study….. 166 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 nowadays, motivation as one of the individual differences attributes has received much attention in response by some researchers (khorshidi & nimchahi, 2013; tajeddin & moghadam, 2012), especially for the l2 learning environments. some motivation factors like enthusiasm and attitude believe to play an important role in creating l2 learners’ comprehension in their l2 learning acquisition like l2 pragmatic competence (tajeddin & moghadam, 2012). tajeddin and moghadam (2012) named the enthusiasm and attitude for acquiring the l2 pragmatic competence “pragmatic motivation” because pragmatic motivation as individual differences can be influenced by the l2 learning environment then determine learners’ active involvement in the l2 learning process to get certain information (khorshidi & nimchahi, 2013). some researchers (badrkoohi, 2018; mirzaei & forouzandeh, 2013) analyzed the contribution of l2 learning motivation in communicative situations. badrkoohi (2018), mirzaei and forouzandeh (2013) examined the relationship between l2 motivation (factors causing an increase in motivational level), l2 demotivation (factors causing a decrease in motivational level), and l2 intercultural communicative competence (icc) (the ability to communicate effectively in various cultural context). their research tried to find out not only the relationship between these variables but also the influence of these variables on a successful interaction in the l2 communicative competence. in conclusion, there was a strong relationship between l2 intercultural communicative competence and l2 motivation but negatively related to l2 demotivation, so l2 motivation influences successful communicative competence. tajeddin and moghadam (2012) supported this by claiming that pragmatic competence is part of communicative competence. on other hand, tajeddin, moghadam (2012) and zarrinabadi et al., (2021) examined the relationship between pragmatic aspects such as ilp motivation, pragmatic production, pragmatics mindset, and pragmatics behaviors. they found that the pragmatic aspects can help l2 learners to recognize, predict, evaluate, and confirm conformity to the norms of polite speech acts when they interact by using their second or foreign language. based on the previous studies (badrkoohi, 2018; mirzaei & forouzandeh, 2013; tajeddin & moghadam, 2012; zarrinabadi et al., 2021), some gaps like the correlation among intercultural communicative competence (icc), pragmatic competence, affective variables in individual differences (e.g., motivation, anxiety, self-efficacy, selfconfidence), l2 learning, gender role, and differences are unexplored previously. badrkoohi (2018), zand-moghadam, and adeh (2020) replenished that l2 learning motivation is an important aspect of pragmatic competence, and also pragmatic competence has a significant role in building communicative competence. therefore, this current study aims to fill some of the gaps by analyzing the relationship between l2 learning motivation and l2 pragmatic competence. non-english major postgraduate students in the selected universities of javanese provinces (west, central, and east java) are chosen as the subject. the non-english major postgraduate students were chosen for this study because english in indonesia especially for postgraduate students in java is required as an important subject for university entrance tests and graduation requirements. muhammad syahied hidayatullah & nur hidayanto englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 167 the research questions constructed in this research are: (1) is there any significant relationship between l2 learning motivation and l2 pragmatic competence of nonenglish major postgraduate students in javanese provinces?, (2) what is the current level of non-english major postgraduate students’ pragmatic competence in terms of pragmatic awareness and pragmatic production in javanese provinces?. the contribution of this study is to provide l2 learners’ learning motivation to the l2 pragmatic competence awareness and production and then to improve their comprehension of contextual meaning in l2 communicative situations, especially for non-english major postgraduate students. 2. literature review 2.1. concept of l2 learning motivation gardner and lambert (1959) were the first researchers who investigated and associated the first concept of l2 learning motivation, which is called a socio-educational theory. the socio-educational theory indicated attitude and motivation in the implication of learning a second or foreign language. the socio-educational theory model consisted of four components, namely: (1) the social milieu, (2) individual differences (3) second language acquisition (sla) context, and (4) outcomes (gardner & lalonde, 1985). these components concern intelligence, language aptitude, situational anxiety, language acquisition contexts, and language learning outcomes all of them are believed to have a significant role in determining achievement in second language learning (gardner & lambert, 1959). although this theory model seems applicable to individuals irrespective of the status of the ethnic groups in the l2 learners’ community, this theoretical model is concerned with minority group members as an ethnic identity solely for second language acquisition. this theory inspired other researchers later like krashen (1982) with his monitor model theory. the other theory, the monitor model theory (krashen, 1982) in the principle and practice of second language acquisition, is similar to the socio-educational theory model that also focused on attitude and motivation and the implication of second language learning. the component in this model theory focused on consciousness in learning, especially second language learning. krashen (1982) proposed that conscious l2 learning composes of a self-correction process in correcting errors or perceiving them to be errors. the process happens before the sentence is spoken by the speakers. the monitor model for l2 acquisition needs some conditions to be equipped, namely need time to improve, memorize patterns and routines, and use social awareness in the utilizing of the first language. then, the motivation facilitates those conditions as instigators to act or learn. in conclusion, both socio-educational and monitor model theories are concerned with l2 learners’ efforts to learn how l2 learners acquire and utilize a second language and to use their second language in the l2 speech community. the learners' effort is realized as a relative variable, so every learner has a different degree of effort to learn a second language. ryan (1985) named it in his selfenglish learning motivation and pragmatic competence: correlational study….. 168 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 determination theory as individual differences. the individual differences in ryan's (1985) self-determination theory (sdt) emphasized the role of motivation and personality in self-regulation, such as self-confidence, anxiety, emotion, and attitude. self-regulation impressed the importance of motivation for a given activity. the selfdetermination theory divided motivation into two kinds of motivation, namely extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation (deci & ryan, 1985, 2000). the self-determination theory is utilized as a psychological instrument by l2 learners to grow internal motivation or intrinsic motivation because it has an important role in creating learners’ perceptions. intrinsic motivation means to do some activities because of inherently interesting or enjoyable, not for external reinforcements or rewards but extrinsic motivation refers to activities for obvious reinforcements or rewards (deci & ryan, 2000). in other words, intrinsic motivation comes from personal factors like engaging in learning second language activities because of enjoyment and get personal satisfaction from learning second language activities. extrinsic motivation of learning second language activities may come up from a certain purpose on the outcomes to gain an external reward for the return such as money, grade, and praise. therefore, both socio-educational and monitor model theories of motivation are the social psychological theory of l2 motivation. then, the monitor model theory by krashen (1982) mentioned some factors in the awareness of motivation in the second or foreign language learning, namely self-image, self-expression, self-analysis, self-correction, and self-confidence which have similarity with self-determination theory that the progress and outcome of language learning are determined by the l2 learners’ individuality. for instance, their attitude and motivation to achieve a goal in their language target. in final conclusion, the theories explained above create a schematic abstract about how motivation relates to l2 learners’ characteristics like the sociological concept (ethnic identity) and individual differences (intelligence, language aptitude, anxiety, and language acquisition contexts) that influence second language acquisition outcomes. moreover, these motivational theories concern l2 learners’ effort in learning and using a second language in the second language speech community. the contribution of these models is to find out how l2 learners acquire and utilize a second or foreign language. the self-determination theory framework has a role in creating l2 learners’ perceptions to increase their motivation including internal motivation or intrinsic motivation. as explained previously, those motivation theories such as socio-educational theory (gardner, 1985, 2006), monitor model (krashen, 1982), and self-determination theory (deci & ryan, 1985) are categorized as affective factors in individual differences. ryan (1985) has similar perceptions like the sociological concept and individual differences in the motivation concept of foreign and second language acquisition. consequently, the implementation of similar assessments for l2 learners’ motivation assured to get same purposes and goals. however, the self-determination theory expects language learners to get extrinsic motivation firstly until they get their motivation-awareness like self-image, muhammad syahied hidayatullah & nur hidayanto englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 169 self-expression, self-analysis, self-correction, and self-confidence because of their competence. the process to evoke intrinsic motivation occurs continuously. 2.2. concept of l2 pragmatic competence some linguists (lavinson, 1983; leech, 1989; yule, 2017) defined pragmatics as a study of meaning relate to speech-situation context. the utterance in the speech-situation meaning context referred to a place and situation where the utterance happens, especially for the particular local condition (leech, 1989). the local condition consisted of some aspects, such as different cultures, language communities, social situations, and different social classes which aspects influence language users’ self-ability like assumptions, expectations, and purposes or goals in various speech acts (like requests, offers, apologies, etc.) (lavinson, 1983; yule, 2017). alfghe and mohammadzadeh (2021) asserted that language users’ self-ability significantly affects their understanding to spoken-utterance meaning context in their various speech acts. afterward, self-ability like assumptions and expectations help language users to create their language skill and language style in daily usage, including how they speak, pronounce, and understand the context of utterances. the way people understand utterance context to create the way to speak and pronounce is called pragmatic competence. pragmatic competence is a knowledge and a basic competence required to comprehend and produce discourse (e.g. speech acts) to reduce pragmatic errors or misunderstandings between locutors and interlocutors (bachman, 1990; canale & swain, 1980). the knowledge is affected by language users’ communicative competence and their first-language cultures for creating basic pragmatic competence. then, it enables language users to correlate signals from linguistic actions and references of spoken utterances to their interpretation for understanding relevant contexts. moreover, there are two kinds of knowledge known as pragmatic components, namely pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic knowledge (ajabshir, 2019; bardovi–harlig & su, 2018; farashaiyan & tan, 2012; leech, 1989). pragmalinguistic knowledge refers to the knowledge for realizing speech intention and linguistic forms (e.g. grammar, phonology, syntax, and so on) to express the intention of a specific meaning. then, the sociopragmatic refers to knowledge of social conditions (for example, the environment, cultures, communities, social classes, and behaviors) that comprise language use in society (farashaiyan & tan, 2012; leech, 1989). the use of pragmalinguistics helps language users to understand their sociopragmatic and awareness of “when and what” to use appropriate speech acts in appropriate situations based on social conditions. according to ajabshir (2019), sociopragmatic aims to improve language learners’ recognition for addressing communicative activities courteously, whereas pragmalinguistic leads to an allocation of language users to address terms, strategies, and formulating expressions in courteous communicative activities. therefore, pragmalinguistics plays a significant role in l2 users’ awareness of specific linguistic resources as basic knowledge that provides an english learning motivation and pragmatic competence: correlational study….. 170 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 ability to convey specific illocutions. the role of sociopragmatic as a social ideology creates politeness aspects in various social conditions like environments, cultures, and communities that make l2 learners have different assumptions and perspectives in the interpretations, such as in indonesia, england, or american society. 3. method 3.1. research design this study was quantitative research that focused on a survey by implementing correlational technique analysis to examine the link between english (as a second language) learning motivation and l2 pragmatic competence of non-english major postgraduate students in javanese provinces. 3.2. participants the participants in this study were 350 (188 females and 162 males) non-english major postgraduate students at 15 of 85 public universities in the 3 provinces of java (west java, central java, and east java) – indonesia. the universities are selected as a sample of the population in this research by using probability sampling as a sampling method and simple random sampling as a sampling technique because this research has a homogenous population who are non-english major postgraduate students (creswell, 2012; sugiyono, 2015). moreover, the selected universities are based on the importance of english for postgraduate students as a university entrance test and graduation requirements (journal submission and pro tefl test) by the students in the universities, so they have basic competence, same quality, and characteristics in english to participate in this research. their ages ranged from 21-42 years old (mean= 28). 3.3. data collection intending to measure non-english major postgraduate students’ l2 learning motivation and l2 pragmatic competence, a questionnaire and tests are used as instruments to collect the data. the first instrument is a multiple-choice l2 learning motivation, which was adapted from gardner's (2004) attitude/motivation test battery (amtb) to assess participants’ l2 learning motivation. the questionnaire contents have been restored for making it compatible to be distributed to non-english major postgraduate students. there were 20-modified items including 4 categories about l2 learners’ intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, namely (1) self-esteem and attitudes toward learning english, (2) interest and realization of the importance of learning english, (3) parents’ support in learning english, and (4) teacher’s support in learning english. this questionnaire is measured by using five points likert scales (1=strongly disagree, 2= disagree, 3= moderate, 4= agree, 5= strongly agree). the obtained data from this instrument was interval data. the second instrument is the l2 pragmatic competence test, which consisted of two kinds of pragmatic competence tests namely the multiple-choice discourse completion muhammad syahied hidayatullah & nur hidayanto englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 171 test (mdct) and the written discourse completion test (wdct). the mdct was adapted from chen (2017) containing 25 multiple-choice modified items that were divided into some speech act contexts, such as apologizing, asking for help, invitation, congratulation, etc. in addition, the wdct was adapted from qadi (2021) and aufa (2011) establishing 5-modified written items about the university environment and daily office activities. the collected data from these tests were ratio data. two kinds of data-validating analysis (content validity and construct validity) were used to get the best validity for the instruments used in this research. content validity and construct validity are utilized for double-checking the validity of the items to make sure that the two instruments are relevant to the purpose of this research. 3.4. data analysis as the data analysis procedure, the constructed mdct and wdct were first administered to measure the participants’ l2 pragmatic competence. then, the multiplechoice l2 learning motivation questionnaire was administered to examine the participants’ learning motivation toward english as a second language. finally, an adjunct questionnaire was used to collect the participants’ demographic necessary like gender and age group. furthermore, data normality testing and data linearity testing was used firstly as requirement tests before analyzing by bivariate pearson product moment. descriptive statistical data analysis was used to answer the second research question which is about the current level of javanese non-english major postgraduate students’ l2 pragmatic competence in terms of pragmatic awareness and pragmatic production. the analysis obtained data on the mean (m), standard deviation (sd), maximum and minimum value, the total score (sum), and frequency score. this research used ibm spss 26 for analyzing data. 4. findings and discussion some requirement test like data normality testing and data linearity testing was run before analyzing the correlational analysis by bivariate pearson product moment to find out the correlation between l2 learning motivation and l2 pragmatic competence. table 1 below showed about the data normality testing output by using the onesample kolmogorov smirnov method. the output focused on the n which means the total of respondents was 350 respondents and the output of the significant value (asymp sig) got 0.200. because the significant value is greater than 0.05, so it concluded that the data is normally distributed. then, the linearity testing of the data (l2 learning motivation and l2 pragmatic competence) by anova formula in ibm spss 26 got a value of 0.000. the output of the significance of linearity the value is 0.000. because the significance of linearity is lower than 0.05. furthermore, it can be concluded that the two variables have a linear relationship (purnomo, 2016). english learning motivation and pragmatic competence: correlational study….. 172 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 table 1 data normality testing and linearity testing output. normality testing by one-sample kolmogorov smirnov method linearity testing by anova n asymp. sig. (2-tailed) group of linearity testing sig. 350 .200 l2 learning motivation and l2 pragmatic competence .000 afterward, table 2 below showed a pearson product-moment output about the correlation between l2 learning motivation and l2 pragmatic competence. the correlational analysis value was 0.563. this value is categorized as a moderate correlational degree and has a positive correlation. table 2 correlational analysis output of l2 learning motivation and l2 pragmatic competence. correlations motivation pragmatic motivation and pragmatic pearson correlation 1 ,563** sig. (2-tailed) ,000 n 350 350 finally, the descriptive statistical analysis was computed to find out the current level of non-english major postgraduate students’ pragmatic competence in javanese provinces. based on table 3 below, the total of respondents was 350 and the missing data is 0. the non-english language graduate program students’ minimum score is 17 and the maximum score is 100 the pragmatic competence score. afterward, the mean score is 75.05 by the standard deviation is 14.22. specifically, the descriptive statistical analysis about pragmatic competence in terms of pragmatic awareness and pragmatic production for non-english major postgraduate students’ pragmatic competence in javanese provinces got the same minimum score which is 0 and the maximum score is 100. the mean of pragmatic production was higher (88.86) than pragmatic awareness (68.88). then the standard deviation (sd) for pragmatic awareness is lower (16.31) than for pragmatic production (18.59). table 3 descriptive statistical analysis of l2 pragmatic competence. descriptive statistics pragmatic competence max min mean sd n muhammad syahied hidayatullah & nur hidayanto englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 173 valid missing 350 0 100 17 75.05 14.22 pragmatic awareness max min mean sd n valid missing 350 0 100 0 68.88 16.31 pragmatic production max min mean sd n valid missing 350 0 100 0 88.86 18.59 table 4 frequency table of pragmatic competence output. pragmatic competence frequency percent valid 17 2 ,6 23 3 ,9 29 2 ,6 34 2 ,6 37 3 ,9 40 5 1,4 49 5 1,4 51 1 ,3 54 4 1,1 57 8 2,3 60 9 2,6 63 7 2,0 66 17 4,9 69 29 8,3 71 29 8,3 74 32 9,1 77 30 8,6 80 39 11,1 83 32 9,1 86 35 10,0 english learning motivation and pragmatic competence: correlational study….. 174 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 89 19 5,4 91 21 6,0 94 10 2,9 97 3 ,9 100 3 ,9 total 350 100,0 the specific frequency score of pragmatic competence results can be figured out in table 4 above. there are 2 of 350 students who got a minimum score of 17 and 3 of 350 students who got a maximum score of 100. so to sum up, there are 1% of all respondents got the maximum score. subsequently, there are 192 out of 350 (55%) students got scores above the average of 75. this research analyzed the correlation between l2 learning motivation and l2 pragmatic competence of non-english language program students. the analysis data found a correlation between l2 learning motivation and l2 pragmatics which was 0.563. the results indicate the correlational degree of both variables is a moderate positive correlation. in summary, the l2 learning motivation contributed to the successful l2 pragmatic competence. afterward, the correlational output (0.563) was categorized as a positive correlation which means if the l2 learning motivation improves, the l2 pragmatic competence will also improve. these findings are in line with the previous research (badrkoohi, 2018; mirzaei & forouzandeh, 2013). badrkoohi (2018) investigated similar variables, namely l2 demotivation and intercultural communicative competence, and then he found the motivation on l2 culture can influence students’ l2 communicative competence. however, pragmatic competence is an important part of communicative competence, so successful l2 communicative competence also depended on successful l2 pragmatic competence. mirzaei and forouzandeh (2013) did a similar research area on the correlation between l2 learning motivation and intercultural communicative competence. based on the result, the l2 learning motivation is the notable supporting subset in the successful intercultural communicative competence which the pragmatic is part of it. furthermore, the categories used in his research were social, cultural, and psychological categories are similar to some l2 learning motivation categories in this current research, namely parents’ and teachers’ support in learning english are similar to social and cultural then the self-esteem, attitudes, interest, and realization towards learning english are similar as psychological dimensions. another research was by zhang and papi (2021) who investigated learners’ motivational character which influenced their l2 pragmatic competence in various situations. afterward, they found that learners with certain types of motivational characteristics influenced their focus, were concerned with advancement, growth, and muhammad syahied hidayatullah & nur hidayanto englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 175 accomplishment, and positively predicted pragmatic production. however, pragmatic production is part of pragmatic competence. so that is why the written discourse completion test (wdct) was used as one of the questionnaires to measure l2 pragmatic production as part of l2 pragmatic competence. in conclusion, the l2 learning motivation correlates with l2 pragmatic competence. although the correlational degree in this current research was moderate and is different from previous research studies (badrkoohi, 2018; mirzaei & forouzandeh, 2013; zhang & papi, 2021) which have strong correlation degree in their research, the important thing needs to be realized that this current research has a positive correlation between l2 learning motivation and l2 pragmatic competence. so, the l2 learning motivation contributes to the successful l2 pragmatic competence, especially for the postgraduate program both english major and non-english major students. the implications are the l2 teaching program, l2 activities, and l2 learning environment which is designed to stimulate l2 learners’ awareness of their l2 pragmatics competence issues in classroom communicative tasks and activities then the l2 learners’ awareness has them reflect upon various speech acts. it can be achieved by familiarizing them with their language target environment. the descriptive statistical analysis from the two pragmatic competence tests, namely mdct (multiple-choice discourse competence test) to measure pragmatics awareness and wdct (written discourse competence test) for pragmatics production of non-english major postgraduate students, concluded that the 350 respondents’ maximum and a minimum score of mdct and wdct are same, which the highest score is 100 and 0 as the lowest score. then the mean of pragmatics awareness was 68.88 and the mean of pragmatics production was 88.86. therefore, pragmatic awareness is significantly correlated with pragmatic production. the non-english major postgraduate students’ pragmatic production was higher than their pragmatic awareness. they are good for giving appropriate responses in the pragmatics production test (wdct) but less than good to understand and to choose the appropriate responses in pragmatics awareness (mdct). the students’ pragmatics competence mean score (75.05) is lower than the researcher’s expectation for this research. because it is 0.05 % higher than the average score (75.00) and there were 55% (192 out of 350) students who got a higher score. 5. conclusion the result of this study provides some information about the second language (l2) learning motivation and l2 pragmatic competence of non-english major postgraduate students, especially in some well-known universities in java provinces. the empirical findings to answer the first research question showed the correlation or relationships between l2 learning motivation and l2 pragmatic competence. although the degree of correlation between both of them was moderate they have a positive correlation. it meant if the students’ l2 learning motivation improved, their l2 pragmatic competence would also improve. the last empirical statistical finding to prove the second research question english learning motivation and pragmatic competence: correlational study….. 176 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 is that the non-english major postgraduate students’ l2 pragmatic competence was categorized as still developing. this development was because 55% (192 out of 350) students got higher scores, but 45% (158 out of 350) students got a failure to understand responses in the pragmatic awareness test. this current research offers new and considerable information on the importance of l2 learning motivation which consisted of some matters stated before to improve l2 english competence, such as l2 pragmatic competence. therefore, grounded on this research, postgraduate program students such as english majors or non-english majors need to realize the importance of these variables (l2 learning motivation and l2 pragmatic competence) for their achievement of l2 communicative competence in their language target. this research also gives some notable information about some ways to be realized that was important to improve l2 learning motivation, both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation which contributed to almost aspects of english competence. moreover, the high degree of l2 learning motivation does not assure a high level of l2 pragmatic competence. other factors influence the full success of l2 pragmatic competence, such as the local condition like different cultures, language communities, social situations, and different social classes. references ajabshir, z. f. 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(2020). the effect of interventionist instructions of english conversational implicatures on iranian efl intermediate level learners’ pragmatic competence development. cogent education, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/2331186x.2020.1840008 englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2022. vol. 9, no. 2, 60-73 how do efl university student-writers prepare their draft? an analysis of writing strategy use in efl writing instruction hanna sundari* universitas indraprasta pgri, indonesia hanna.sundari@gmail.com rina husnaini febriyanti universitas indraprasta pgri, indonesia rhfebriyanti@gmail.com manuscript received july 2 7 , 2021, revised november 25, 2021, first published may 1, 2022, and available online may 7, 2022. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i2.10374 recommended apa citation sundari, h., & febriyanti, r. h. (2022). how do efl university student-writers prepare their draft? an analysis of writing strategy use in efl writing instruction. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(2), 60-73. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.10374 abstract the use of writing strategy across writing levels in a virtual efl writing course was still rarely found in the literature. to fill this gap, therefore, this current research aims at exploring writing strategy in efl writing instruction. informed by a research framework of descriptive case study, university student-writers who regularly attended a virtual academic writing course filled out the online writing strategy inventory (yang & plakans, 2012) and submitted the argumentative essays. the findings show that the writing strategy was diverse across levels. at the stage of before drafting the essay, all student-writers reread task requirement and understood the type of essay and organization, searched for valid references, and tried to avoid plagiarism. moreover, student-writers with higher levels also summarized ideas, analyzed sentences and contents, and made writing plan. at drafting the essay, they double checked the requirement, revised the essay, reread the essay and the sample texts, and provided valid arguments. however, student-writer with lowest level was not used those strategies. at the stage of after drafting, student-writers in all levels applied similar several writing strategies. however, not all of them added new points from sample texts, references, and lecture. to the student-writer with the lowest level, several writing strategies were not applied. this may indicate that student-writers with higher levels have writing awareness to use writing strategy effectively to improve their essay. then, it can be * corresponding author https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6622 https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.10374 hanna sundari & rina husnaini febriyanti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 61 drawn a conclusion that the more writing strategies used during drafting the essay, the more score and the higher quality of the essay was possibly achieved. keywords: efl writing; writing strategy; writing instruction; university students 1. introduction seeing english as foreign language writing (hereafter efl writing) from the view of student-writers brings a sense of struggles in some areas, such as linguistic, cognitive, and psychological constraints (rahmatunisa, 2014), such as lack of ideas and uncertain linguistic strategy (rao, 2007) as well as cultural problems (zhang, 2018). it is unquestionable that, for efl student-writers, writing activity can be a challenging and stressful task (zhu, 2001) and the most difficult skill to learn (hamed, 2014; setyowati, sukmawa, & latief, 2017; widiati & cahyono, 2006). as a number of mistakes found in students‟ essays, some of their writing products seemingly presented poor structure and flow with the lack of literature supports and too descriptive rather than critical/reflective writing (west, malcolm, keywood, & hill, 2019). it may indicate they do not prepare their drafts in ways that meet the writing task requirement, such as selecting topics, providing solid evidence/supports, and structuring the text. an effective student-writer is consciously aware that, to achieve a well-organized text with strong arguments, a writing strategy needs to be applied when drafting the text. the writing strategy then refers to some techniques used by the writers during the process of writing to control its quality (de silva, 2015; okasha & hamdi, 2014). extensive researches and studies have been conducted to explore writing strategies in terms of various techniques used, its effectiveness, and its implication among learner attributes. pre-writing strategy in three-time dimensions: before writing, during writing, and during revision brings significant effects on writing achievement and performance (de silva, 2015; mahnam & nejadansari, 2012). the instruction of writing strategy might be resulted in the higher quality of students‟ essays (al-shaer, 2014). on the other hand, some studies also found that brainstorming (i.e., listing, outlining, question and answer) as the pre-writing strategies did not provide significant effect among male and female student-writers. moreover, university thai efl students preferred to use cognitive strategies during writing, and it was no significant relations between the use of writing strategy and writing achievement (apridayani, yungkun, thoch, & ruththong, 2021). despite the extensive investigations on writing strategy in efl writing class, the techniques used by the learners during writing are unique and context-specific (hu & chen, 2007). brainstorming and cognitive methods are widely employed as strategies in face-to-face learning systems when drafting a writing work. however, studies dealing with writing approach across writing levels in a virtual course are still uncommon. indeed, the study to investigate how student-writers prepare their drafts may aid writing faculties/instructors in gaining a deeper understanding of how student-writers learn to how do efl university student-writers prepare their draft? an analysis of writing strategy….. 62 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 write; hence, this may implicate faculties/instructors in creating writing activities in virtual classrooms. hence, this present research was addressed to answer the following question: what are writing strategies used by the university student-writers across writing levels in drafting and preparing their argumentative essays during efl virtual writing course? 2. literature review 2.1. efl writing instruction the landscapes of foreign writing instruction naturally came from diverse teaching and learning contexts, and their theoretical discussions were mostly underpinned by research in l1 composition and esl contexts (bhowmik, 2009). writing can be viewed at least in three perspectives: writing as a product, writing as a process and writing as a social activity (widiati & cahyono, 2006). then, it leads to teaching writing methodology (i.e., product approach, process approach, genre-based approach) (badger & white, 2000; widiati & cahyono, 2006). at the classroom level, efl writing contexts are diverse with unique characteristics and, various cultural and socio-political situations (bhowmik, 2009). specifically, in indonesia, teaching efl writing contexts has brought uniqueness and context-specific related to its policy and challenges. efl writing has been a part of english subject at schools and taught based on the policy on the level of educational institutions (widiati & cahyono, 2006). many student-writers in indonesia seem to experience a high level of anxiety when writing in english (wahyuni & umam, 2017). the challenges are usually found in three aspects, such as linguistic, cognitive, and psychological problems (rahmatunisa, 2014). particularly in the academic settings, juliaty (2019) reported that novice student-writers might have weak identity reflection and struggled in adjusting and engaging in academic environment due to a lack of exposure, familiarity, and understanding toward academic writing culture. despite the struggles and challenges, along with the advancement of technology in efl classrooms worldwide, the face of efl writing classroom has recently become more sophisticated and engaging. technological tools or devices have helped both students and teachers in preparing and executing lessons, drafting essays, and assessing students‟ writing product as well as improving writing performance. for instance, blogging has facilitated process-based writing instruction (özdemir & aydın, 2015), and self-blogging helped students build metalinguistic awareness (i̇nceçay & genç, 2014). in addition, weblog peer review can promote a marked improvement in students‟ effective writing behaviour (chen, 2012). virtual writing classes through learning management system, such as edmodo (ma‟azi & janfeshan, 2018), blackboard (fageeh & mekheimer, 2013) have also brought more positive attitude toward writing activity. furthermore, the web-based learning in writing classes, such as webquest (latuperissa, 2012) and web-based pre-writing activities (zaid, 2011), were found to be effective as instructional tool that made the students wrote longer and drafted richer in hanna sundari & rina husnaini febriyanti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 63 online mapping and online reading. social media (i.e., facebook, twitter) has mediated writing course and activity particularly in teaching mechanics (altakhaineh & al-jallad, 2018) and improved students‟ motivation. besides, peer and teacher electronic feedback or e-feedback (abdullah, hussin, & shakir, 2018) has decreased the students‟ level of writing anxiety, and implementation of automated tracked system of teacher feedback contributed to improve the quality revision and revised texts (cheng, 2019). additionally, automated writing evaluation (awe) tool has enhanced the grammar accuracy on the students‟ essays on the third composition (liao, 2016). though the expansion of technology have provenly brought positive implication in writing performance, some issues related to technological competences of teachers and learners and internet access have become problems for many (boudjadar, 2015). 2.2. writing strategy in efl writing instruction generally, writing strategy can be defined as “a conscious mental activity, employed in pursuit of a goal, often with an aim to solve a problem in writing” (de silva, 2015, p. 2). the strategy can be also referred to some techniques used by the learners in creating a writing product and improving its quality (apridayani, yungkun, thoch, & ruththong, 2021). in a simple manner, okasha and hamdi (2014, p. 675) wrote writing strategies as „ways of controlling writing process to produce wellorganized production crystallized by high quality‟. the strategies can be grouped into direct strategy and indirect strategy (oxford, 1990). to be more specific, o‟malley and chamot (1990) and apridayani, et al. (2021) classified writing strategies into four categories: cognitive, metacognitive, social, and affective strategies. these then have gained much attention on discussions and research in the field of writing instruction. table 1 types of writing strategies. strategies descriptions cognitive strategies techniques used in the transformation/synthesis of incoming information metacognitive strategies techniques used to plan, reflect, monitor, and evaluate writing activities/outcomes social strategies strategies to involve other people by doing some interactions. affective strategies strategies for controlling or getting rid of negative feelings during the writing process source: apridayani, et al. , (2021), o’malley and chamot (1990) numerous studies of writing strategies have been extensively found, particularly looking at how its effect on writing achievement and other writing attributes. the study of saudi efl students‟ writing strategies found that students with low anxiety are more users of writing strategies than the students with high level (asmari, 2013). the dimensions of writing strategies cover before starting the writing, during the writing, how do efl university student-writers prepare their draft? an analysis of writing strategy….. 64 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 and during revision. moreover, the investigation by mahnam and nejadansari (2012) to twenty three adult efl learners in iran showed that pre-writing strategies give a significant effect on the students‟ writing achievement. the writing strategies the students chose for their writing were using relevant texts, negotiating of topics, making concept map. to more specific on concept mapping as pre-writing strategy in a focused instructional strategy, it improves the quality of students‟ argumentative essays in the aspects of point of view, unity, coherence, development, organization, and thinking (alshaer, 2014). moreover, the instruction of strategy gives positive impact on writing performance (de silva, 2015) and writing attitude (okasha & hamdi, 2014), particularly at pre-writing stage in which focuses on developing main concepts, logical connection among ideas and writing organization (al-shaer, 2014). apart from its benefits in writing achievement, the use of writing strategies towards other learner attributes such as gender and writing ability anchored the contrasting results. brainstorming as pre-writing strategy gives no significant differences on its sub-categories: listing, outlining, and question and answer among males and females (hashempour, rostampour, & behjat, 2015). in almost a similar fashion, study by apridayani et al. (2021) concluded that, though most university thai efl students applied cognitive strategies during writing, there was no significant differences among the low and high writing achievers. additionally, despite its positive relationships among writing strategies, it was no significant relations found on the use of writing strategies and their writing achievement. 3. method this current study was guided by a descriptive case study research paradigm (nunan, 2013), which demonstrates an in-depth portrayal of a specific bounded phenomenon using different data sources in specific circumstances (casanave, 2015; duff, 2020). this study also looked into the writing strategies utilized by efl university student-writers in a virtual writing course. to be more specific, this current investigation described the writers‟ strategy in drafting, composing, and completing argumentative essay in three dimensions: before, while, and after drafting. research site was at the academic writing course in english education department postgraduate program at a private university in jakarta, indonesia. the writing course lasted 1.5 hour-synchronous sessions and 1-hour asynchronous session once a week for 14 weeks and aimed at enabling the studentwriters to gain competences in developing and creating several essay genres. the participant pool was 70 university student-writers from the first semester who registered and regularly attended the course. until the end of the course, however, only 38 participants filled out the online writing strategy inventory as well as submitted the essays and completed the task requirements on google classroom. they were 23 females and 15 males with the age ranged between 22-49 years old. they speak bahasa indonesia as their first/second language. hanna sundari & rina husnaini febriyanti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 65 figure 1. writing task on a virtual class for data collection, multiple data sources were carried out to get a deeper understanding on what writing strategies the participants used in preparing and drafting the argumentative essays, , and improving its quality. a writing test was assigned to develop one argumentative essay with a given topic as one of writing tasks during the course (see figure 1). for scoring and grading, scoring rubric for essays from oshima and hogue (2006) was used to assess the students‟ essays in five criteria: format, mechanics, content, organization, grammar and sentence structure. the scores were then consulted to cefr level default scores (jiménez-muñoz, 2014). moreover, the scale of reports and essays from cefr (council of europe, 2020) was adopted to confirm the leveling and scoring of the students‟ essays and the scores. to obtain the data of the writing strategy use, online inventory was distributed to the participants after essay submission. the inventory was modified from strategy inventory for integrated writing (yang & plakans, 2012) that covers three dimensions of drafting: before drafting (16 statements), while drafting (14 statements), and after drafting (6 statements). furthermore, to confirm data trustworthiness and consistency, an online questionnaire was to gather the participants‟ perceptions and strategy in developing argumentative essay in a phase of data analysis, the gathered data from writing test and inventory were divided into several levels based on the cefr levels (a1-c2) and the writers‟ strategy use (before, while, and after). they were then analyzed descriptively in the form of numbers and text referred to the levels and scores of the students‟ essays. how do efl university student-writers prepare their draft? an analysis of writing strategy….. 66 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 level default score c2 100 c1.2 90 c1.1 80 b2.2 70 b2.1 60 b1.2 50 b1.1 40 a2.2 30 a2.1 20 a1.2 10 a1.1 5 figure 2. cefr level scores (jiménez-muñoz, 2014) 4. findings and discussion this paper reported writing strategy used by the university student-writers in drafting and preparing their argumentative essays during efl virtual writing course. students‟ essay and responses on the writers‟ strategy inventory were collected during a virtual academic writing course. table 2 students' writing scores. levels descriptors scores student essay c1.1/ c1.2 can produce clear, well-structured expositions of complex subjects, underlining the relevant salient issues. can expand and support points of view at some length with subsidiary points, reasons and relevant examples. 90 80 9 14 b2.2 can produce an essay or report which develops an argument systematically with appropriate highlighting of significant points and relevant supporting detail. 70 14 b2.1 can produce an essay or report which develops an argument, giving reasons in support of or against a particular point of view and explaining the advantages and disadvantages of various options. can synthesize information and arguments from a number of sources. 60 1 from the student-writers‟ essays, it was found that their cefr levels were ranged from b2.1 to c1.2 and the scores were between 60 and 90 (see table 2). one student was on level b2.1 and gained the lowest scores of all. however, the essays were mostly on b2 and c1 levels. it may indicate that the most of student-writers can produce argumentative essays with appropriate organization and solid supportive arguments. concerning to the use of writing strategy, it was divided into three dimensions: before drafting, while drafting, and after drafting. at the stage of before drafting the essay, student-writers in all levels of writing applied rereading the task requirement, trying to understand the type of essay and its organization, and searching for valid hanna sundari & rina husnaini febriyanti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 67 references and evidence with 100% percentage. meanwhile, student-writers with level c1.2 learned much from sample texts and lecture by summarizing ideas, analyzing sentences and contents as well as planning their writing with 100% on percentage. moreover, student-writers in all levels were found to avoid copy good sentences from the sample texts and lecture (see table 3). it may indicate that they try not to fall into plagiarism due to maintaining the quality of their essays. table 3 students' writing strategy before drafting. no. before i started writing the argumentative essay... level b2.1 (n: 1) level b2.2 (n: 14) level c1.1 (n: 14) level c1.2 (n: 9) yes no yes no yes no 1 i reread the task requirements carefully yes 100% 100% 100% 2 i thought about the type of essay i wanted to write yes 100% 100% 100% 3 i tried to summarize overall ideas from the whole sample texts in my mind yes 93% 86% 100% 4 i wrote down keywords from what i heard in the lecture yes 93% 79% 89% 11 % 5 i tried to understand the relationship between the ideas of reading materials and the lecture yes 100% 100% 100% 6 i tried to memorize some ideas from the lecture yes 93% 100% 89% 11 % 7 i made a writing plan (e.g., outline, note, keyword) yes 93% 86% 100% 8 i wrote down main ideas and important points from reading materials (sample texts) yes 93% 79% 89% 11 % 9 i searched for connections among sentences on sample texts the argumentative essay yes 86% 79% 100% 10 i tried to understand the content according to how information is organized in each paragraph on the sample texts yes 100% 93% 100% 11 i tried to understand the organization of the sample texts yes 100% 100% 100% 12 i summarized ideas from the lecture in my mind yes 93% 86% 100% 13 i searched for connections among paragraphs on the sample texts yes 100% 86% 89% 11 % 14 i planned to copy good sentences from the sample texts or lecture in my writing yes 65% 50% 67% 32 % 15 i predicted the content of the lecture after reading the sample text yes 93% 72% 100% 16 i searched for valid references and solid evidence to my argumentative essay yes 100% 100% 100% at the stage of drafting the essay, the majority student-writers with level c1.1 and c1.2 admitted that they double checked their writing in the terms of task requirements, the use of sentences and paraphrases, rereading sample texts and what they have written, trying to give solid, valid arguments, and revising it over time. with the lowest percentage, only 65%-67% of them showed that they write the first draft and some ideas how do efl university student-writers prepare their draft? an analysis of writing strategy….. 68 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 from what they read on writing template. on the other hand, student-writer with level b2.1 stated that some strategies were not applied when drafting the essay, such as writing some phrases, providing references and solid argument, and rereading what have written. table 4 students' writing strategy while drafting. no. while i was writing my argumentative essay... level b2.1 (n: 1) level b2.2 (n: 14) level c1.1 (n: 14) level c1.2 (n: 9) yes no yes no ye s no 1 i double-checked to see if my writing met the task requirements yes 93% 93% 100 % 2 i reread the sample texts to look for main ideas yes 93% 93% 89% 3 i wrote some phrases based on a writing template i had memorized before writing the argumentative essay no 86% 86% 67% 4 i thought about mentioning some references in my argumentative essay no 100% 93% 78% 5 i copied the sentences from the references i got and paraphrased/revised them no 86% 72% 89% 6 i reread what i have written to see if my writing met the task requirements no 100% 100% 100 % 7 i tried to write about my knowledge or my own experience on the essay yes 93% 100% 89% 8 i used different words or phrases to describe ideas no 79% 100% 100 % 9 i reread what i have written to see if i was using correct english (e.g. grammar, spelling) no 100% 100% 100 % 10 i checked if i used the same phrases or sentences as the sample texts no 79% 93% 89% 11 i revised the sentences to make my writing clearer yes 93% 100% 100 % 12 i thought about a word, phrase, or sentences before i wrote it down no 93% 100% 100 % 13 i first wrote out a writing template i had memorized before and filled some ideas from the lecture or sample texts. no 93% 65% 67% 14 i tried to provide strong argument and solid evidence on my argumentative essay no 93% 100% 100 % at the stage of after drafting the essay, it should be a moment before task submission and the last chance to use writing strategies to improve the quality of their essay. from the inventory, it showed that student-writers in three levels (b2.2, c1.1, and c1.2) reported that they use some strategies in this stage with percentage between 93%-100%. they stated that they checked the evidence on the essay, reread the content and grammar, made some changes to ensure of no plagiarism. moreover, not all of them admitted adding new points based on the sample texts, references, and the lecture on their essays, with percentage 93%, 86%, and 78% respectively. in contrast, the studentwriters with the lowest level showed to tick „no‟ to several statement. it indicated that hanna sundari & rina husnaini febriyanti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 69 some strategies were not conducted, for example checking evidence, rereading the essay, and making changes on the content. table 5 students' writing strategy after drafting. no. after i had finished a draft of my argumentative writing ... level b2.1 (n: 1) level b2.2 (n: 14) level c1.1 (n: 14) level c1.2 (n: 9) yes no yes no yes no 1 i checked if i used evidence to support my ideas no 100% 100% 100% 2 i reread my essay and changed the content that didn't express what i meant yes 100% 100% 100% 3 i added new points based on the sample texts, references and the lecture yes 93% 86% 78% 22 % 4 i reread my essay and made sure my english was correct no 100% 100% 100% 5 i checked if i had connected the ideas from the lecture/sample texts to my writing no 100% 93% 100% 6 i made changes to in phrases to ensure i didn't copy the exact phrases to avoid plagiarism no 100% 100% 100% as a writing learner, student-writer applies some techniques when composing a text to improve writing skill and to produce high quality texts. the findings in the present study demonstrated that at the stage of before drafting the essay, all studentwriters reread task requirement and searched for valid references. moreover, level c1.2 student-writers also summarized ideas, analyzed sentences and contents, and made writing plan. these are consistent to the result of the study by apridayani et al., (2021). they found that thai efl writing learners apply cognitive strategies (i.e., use of linking words to ensure logical relationships between sentences/paragraphs) and metacognitive strategies (i.e., reviewing task requirement, looking at writing samples, writing down ideas before writing, and revising two or more times) in high levels of frequency use. furthermore, that a writing plan become one of writing strategies used by studentwriters in this research also supports the previous study by (al-shaer, 2014) in which demonstrated that mapping the topic as pre-writing strategy has helped the studentwriters focus on concepts, logical ideas and organization of the essay. moreover, on students‟ essay of level c1.1 and c1.2, the student-writer in the current study mostly use writing strategy, such as double checking the requirement, revising the essay, rereading the essay and the sample texts, and providing valid arguments when drafting the essay. in contrast, student-writer with lowest level was found not used those strategies. at the of after drafting, student-writers in all levels applied several writing strategies, for instance checking the evidence, rereading the content and grammar, making some changes to ensure of no plagiarism. however, not all of them added new points from sample texts, references, and lecture. to the studentwriter with the lowest level, several writing strategies were not used, such as checking how do efl university student-writers prepare their draft? an analysis of writing strategy….. 70 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 evidence, rereading the essay, and making changes on the content. it is in the line with what is stated by de silva (2015). the instruction of writing strategy gives positive effect on writing performance, and the students could be trained to use writing strategy effectively. from the present study, it was found that the use of writing strategy was various across different levels in which tend to the more the use of writing strategy, the higher level of the quality of the students‟ essays. however, we can see that the findings from previous different research were poles apart. a study shows no significant differences between writing strategy by the low and the high writing achievers; meanwhile some another study proved that students using heavily on metacognitive strategy (i.e., planning, monitoring the writing progress) performed better than those who relied on cognitive strategy (apridayani et al., 2021). moreover, on students‟ essay of level c1.1 and c1.2, the student-writer in the current study mostly use writing strategy, such as double checking the requirement, revising the essay, rereading the essay and the sample texts, and providing valid arguments when drafting the essay. in contrast, student-writer with lowest level was found not used those strategies. at the of after drafting, student-writers in all levels applied several writing strategies, for instance checking the evidence, rereading the content and grammar, making some changes to ensure of no plagiarism. however, not all of them added new points from sample texts, references, and lecture. to the studentwriter with the lowest level, several writing strategies were not used, such as checking evidence, rereading the essay, and making changes on the content. 5. conclusion this current research explored the writing strategy used by efl university student-writers in composing argumentative essay in a virtual academic writing course. the use of strategy was divided into three stages: before, while, and after drafting. meanwhile, the student-writers‟ product essays were categorized into four levels. the findings show that before drafting the essay, all student-writers reread task requirement and understood the type of essay and organization, searched for valid references, and tried to avoid plagiarism. at this stage, level c1.2 student-writers also summarized ideas, analyzed sentences and contents, and made writing plan. the writing strategy at the stage of drafting the essay was various across levels. at level c1.1 and c1.2, double checking the requirement, revising the essay, rereading the essay and the sample texts, and providing valid arguments were the most used strategies when drafting the essay. in contrast, student-writer with lowest level was found not used those strategies. at the final stage or after drafting, student-writers in all levels applied several writing strategies, for instance checking the evidence, rereading the content and grammar, making some changes to ensure of no plagiarism. however, not all of them added new points from sample texts, references, and lecture. to the student-writer with the lowest level, several writing strategies were not used, such as checking evidence, hanna sundari & rina husnaini febriyanti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 71 rereading the essay, and making changes on the content. the findings may show that higher level student-writers have more writing awareness to apply writing strategy during drafting their essays. it is believed that the more writing strategies used during drafting the 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(2018). an investigation into the development of structure and evidence use in argumentative writing. theory and practice in language studies, 8(11), 1441. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0811.08 zhu, w. (2001). performing argumentative writing in english: difficulties, processes, and strategies. tesl canada journal, 19(1), 34–50. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2023. vol.10, no.2, 217-230 understanding the implementation of an at-home language test: a case of an online version of toefl-pbt refanja rahmatillah*1, rizki fajrita2, endah anisa rahma1 1universitas teuku umar, indonesia 2universitas syiah kuala, indonesia manuscript received december 5, 2022, revised january 21, 2023, accepted january 28, 2023, and published online may 7, 2023. recommended apa citation rahmatillah, r., fajrita, r., & rahma, e. a. (2023). understanding the implementation of an at-home language test: a case of an online version of toefl-pbt. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(2), 217-230. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.15899 abstract an at-home test is a unique mode of language test delivery as a result of mass-gathering prohibition during the covid-19 pandemic. despite the uniqueness, little is known about how to effectively implement an at-home test. this study aims to provide a deeper understanding of the test by exploring the execution of the online version of toefl-pbt in the language center of syiah kuala university. four test administrators were interviewed to share their experiences and opinions related to considerations for implementing an at-home proficiency test, which includes technological resources, security, and validity concerns. the data were then analyzed descriptively. the results of this study revealed that the language center used safe exam browser to deliver the test and zoom to supervise the test-takers in real time. the proctors could stop the test and privately investigate the test takers using the zoom breakout feature. the validity of the test was claimed not to be a concern since the test provider used the same form of questions as the offline version. in addition, the language center expressed exhaustion in carrying out the online test, thus suggesting the development of a less complicated procedure of an at-home test. keywords: at-home test; toefl; technological resources; security; validity *corresponding author: refanja rahmatillah universitas teuku umar jl. alue peunyareng, gunong kleng, kec. meureubo, kabupaten aceh barat, aceh 23681, indonesia email: refanjarahmatillah@utu.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.15899 understanding the implementation of an at-home language test: a case of an online….. 218 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.10, no.2, may 2023 1. introduction the novel coronavirus or covid-19 pandemic has changed the education system worldwide from a face-to-face to an online environment (gacs et al., 2020), including in the implementation of language testing (isbell & kremmel, 2020). an at-home language test has become a new instrument to measure someone’s language ability in this restricted situation and this phenomenon requires test providers and users to adjust the execution of the test (plough & raquel, 2020). these changes, unfortunately, potentially create a high risk of abandonment of the test principles, format, and content, which may result in less validity and reliability of the test (hrbackova et al., 2020). before covid-19 outbreaks, the concern related to different formats of test delivery, paper-based testing (pbt) versus computeror internet-based testing (cbt or ibt), has long arisen. similar to the concern mentioned above related to the changes of the testing procedure to be at-home supervised, the shift from pbt mode to cbt/ibt ones also results in the studies exploring the issues of test-taker's performance, reliability, and validity of the test, and test-taker’s perceptions related to these two modes of test administration (brunfaut et al., 2018; hosseini et al., 2014; öz & özturan, 2018). brunfaut et al. (2018), for example, conclude that the different modes of the test (pbt and cbt) impact the performance of the writing test-takers, even with a small effect. öz and özturan (2018), on the other hand, report that both versions are highly reliable and valid and have no significant difference in the test score achieved by the participants. in addition, hosseini et al. (2014) achieve a not conclusive finding that slightly more than half of the test-takers prefer cbt because of the enjoyable and time-saving features, while the others claim that they are not familiar with cbt and that the use of computers tires their eyes. thus, based on these studies, it can be assumed that there is no agreement on whether different modes of test can affect the overall execution of the test. the previous studies mentioned, however, may not comprehensively answer the current issues of test implementation during the covid-19 pandemic. it is because the past two types of tests, pbt and cbt, were both carried out with in-person supervision. on the contrary, due to the prohibition of mass gathering, the tests conducted at the current time have to be online supervised. despite this unique condition, only a few studies had examined the execution process of at-home tests. a study by isbell and kremmel (2020) reviews several language testing centers that implement at-home tests and then emphasizes the importance of considering technology resources, security, and validity to carry out such tests. these considerations are crucial for guaranteeing that athome tests can be professionally carried out as in-person supervised tests. by referring to the crucial points delivered by isbell and kremmel (2020) related to considerations in implementing an at-home language test, this study tries to explore the actualization of the considerations in an at-home toefl test. this study tries to answer the following questions: 1. how does a language testing center carry out an at-home test? refanja rahmatillah, rizki fajrita, & endah anisa rahma englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 219 2. does the language center consider technology, security, and validity concerns in implementing an at-home test? 3. what are the challenges faced by the language testing center in executing the athome test? 2. literature review 2.1. technology in language testing the incorporation of technology in language testing, started with the introduction of cbt, is deemed to be able to provide some advantages, including easier test distribution and faster and more accurate scoring (scheuermann & björnsson, 2009). nevertheless, one obvious problem with the implementation of cbt is the concern with computer familiarity. even though studies like taylor et al. (1999) and khoshsima et al. (2019) reveal that test-takers who are lowand high-computer-familiar produce no meaningful differences in the test scores and dooey (2008) claims that the issue of computer familiarity seems less prevalent at this time, test-takers may still show anxiety that their computer familiarity might affect their performance (yu, 2010). even when ibt emerged where it is perceived as more convenient and safer to deliver items compared to cbt (roever, 2001), ibt still contributes to several substantial challenges encountered by the test takers. barkaoui (2015) reports constraints related to keyboarding and the typographical error committed during the toefl ibt examination, especially in the writing section, and wolfe and manalo (2004) show that some participants who express concern related to computer familiarity tend to choose handwriting essays over word processing. they perceive the utilization of a computer might trigger nervousness while typing and worsens their performance. however, there is still a debate on whether the computer familiarity concern brings about a negative influence on ibt test-takers as according to weigle (2010), more regions and communities are exposed to the digital-centered environment, and more toefl ibt by ets placements are delivered worldwide. looking deeper into the utilization of technology, the aspect of practicality is inevitable to be taken into account. though cbt provides a better environmental impact compared to paper-based tests, it is still far from perfection, and the procurement and maintenance cost of the infrastructure for long-term viable usage is quite pricey (nogami & hayashi, 2010). the shift from cbt to ibt in language testing is believed to tackle the said issue since the ibt programs utilize a platform instead of hardware that is prone to wear and tear (laborda et al., 2010). some technical problems, however, might obstruct the progress of implementing a web-based test. roever (2001) points out some glitches probably occur during a running online test that includes buffering loading time, frozen pages caused by server traffic, and depending on the test-taker's computer speed, such a problem would even worsen. ibt or a web test, moreover, would sometimes turn from inexpensive resolution for administrators to a costly choice for test users as access to the internet and computer device is considered luxurious for some (isbell & kremmel, 2020). understanding the implementation of an at-home language test: a case of an online….. 220 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.10, no.2, may 2023 2.2. security in language testing a proper testing practice should be also capable of ensuring reliable security for preventing possible breaches in its system that can unfavorably impact the examination credibility. when technology is embedded in a language testing, its security somehow gets more vulnerable to breaches, and concerns on how to enable maximum and reliable security system for preventing possible threats, especially in terms of the leaks of test items to the public, rise significantly (ockey, 2009; van der linden & glas, 2000). an instance of a high-stake test leak case happened in 2002 when some asian language websites in which the questions along with the answers of computer-based graduate record examination (gre) conducted by ets were shared with its user (wired, 2002). this circumstance happened due to the limited variety of item banks, and even when ets is renowned for its tremendous resources, it still once failed to maintain its security. another challenge in incorporating technology in tests lies in tackling identity fraud, especially in ibt, where it is possible to complete the test independently without attending the test center. ockey (2009) argued this system may lead to a condition in which the one who registered for the system might susceptible employ a qualified person to sit on the test if the security of the test program is compromised. to prevent such cheating attempts, the administrator can apply a secure mode or a third application on every test to monitor the screening time to confirm the participant's identity. this method can also lessen the probability of cheating by completing assigned tasks such as browsing for answers and asking for an assist from other individuals (roever, 2001). 2.3. validity in language testing the incorporation of technology in language tests also raises the concern of its validity as suvorov and hegelheimer (2014) claim that after the changes took place, construct validity is the aspect that is mostly researched. brown and abeywickrama (2010) define construct validity in language testing as the relevance of the test in measuring language skills as the language ability theories expect. construct validity is crucial in the execution of cbt/ibt in guaranteeing that the test measures language skills, not computer skills (dooey, 2008). most of the studies that investigate the validity issues in cbt/ibt carry out the validation by comparing the cbt/ibt scores and pbt scores (boonsathorn & kaoropthai, 2016; bunderson et al., 1988; coniam, 2006; piaw, 2012). bunderson et al. (1988), as the earliest work, and coniam (2006), both find that test takers achieve better but not significant results in the computerized test compared to paper administration. this finding indicates that both paperand the computer-based test have similar construct validity. piaw (2012) in his study which particularly investigates the validity issues in cbt conclude that cbt possesses high validity in terms of test performance and can be used as a substitute for the pbt version. meanwhile, the exploration of validity in ibt is carried out by boonsathorn and kaoropthai (2016), which examines the web-based mcrefanja rahmatillah, rizki fajrita, & endah anisa rahma englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 221 test. they conclude that the web-based test has high validity, both criterion-related and face validity, and presume that web-based tests can be an alternative to the traditional mode of testing. despite the consistency of the findings that reveal that cbt/ibt is as valid as pbt and, thus, can be used as an alternative, one consideration should be noted that the promotion of performance-based assessment in language learning cannot be presumably easily done via computer administration. chalhoub-deville (2001) highlights this concern and argues that performance-based assessment is conducted better via paper-based administration. even though the emergence of ibt tries to solve this problem, the use of technology to administer performance-based assessments will still generate problems in terms of practicality (chalhoub-deville, 2012). 2.4. at-home language test while there are numerous studies that answer the concerns for the implementation of cbt and ibt, they may not fully apply for the new method of test, at-home test, since it is not in-person supervised. an at-home language test is delivered online and can be completed at the test-taker's own house (isbell & kremmel, 2020). while it is the same as ibt in terms of the requirement of fast and stable internet connection, the use of headphones may be tricky for at-home tests. when the use of headphones is supposed to hinder the test takers to record or letting others listen to the audio material, at-home test takers test can contrarily use headphones to receive help from others wagner (2020). this problem can actually be solved by applying video-based proctoring where test takers must show themselves and their room throughout the test or using exam security software which may temporarily restrict the functionality of the test-taker's computer and allows proctors to monitor the activity on the computer (isbell & kremmel, 2020). due to their prone to cheating, validity becomes one of the highlighted issues in an at-home test. unfortunately, only two studies to date have compared the scores from athome tests and other test modes to examine the validity concern, rigo (2020) and stradiotová et al. (2021). these two studies share the same findings where test-takers with paper-based mode achieve better scores than those taking the at-home test. these findings, however, are not enough to validate that an at-home test has lower validity compared to other test modes, and more studies need to be conducted to validate this finding). 3. method 3.1. participants and location this study employed a qualitative method with an interview technique to answer the research questions. four staff at the language center of syiah kuala university, two males and two females, who are involved in the delivery of an at-home toefl test were interviewed. the language center was chosen because it is, as far as the researchers’ concern, the only testing center in aceh, indonesia that carries out an at-home test. the understanding the implementation of an at-home language test: a case of an online….. 222 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.10, no.2, may 2023 four staff were recruited since they were all that deliver the at-home toefl test. they began to deliver online remote proctoring for both toefl itp and toefl-equivalent tests in july 2020. previously, the tests were delivered on-site in paper-based mode. 3.2. data collection the four test administrators were interviewed virtually via zoom. the focus group interview was applied to obtain affirmed information among the participants (short, 2006), and a semi-structured interview was used to provide flexibility for the participants in giving answers, thus resulting in richer data (richards, 2009). the interview questions were formulated based on isbell and kremmel's (2020) considerations in administering an at-home test. there were 17 questions in total, consisting of five questions asking about a technological concern, eight questions about security concern, two questions about validity concern, and the other two questions about challenges that the center faced during the implementation of the at-home test. the interview was carried out in indonesian language and lasted for approximately 40 minutes. 3.3. data analysis the interview was recorded to be then analyzed. the analysis followed richards' (2009) guidelines in analyzing and interpreting interview data. the analysis began by transcribing the interview, followed by finding phrases that respond to the questions, and ended by categorizing the findings under the same themes. the analysis started with the exploration of the participants’ answers related to the general execution of the at-home toefl test. then, the answers covering the technological, security, and validity concerns were grouped into respective themes. finally, the answers expressing the center’s struggle during the at-home implementation, as well as their expectation for future application, were gathered in one theme. the complete explanations of the findings are presented below. 4. findings this part explores the results of the interview with the four test administrators. as mentioned in the method part, there were 17 questions asked, and the responses to these questions provided the answer for the three research problems addressed in this study. 4.1. the execution of at-home test this part answers the first question of this study which is about the administration of an at-home test. in general, the language center of syiah kuala university carried out the at-home toefl through several processes. the first process was the process to move the paper-based test to an online administration. here the administrators conveyed that they chose moodle to design the test and safe exam browser (seb) to deliver it. “we used moodle to design the questions of the test because it was the simplest application to use. when we finished the design, we put them on the safe exam browser” (test administrator 1). refanja rahmatillah, rizki fajrita, & endah anisa rahma englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 223 once the test set was ready to be delivered, the test was open for registration and the test-takers were required to do a mini-test simulation provided by the administrators. this simulation process proposed to check the qualification of the test-takers to take the test and to give insights to the test-takers of what the test would be like. “there was a test simulation held one day before the actual test to check the test-takers’ internet speed. when they did not meet the internet speed standard, they could not take the online test” (test administrator 2). those who were qualified to take the online test would be given a password to be entered on seb via email. on the next day, before taking the test, the identity of test takers would be firstly checked via zoom by asking them to face the camera while the administrators matched them with the data registered. the test-takers were also required to show their room to prevent the presence of illegal materials or help. after that, the testtakers would complete the test on their computer while being supervised via zoom opened from their phones. “the test-takers were required to open zoom via their phones and put the phones behind them, in a position that we could see their whole rooms” (test administrator 3). when the test proctors presumed something suspicious happened, they could stop the test on seb and put the test-taker into a zoom breakout room to be investigated. “we, proctors, could see something suspicious happening via zoom. if that happened, we stopped the test and used the zoom breakout room feature to investigate the test-taker” (test administrator 2). finally, when the test-takers completed the test, they would later receive their scores via e-mail. 4.2. considerations in implementing at-home test the explanation of the administration processes of the at-home toefl above, actually, describes how the testing center considered the technology and security concerns in implementing the test but paid little attention to validity issues, which answers the second research problem of this study. the detailed description is presented below under each concern. 4.2.1. technological concern the use of seb to deliver the test was based on some reasons. besides a wellknown platform to securely administer a test, the administrators stated that seb can be well run in almost all operating systems, except for windows 8. “seb can be well accessed via almost all operating systems, except for windows 8 that it would run slowly” (test administrator 1). in addition, to be able to take the at-home test, the administrator required the testtakers to have a personal computer to run seb, a phone to open zoom, earphones, and at least 3gb of fast and stable internet connection. to ensure the satisfaction of this requirement, the administrators held a mini-test simulation on the day before the test to check the test takers’ internet speed. “it is a must for the test-takers to have a fast and stable understanding the implementation of an at-home language test: a case of an online….. 224 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.10, no.2, may 2023 internet connection. that’s why we conducted an internet bandwidth test one day before the test date” (test administrator 3). despite the stated preparation to handle the technology concerns, problems did occur especially with the use of a phone for zoom supervision. “the problem that mostly occurred on the test day was the test-takers’ phones became overheated and this disturbed the supervision process, thus we needed to stop the test” (test administrator 4). 4.2.2. security concern as described in the processes of test administration earlier, the testing center considered the security issues through some steps. to prevent the occurrence of identity fraud, before the test, the identity and the room of test-takers would be checked by using zoom: before starting the test, we checked the test-takers’ identity. we asked them to close their faces to their phone camera and we would match their faces with the ones registered. after that, we also asked them to show their whole rooms by rotating their phones (test administrator 2). in relation to preventing test item breaches, the administrators believed that the use of seb and the requirement to use earphones could minimize the risk: the features in test-takers’ computers could not be opened during the use of seb thus they could not export the test items. moreover, we required them to use earphones during the listening section so they could not record the audio nor let others listen to it (test administrator 1). in addition, the use of zoom to supervise the test-takers in real-time prevented them from cheating. “by using zoom we could monitor the activities of the test-takers. we also knew if there was somebody else entering their room to help them” (test administrator 4). finally, the examiners could stop the test if they found something suspicious and used the zoom breakout feature to investigate the test takers. 4.2.3. validity concern the validity issue seemed to be the one that was less noticed by the test administrators. there was no comparison carried out by the testing center between the scores obtained from the at-home and traditional paper-based toefl since they believed that the transformation of the valid pbt toefl to online administration would not change the validity quality. “we know that we use valid toefl questions, but since the administration of at-home toefl we have not compared the test-takers’ scores from the two modes of delivery” (test administrator 1). moreover, the test results were also issued in the same format as the traditional mode of delivery where the administrators did not mention that the scores were obtained refanja rahmatillah, rizki fajrita, & endah anisa rahma englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 225 through an at-home test. “we did not differentiate the results between at-home and paper-based toefl. we issued the results in the usual format” (test administrator 4). 4.3. challenges in implementing at-home test regarding the last research problem addressed in this study, the administrators revealed that they faced some challenges in implementing the at-home toefl. the first challenge that they stated was that the amount of effort in carrying out the at-home test was not worth the number of test-takers participating in the test and, as a result, the income received: we do not think the income we received, which was the same as administering the pbt toefl, was worth the effort that we spent. it is because the number of testtakers that can be accommodated was fewer than the usual test (test administrator 1). another challenge conveyed by the administrators was that they had to use their personal devices and sometimes their own internet data. this burdened the staff and they hoped for the procurement of devices for the staff: i personally hope that the office can provide devices for the staff so that they don’t need to use their own devices. moreover, when we worked from home, we also had to use our own internet data (test administrator 3). 5. discussion the results of the interview with four at-home toefl administrators of the language center of syiah kuala university provide insights to answer the research questions addressed in this study. the testing center carried out the test by using safe exam browser (seb) and zoom and held a mini simulation test one day before the real test. they did consider the technology and security demands, but paid less attention to validity concerns, and faced some challenges in carrying out the at-home toefl. from the point of technology demands, as pointed out by isbell and kremmel (2020), a fast and stable internet connection is a crucial feature in the implementation of an at-home test. the testing center provided a quite fast and stable internet connection for the administrators to run the test and this rarely became a problem. in addition, the simulation held one day before the real test not only proposed to check the test takers' internet speed and stability but also to familiarize the test takers with the platform used for the test. while the test administrators’ narration affirms the findings from previous studies (dooey, 2008; hosseini et al., 2014; khoshsima et al., 2019) that computer familiarity is no longer a problem in this time, such technical problems did occur a few times, e.g. testtakers did not know how to download the test platform app and fill in the required passwords. thus, the simulation provided assistance for those who were not familiar with the platform and might reduce their anxiety (yu, 2010) in completing the real test. understanding the implementation of an at-home language test: a case of an online….. 226 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.10, no.2, may 2023 furthermore, the accessibility of the technology used in the delivery of the test seems to be handled well. the use of seb to deliver the test is said by the administrators to run well in almost all computer operating systems. the utilization of such a platform that can be fairly assessed will likely result in equal opportunities for the test-takers in demonstrating their language proficiency (laborda et al., 2010). even though some studies, such as (roever, 2001) and (stradiotová et al., 2021), raise a concern related to the accessibility of an online test delivery due to limited internet coverage in some parts of the world, this issue will be likely solved in the future for more and more regions start to have internet access. on the other hand, practicality appeared to become an issue in the implementation of the at-home toefl. since the administrators required the test takers to use phones to open the zoom app for the live supervision purpose, it is reported that the phones frequently became overheated and then automatically turned off, and, as a result, it disturbed the test progress. it is when dooey (2008) reminds us that the equipment used in a test should be in perfect working condition to prevent such problems from occurring. moreover, aligned with the concerns conveyed in nogami and hayashi (2010) and ockey (2009) that costs are the issue in conducting a test with technology, the administrators admitted that they had to expend more money and effort in delivering the at-home toefl. the amount of income from the test fee, however, was viewed as not sufficient to cover the expense since the number of test-takers that could be accommodated was fewer than in the normal test condition. this might be an interesting finding for it contradicts the argument that the emergence of ibt can accommodate a greater number of test-takers at one time (roever, 2001). moving to the point of security concerns, the test administrators appeared to well address the security issues raised in the incorporation of technology in language testing. by applying live video proctoring using zoom, the proctors could monitor the examinee’s activities and environment during the test, which is a solution to overcome the shortcoming of direct monitoring in an online test (isbell & kremmel, 2020). as a result, the worry of cheating that is prone to happen in at-home tests (wagner, 2020) could be also minimized. in addition, the video conference app was also used to prevent the possibility of identity fraud conducted by the examinees. as pointed out by ockey (2009), identity fraud commonly occurs in ibt since the test takers do not need to come to the test center to take the test. the use of such an application to screen the test takers before starting the test, thus, will overcome this issue. regarding the concern of test item breaching, as the main security concern in the administration of cbt or ibt (ockey, 2009; van der linden & glas, 2000), the test administrators believed that the use of seb as the test platform and the requirement of using earphones during listening section were able to minimize the risk. seb could stop the functions of other applications on the examinees’ computers; thus, they would not be able to duplicate or screenshot the test page. meanwhile, the use of headphones would prevent the examinees from recording or let other people listen to the test audio. refanja rahmatillah, rizki fajrita, & endah anisa rahma englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 227 unfortunately, the validity concern appeared to be less evaluated by the administrators in implementing the at-home toefl. this happened due to two factors, the belief in the equally valid quality of the test since it used the same form of questions as the paper-based version and the absence of test takers’ scores both in paper-based and at-home toefl for comparison. nevertheless, to guarantee that the test measures the intended measurement validity checking is a must in cbt/ibt (dooey, 2008) and most previous studies accomplished it by comparing the scores of two different modes of the test (suvorov & hegelheimer, 2014). therefore, it is an urgent need to measure the validity of the scores considering that the test center also did not explicitly mention in the score reports that they were obtained through an at-home mode, which is essential information for score users (isbell & kremmel, 2020). further challenges were faced by the test administrators, besides those mentioned earlier related to the practicality issues. the test administrators revealed that administering an at-home test is more complicated than the traditional one in terms of preparing the test and communicating the test procedures to the test takers. it is when ockey (2009) points out the necessity of human resources who are competent in using technology. moreover, while proctoring the at-home toefl can be done at home, the consequences of using personal devices and internet data burden the test proctors. hence, less complicated procedures and the availability of equipment for test proctors are needed to take into account in implementing the effective at-home test. 6. conclusion this study aims to provide an understanding of the implementation of an at-home test, as a method to deliver language tests during this covid-19 time, by reviewing the case of an at-home toefl carried out by the language center of syiah kuala university. in short, the testing center transformed the pbt version of the test to be delivered digitally using seb and used zoom to remotely supervise the test-takers. in implementing these processes, the testing center appeared to consider both technology and security concerns but failed to guarantee the validity of the test. in addition, they also faced challenges in carrying out the at-home test, such as the imbalance between the effort spent and the income received and the use of personal devices. they hope for a less complicated procedure to carry out the at-home test, which further research may accomplish. furthermore, this study serves as a starting point to explore the other aspects involved in an at-home test. for example, further research can study the effect of the use of such remote technology on test-takers’ performance or investigate the validity of the at-home test by comparing test-takers’ scores with other test modes. these explorations might be crucially needed in consideration that future language testing administration still has to be online proctored because of the unresolved pandemic situation. understanding the implementation of an at-home language test: a case of an online….. 228 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.10, no.2, may 2023 references barkaoui, k. 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(2010). effects of presentation mode and computer familiarity on summarization of extended texts. language assessment quarterly, 7(2), 119–136. https://doi.org/10.1080/15434300903452355 englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2022. vol. 10, no.1, 1-15 scrabble game technique: a game changer for english vocabulary learning diana fauzia sari * , rosnani sahardin,vida yani, yunisrina qismullah yusuf universitas syiah kuala, indonesia manuscript received january 31, 2022, revised july 1, 2022, accepted july 4, 2022, and published online november 7, 2022. recommended apa citation sari, d. f., sahardin, r., yani, v., & yusuf, y. q. (2022). scrabble game technique: a game changer for english vocabulary learning. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.12388 abstract students‟ learning outcomes of vocabulary mastery in reading comprehension at junior high schools in banda aceh, indonesia, are relatively low. to tackle the issue, the scrabble game technique (hereafter, sgt) is hoped to be a game-changer. this study aims to investigate efl students‟ learning outcomes through the use of the sgt in learning english vocabulary through narrative texts to seventh-grade students at a junior high school. the aspects assessed for each type of vocabulary included nouns, verbs, pronouns, adverbs, adjectives, and conjunctions. the research design was quantitative with pre-experimental research that used a one-group pre-test post-test design to measure the students‟ learning outcomes after three treatments with the sgt. a total of 30 seventh-grade students were selected by purposive sampling. the instrument used to collect data was a test, comprising 30 questions in total, with 18 multiple choices, 6 fillin-the-blanks, and 6 matching-the-word. the tests were further analyzed using the righthand t-test after the pre-requisite test was met. it was found that the percentage of mastery of nouns and verbs in the post-test was better than in the pre-test, with the improvement of nouns at 93%, verbs at 91%, pronouns at 84%, adverbs at 72%, adjectives at 71%, and conjunctions at 71%. furthermore, the t-count was 19.68 with p = 0.05, dk = 29, and t-table = 1.70. it was concluded that students‟ learning outcomes were better after being taught through the sgt. keywords: scrabble game; vocabulary mastery; efl learners * corresponding author: diana fauzia sari universitas syiah kuala jl. teuku nyak arief no.441, kopelma darussalam, syiah kuala, banda aceh, indonesia email: diana.fauzia@unsyiah.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.12388 scrabble game technique: a game changer for english vocabulary learning 2 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 1. introduction vocabulary is an important part of language proficiency since it determines how well learners talk, listen, read, and write (richards, 2002). and thus, if a language learner lacks vocabulary, he or she will have trouble understanding other language skills such as speaking, reading, writing, and listening. as a result, one of the areas of learning that students must grasp is vocabulary. students studying english, for example, would struggle to speak the language if they had a limited vocabulary. moreover, without a proportional amount of vocabulary, they would stagger in the process of learning english since making meaningful sentences in communication would be a hassle. students can describe everything that comes to mind without grammar, but they cannot convey anything without vocabulary. in line with this, vocabulary is an oral part of effective communication, and a command of many words will make a better writer, reader, and listener (langan, 2001). reading and comprehending a message is difficult without first recognizing the words and the structural phrases that organize those words (nouri & zerhouni, 2016). as a result, reading is a process of learning new words and integrating their meanings into sentences (sandjaja, 2001). therefore, teachers need to assist children in reaching various components of the vocabulary threshold (i.e., vocabulary size and depth) to improve their reading skills (nouri & zerhouni, 2016). the final result of the reading process is that the reader can understand what they read by making summaries of their reading. nevertheless, it cannot be denied that many efl students still face difficulties in reading due to their lack of vocabulary, especially in indonesia (amiruddin, 2019; dzulfikri, 2016; razali & razali, 2013; setiawan & wiedarti, 2020). in terms of vocabulary in reading skills, the students have not reached the kriteria ketuntasan minimal (or minimum (score) completion criteria), which is 70. out of the standard percentage for vocabulary mastery, the students only scored 60 out of 100 on average. ironically, they still struggle in understanding even the simplest short text from their textbook. a pilot investigation from interviews with the english teachers and a number of students at the school revealed that they could not answer the questions from the texts because they did not know the meaning of most of the words in the texts. in a nutshell, the main problem in their reading comprehension was the lack of vocabulary. this situation further leads to their demotivation and inactiveness in the english class. to solve the problems described above, teachers‟ efforts must be involved in finding and applying suitable strategies or techniques for vocabulary learning to improve reading skills. teaching vocabulary is an important element of a teacher‟s instruction (harmer, 2002); meaning that mastering vocabulary should be interesting and satisfying for both teachers and students. employing suitable strategies or techniques, proper learning materials, and creating an enjoyable learning environment can encourage students to positive learning in the classroom (banks, 2014). diana fauzia sari , rosnani sahardin, vida yani, & yunisrina qismullah yusuf englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 3 consequently, this study intends to employ a good balance of a fun and enjoyable way of learning english to improve students‟ vocabulary. one of the strategies is by performing games (lee, 2012). essentially, a language game is an activity that encourages students to learn by acquiring specific skills in the classroom (nguyen & nga, 2003). accordingly, scrabble game technique (hereafter, sgt) is one of the language games (lidiasari, et al, 2017; masela, 2017; onasanya, et al., 2021). scrabbled words are mixed letters/alphabets in a confused or untidy way (hornby, 2004), and then they are arranged to be a meaningful word, phrase, or sentence. the game has been known to optimize students‟ way of thinking, trigger creativity in defining and constructing new things, and increase their knowledge and understanding (chairiah, et. al., 2020; lidiasari, et al., 2017; lin, et al., 2007; onasanya, et al., 2021). in scrabble, one of the most important aspects of the game is the precision and speed with which the players answer the question (sheppard, 2002). subsequently, seeing the positive outcomes of using the sgt, this research focused on the eighth-grade students in banda aceh, especially the junior high school students of mtsn (madrasah sanawiah) rukoh since the teachers of the school informed to have never implemented this technique before in teaching vocabulary to their students. thus, it aimed to answer two research questions: 1. is the use of the sgt effective to improve the students‟ vocabulary in reading comprehension? 2. what category of vocabulary do the students master better after the sgt was used? the results of this study are expected to enrich teachers‟ teaching techniques, especially in aceh, on vocabulary development and retention to efl learners. the theory and practice of the sgt contribute to the literature on english language teaching and learning, particularly in teaching reading. it is also hoped that it can be used as a reference for researchers who intend to conduct similar research on this topic in the future. . 2. literature review 2.1. vocabulary words let speakers communicate their beliefs, ideas, and feelings in every form of communication, therefore learning a language is inextricably linked to learning a vocabulary (i.e., spoken or written). according to celce-murcia (2001), vocabulary is the most significant component of language since it influences the four basic language abilities of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. in reading, for instance, vocabulary helps define the message of a text. it is a complex conscious and unconscious mental process in which the reader applies a variety of strategies to recreate the author's ostensibly intended meaning (mikulecky, 2011). this means that when someone reads a text, she tries to reconstruct what she already knows about the topic or subject being read. this reconstruction and recollection process depends on how adept she is at vocabulary. guessing, predicting, checking, and asking oneself questions are all part of scrabble game technique: a game changer for english vocabulary learning 4 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 this active skill (grellet, 1999). when she lacks a knowledge glossary on words, she bounds to face countless difficulties in understanding the text. that is why vocabulary mastery affects one‟s reading comprehension. to comprehend a reading passage, someone seizes the total message of what the author tries to impose on her. finding the passage's primary principles and supporting concepts was one way (blachowicz & ogle, 2008). as a result, to comprehend the text, readers must not only comprehend the meaning of the text, which includes understanding the words (vocabulary), phrases, sentences, idea, main idea, supporting details, and so on, but also a new data entry (information) introduced in the textual content, which may or may not affect the previously stored information in their minds. for this reason, reading comprehension is thought to be a method of extracting meaning from a text (woolley, 2011). rather than deducing meaning from single words or sentences, the goal is to achieve a whole knowledge of the text. that being the case, some reading text and grasping its comprehension is a tough play for students that require a specific technique of learning. 2.2. vocabulary mastery in language learning the ability of a learner to internalize the substance of the lesson taught as a whole is regarded as mastery (bromley, 2007). the mastery of english vocabulary itself is coined by harmer and thornbury (2002) as someone who has sufficient word knowledge and language achievement. this includes comprehending the vocabulary and its phonological system both in speech and in writing (henry & pongrantz, 2007). it is the ability to understand the meaning of words, produce the words properly, and employ the words in context. in language learning, such as english, it is not possible to use good and clear english without having sufficient vocabulary. therefore, english teachers must help students improve their vocabulary in learning because it is a core component of language (richards & renandya, 2002). in the early stages of learning, vocabulary that are connected to students‟ experiences plays a vital role in the development of their language. with consistent practice in learning, the larger vocabulary the students master, the better they perform their language. hiebert and kamil (2005) described vocabulary in two forms: production and receptive or recognition. production refers to words one uses in everyday speaking and writing. meanwhile, receptive or recognition refers to all of the words one recognizes in written and oral contexts. the more one can extend his reception or recognition of words, the greater his chance of enlarging his production of vocabulary (faraj, 2015). in teaching and learning, the literature has noted that some processes can be taken into account in converting receptive vocabulary into productive vocabulary. some elements affect students' productive use of language. first is the instructional methods (stahl & nagy, 2005), such as teaching vocabulary in isolation and providing more time and opportunities for vocabulary learning in the classroom. the second one is materials (waring, 2002), such as textbooks and authentic materials diana fauzia sari , rosnani sahardin, vida yani, & yunisrina qismullah yusuf englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 5 used to teach students. the third one is learning settings (faraj, 2015), such as providing and boosting students‟ motivation and using words in real-life contexts while teaching in the classroom. finally, the fourth ones are procedures and teaching techniques (nation, 2001), such as using visual aids to illustrate meaning, discussing both examples and illustrative uses of the word, creating games out of vocabulary learning, implementing activities that are interesting to all learning types, and reinforcing words by making them visible in the classroom (i.e., posters, cards, etc.). the mastery of vocabulary cannot be denied in learning english, and it should be developed naturally by students‟ experience in life according to their needs and education. 2.3. scrabble game technique as discussed earlier, there are many ways to afflict students' productive use of language, and among them is creating games out of vocabulary learning. in this research, the researchers focus on the use of the sgt, which is known as one of the techniques that can help students enhance their vocabulary mastery in reading comprehension. it is “a game arranging the words and letter which has been randomly located to create a word that has meaning” (shoimin, 2014, p. 166). this game is used to improve vocabulary thinking insight. when it comes to the classroom, a scrabble game can improve pupils' concentration and quickness of thought (huda, 2016). in this game, the teacher assigns workouts or questions to the students based on the competency that needs to be accomplished. they must respond to the questions using the offered random possible answers. they must also work together with other members of the group to address the challenge by critically thinking together. there are three procedures of the sgt; those are planning, main activity, and evaluation (concluded by hajar, 2019; nurjamah, 2015; shoimin, 2014): 1. planning; in this step, the teacher prepares all of the teaching-learning materials and media. 2. main activity; here, three main steps are involved, which are the introduction, core activity, and closing. in the introduction (5 minutes), the teacher greets the students in a friendly manner when entering the classroom, checks the students‟ attendance, and then explains the learning objectives and further motivates the students to learn. next, in the core activity (30 minutes), the teacher groups the students into groups consisting of 3-4 students, and gives a leaflet containing a text for them to read and to understand its structure and function. the teacher explains the categories of parts of speech: noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, adjective, and conjunction contained in the text. afterward, the teacher introduces the sgt to the students and explains how to play it. here, she asks them to memorize several words according to the part of speech categories contained in the text. the teacher gives them time to arrange letters and word fragments so that they form a meaningful word, then write them down on a piece of paper to determine the part of the speech category of the word. then the teacher asks them to recall the words that have been compiled and provides feedback regarding their scrabble game technique: a game changer for english vocabulary learning 6 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 vocabulary mastery. at this stage, the teacher provides them opportunities to reflect on learning and further motivates them so that all of them participate in the learning process. finally, in closing (5 minutes), the teacher concludes the lesson and ends it for the day. 3. evaluation; this step depends on the students‟ learning outcomes. the teacher assesses the proper arrangement of meaningful words in each group and makes efforts to find and learn the meaning of new vocabulary together in the dictionary. several studies have been conducted in indonesia to attest to the effectiveness of the sgt in reading to improve efl students‟ vocabulary. umasugi, et al. (2018) conducted experimental research on seventh graders in maluku on improving students‟ vocabulary via scrabble games. lidiasari, et al. (2017) conducted similar research as well to seventh-grade students in sambas. in the same way, chairiah, et al., (2020) researched junior high school students‟ perception in banjarmasin on using the sgt to improve their vocabulary. the results showed their positivity towards the game where they found that it beneficially influenced their vocabulary learning. this technique has even been demonstrated to be effective for deaf students (see sintya, et al., 2017). thus, the results of this research proved that the sgt gradually improved the students‟ vocabulary in reading. huda (2016) further pointed out some advantages of using the sgt. this technique is known to train students to think quickly and precisely, to practice answering the question with random answers of words with the alphabet arranged in rummages, and to direct the students to be disciplined and cooperative while working together. other advantages include cooperative working, fun learning activities, solidarity in a group, memorable impressive materials, and competitiveness (shoimin, 2014). however, this technique also comes with disadvantages. huda (2016) mentioned some of the drawbacks as cheating, uncreative, only receiving raw materials that only need to be processed properly, limit on the number of players, age appropriateness, boring, and not everyone being good with words (i.e., does not want to play), which leads to some students to end up feeling inferior. shoimin (2014) added that the game also needs time to be applied, creates noise in the classroom, and may disturb the learning process, students can get distracted and bored since it is an indoor game. 3. method 3.1. participants and location this quasi-experimental quantitative research utilized the pre-experimental approach with a one-group pre-test post-test design to measure the students‟ learning outcomes after learning with the sgt. a total of 30 eighth-grade students of mtsn rukoh in banda aceh were purposively selected based on their urgent need for vocabulary improvement compared to the other eight-grade students in other classes of the school. diana fauzia sari , rosnani sahardin, vida yani, & yunisrina qismullah yusuf englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 7 3.2. data collection the instrument was tests, in the form of pre-test and post-test. in the pre-test on the first meeting, the students were to read a text story of „sura and baya‟ (taken from zaida, 2013) comprising 335 words. after reading this text, the students were then to follow a test in the form of 30 questions, consisting of 18 multiple choice questions, 6 fill-in-the-blanks, and 6 matching the words. afterward, the treatment process consisted of teaching english with the use of the sgt in three consecutive meetings (second, third and fourth meetings). in each of the treatment meetings, the teacher followed the procedures of the sgt (hajar, 2019; nurjamah, 2015; shoimin, 2014). finally, in the post-test on the fifth meeting, the students read the same story given in the pre-test (i.e., „sura and baya‟), and followed a similar test in the form of 30 questions, consisting of 18 multiple choice questions, 6 fill in the blanks, and 6 matching the words. hence, the questions and answers, despite having a similar pattern, have been slightly changed so they would not be exactly the same as the post-test. 3.3. data analysis the results of the preand post-tests were then statistically examined. the mean scores from both the pre-test and post-test were calculated first (arikunto, 2009). the next step was to see whether there were any significant differences between the pre-test and post-test results (ary, et. al., 2006). with the t-table at the level of significance α = 0.05, if the t-test is higher than the t-table, it can be concluded that there are differences in students‟ vocabulary in reading comprehension after they are taught using the sgt. but if the t-test is lower than the t-table, it can be concluded that there are no differences in learning in students‟ vocabulary in reading comprehension after they are taught using the sgt. 4. findings 4.1. the result of the pre-test and post-test the results from the pre-test and post-test showed the minimum score of the students‟ pre-test, with 13 as the minimum score and 63 as the maximum score. meanwhile, the minimum score of the post-test elevates to 63, with the maximum score of 97. based on the pre-test results, the frequency distribution table for the students‟ learning outcomes before the sgt is presented in table 1. from the calculation, the range (r) of the scores comes at 50 with the interval classes of 5.87 (take 6), and the length of class interval at 8.3 (take 9). scrabble game technique: a game changer for english vocabulary learning 8 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 table 1 the frequency distribution of pre-test values. test scores frequency (fi) median (xi) xi 2 fixi fixi 2 13 – 21 4 17 289 68 1156 22 – 30 4 26 676 104 2704 31 – 39 10 35 1225 350 12250 40 – 48 7 44 1936 308 13552 49 – 57 3 53 2809 159 8427 58 – 66 2 62 3844 124 7688 from table 1, the mean value (x ) is 37.1, the variance (s2) is 154.64 and the standard deviation (s) is 12.44. 4.2. normality test of pre-test data the normality of the pre-test data distribution is conformed at a significant level of 5% (α = 0.05) with the degree of freedom (dk) at 3 (k-3 = 6-3 = 3), so we get the results of the calculation show that the value of , while the value of . therefore, it can be concluded that with 2.07 81, therefore it represented normally distributed data. table 2 pre-test normality test. test scores class limit (xi) zscore area boundary regional extensive frequency is expected (ei) frequency of observation (oi) 12,5 -1,98 0,4761 13 – 21 0,0817 2,451 4 21,5 -1,25 0,3944 22 – 30 0,1925 5,775 4 30,5 -0,53 0,2019 31 – 39 0,2773 8,319 10 39,5 0,19 0,0754 40 – 48 0,2458 7,374 7 48,5 0,92 0,3212 49 – 57 0,1283 3,849 3 57,5 1,64 0,4495 58 – 66 0,0414 1,242 2 66,5 2,36 0,4909 total 27,768 30 diana fauzia sari , rosnani sahardin, vida yani, & yunisrina qismullah yusuf englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 9 4.3. post-test score calculation process based on the pre-test results, the frequency distribution table for student learning outcomes after the implementation of the sgt is presented in table 3. from the calculation, the range (r) of the scores comes at 34 with the interval classes of 5.87 (take 6), and the length of class interval at 5.7 (take 6). table 3 the frequency distribution of post-test values. test scores frequency (fi) median (xi) xi 2 fixi fixi 2 62 – 67 2 64,5 4160,25 129 8320,5 68 – 73 3 70,5 4970,25 211,5 14910,75 74 – 79 8 76,5 5852,25 612 46818 80 – 85 10 82,5 6806,25 825 68062,5 86 – 91 3 88,5 7832,25 265,5 23496,75 92 – 97 4 94,5 8930,25 378 35721 total 30 38551,5 2421 197329,5 from table 3, the mean value (x ) is 80.7, the variance (s2) is 67.40 and the standard deviation (s) is 8.21. 4.4. normality test of post-test data. the normality of the pre-test data distribution has been confirmed at a significant level of 5% (α = 0.05) with the degree of freedom (dk) at 3 (k-3 = 6-3 = 3), so we get the results of the calculation show that the value of , while the value of . therefore, it can be concluded that with 2.07 81, thus it represented normally distributed data. 4.5. hypothesis testing from the test it was found that the bi value is 43.3, the deviance is 145.25, the standard deviation value (s) is 12.05, and the t-value is 19.68. the significant level α = 0.05, the degrees of freedom (dk) are 29 (n-1 = 30-1 = 29) so that t-table is 1.70. it can be concluded that t-count> t-table, with 19.68 > 1.70, so the sgt is effective to improve the students‟ vocabulary in reading comprehension at mtsn rukoh, banda aceh. accordingly, h0 is rejected and h1 is accepted. scrabble game technique: a game changer for english vocabulary learning 10 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 10 20 19 24 20 25 13 17 21 20 18 20 11 18 17 15 16 20 12 16 19 21 20 25 22 26 21 13 17 20 10 10 11 6 10 5 17 13 9 10 12 10 19 12 13 15 14 11 20 15 11 9 7 5 8 4 9 17 13 10 33 33 37 20 33 17 57 43 30 33 40 33 63 40 43 50 47 37 67 50 37 30 23 17 27 13 30 57 43 33 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 pre test fals correct score 7 1 9 11 2 10 5 4 6 7 5 7 5 6 7 4 7 7 3 6 6 7 9 2 6 8 7 5 2 6 23 29 21 19 28 20 25 26 24 23 25 23 25 24 23 26 23 23 27 24 24 23 21 28 24 22 23 25 28 24 77 97 70 63 93 67 83 87 80 77 83 77 83 80 77 87 77 77 90 80 80 77 70 93 80 73 77 83 93 80 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10111213141516171819202122232425262728293031 post-test fals correct score 4.6. students’ pre-test and post-test scores based on figure 1, it can be seen that the highest score of the students who were not taught by using the sgt is 67 while the lowest is 13. out of 30 students, there was only 1 person who achieved the highest score by answering all 20 questions correctly. the average score was 37.5. there were only 12 students who exceeded the average value. so, it can be concluded that there were more than 50% of the students scored below the average. figure 1. students‟ pre-test scores next, based on figure 2, the highest score of students who were taught by using the sgt is 97 while the lowest is 13. out of 30 students, there was only 1 person who achieved the highest score by answering all 29 questions correctly. the average score was 37.5. there were only 12 students who exceeded the average value. so, it can be concluded that there were more than 50% of students scored above average. diana fauzia sari , rosnani sahardin, vida yani, & yunisrina qismullah yusuf englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 11 93% 91% 84% 72% 71% 71% 52% 50% 36% 35% 25% 25% 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 noun verb pronoun adverb adjective conjunction post test pretest figure 2. students‟ post-test scores 4.7. the students’ mastery of different categories of vocabulary out of 30 questions of the pre-test and post-test that consisted of noun, verb, pronoun, adverb, adjective, and conjunction, the researchers classified the students‟ mastery of each category of vocabulary. figure 3 shows the comparison of mean scores in both the pre-test and the post-test. during the pre-test, the mean score of each classification is much worse than after the post-test. in the pre-test, the mean score for nouns was 52%, verbs was 50%, pronouns was 36%, adverbs was 35%, adjectives was 25%, and conjunctions was 25%. meanwhile, after the post-test, the mean score for nouns was 93%, verbs was 91%, pronouns was 84%, adverbs was 72%, adjectives was 71%, and conjunctions was 71%. from these results, it can be concluded that the sgt is effective in improving the students‟ mastery of vocabulary. the score of the post-test in vocabulary learning and reading comprehension using the sgt was higher than the score of the pre-test. furthermore, the students‟ achievement in vocabulary and reading comprehension was continuously improving when they were taught by the sgt during the treatment process. figure 3. the mean score of the pre-test and the post-test with the sgt 5. discussion the results show that the sgt could improve students‟ mastery of vocabulary in reading comprehension. this is seen based on the comparison of their pre-test score (37.1%) and post-test score (80.7%). the students‟ post-test was higher than their pretest score. of all 30 students, there were 25 students whose scores improved while the other five did not. furthermore, hypothesis testing based on a paired sample t-test was conducted to prove the theory. the results have shown that the alternative hypothesis scrabble game technique: a game changer for english vocabulary learning 12 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 (ha) of this research was accepted, hence the sgt could improve students‟ vocabulary mastery in reading comprehension. these findings indicated that the use of the sgt helped the students comprehend their reading comprehension. this technique also provided a fun way for spelling practice to improve students‟ vocabulary, reading, and overall grammar skills (lee, 2012). according to simmons (2016), scrabble is a game where luck plays a big influence in whether you have good or bad letters on your shelf. hence, this encouraged the students to try harder and be creative in their efforts to construct meaningful words (chairiah, et. al., 2020; lidiasari, et al., 2017; lin, et al., 2007; onasanya, et al., 2021). the activities performed by the student during the learning process assisted them to focus and be active during reading (grellet, 1999). the literature noted that students learn vocabulary more effectively when they are involved in the construction of meaning rather than memorizing definitions or synonyms (smith, 1997). as a result, it is intended that by using the sgt to teach vocabulary, students will study more enthusiastically (shoimin, 2014). as they create the meaning of the term in the offered game, the students also retain the vocabulary that they have learned. nonetheless, masela (2017), who investigated whether the sgt had a substantial impact on eighth graders' vocabulary mastering in west java, discovered that while the game increased students' enthusiasm for studying, it did not help them memorize the words or boost their vocabulary knowledge. despite the n-gain showing some students who improved after the game was implemented, statistical examination of the pre and post-tests revealed that the game had no meaningful influence on the students' vocabulary proficiency. however, syamsul (2015) showed a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test of the experimental class in a pre-experimental investigation on the usefulness of the game in improving students' vocabulary skills. on a side note, even though there were some studies of the sgt that yielded unexpected results, there were other studies that lead to positive results regarding the effectiveness of using it to improve vocabulary in reading comprehension. the researchers believed that the sgt did not only help improve students‟ vocabulary in reading comprehension, but also give positive outcomes in their learning process on reading comprehension. therefore, despite the advantages and disadvantages of the implementation of the sgt (huda, 2016; shoimin, 2014); it is up to the teachers in monitoring the situation in the class, that when things get tedious, they should switch or manage to other techniques to spark the students‟ interest in learning back on track. 6. conclusion the mean score of the students who were taught by using the sgt for vocabulary mastery in reading comprehension in the pre-test is 37.1% and the mean score of the post-test is 80.7%. in addition, the mean score of the post-test is higher than the minimum passing score determined by the school (70). furthermore, the t-table<tdiana fauzia sari , rosnani sahardin, vida yani, & yunisrina qismullah yusuf englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 13 count is 1.70<19.68, hence, the alternative hypothesis (ha) is accepted, which means that there was an improvement in students‟ vocabulary mastery in reading comprehension after they were taught by using the sgt. this means that the implementation of the sgt did help students improve their vocabulary in reading comprehension skills. this research was conducted with limitations, such as the small number of samples, the trivial meetings of the treatments, and only conducted at one school. future related research should consider more samples, meetings, and schools to be involved in implementing the sgt to improve vocabulary in reading comprehension. furthermore, the approach used in this research is quantitative, hence, other research in the future can also focus on qualitative data (i.e., interviews, observations, and documentation) on the effectiveness of the sgt and possible solutions to overcome the shortcomings of this technique in the english classroom. references amiruddin. 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(2018). the scramble game in improving students‟ vocabulary at the seventh grade of mts lkmd sawa. jurnal retemena 3(2), 1-10. waring, r. (2002). basic principles and practice in vocabulary instruction. the language teacher, 26(7), 11-13. woolley, g. (2011). reading comprehension: assisting children with learning difficulties. dordrecht: springer. zaida, n. (2013). bright an english course for junior high school student for smp/mts viii kurikulum 2013. jakarta: erlangga. https://doi:10.25134/ijli.v4i2.5200 englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2023. vol. 10, no.2, 148-163 measuring efl students’ self-efficacy levels in online learning maman asrobi, siti maysuroh, zukhruf farizi* hamzanwadi university, indonesia manuscript received august 16, 2022, revised november 2, 2022, accepted november 13, 2022, and published online may 7, 2023. recommended apa citation asrobi, m., maysuroh, s., & farizi, z. (2023). measuring efl students’ self-efficacy levels in online learning. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(2), 148-163. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.14773 abstract the rapid development of technology and the integration of technology into the education system have made several educational institutions begin to introduce and begin to apply it in their teaching and learning processes, one of which is by applying distance/online/remote learning methods that are considered flexible and convenience. the purpose of this study was to measure the level of self-efficacy that efl students in higher education have regarding the use of online learning methods in their teaching and learning activities. the data in this study were taken through an online survey technique of 60 higher education efl students. the instrument used is self-efficacy for online learning (seqol) which contains 20 statements with 3-point likert-type scale. the findings in this study found that the level efl learner self-efficacy in online learning was in moderate level (m= 2.22; sd= .59). based on this result, efl students need to adapt more to online learning methods so that they are able to master online learning experiences to get high self-efficacy. keywords: self-efficacy; efl students; online learning 1. introduction online learning has grown significantly over the past few decades. the rapid progress of this learning method has been driven by innovation in the education system that continues to evolve following the advances in information and communication *corresponding author: zukhruf farizi hamzanwadi university jl. cut nyak dien no.85, pancor, kabupaten lombok timur, nusa tenggara barat, 83611, indonesia email: zukhruffarizi.zf@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.14773 maman asrobi, siti maysuroh, & zukhruf farizi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 149 technologies. the application of technology in online learning is intended to improve the quality of teaching and learning. in addition, online learning has generated a need to transform the way students learn by using more modern, efficient, and effective alternatives (lee et al., 2014). hence, online education has become technologically and operationally feasible (palvia et al., 2018). in recent years, numerous higher education institutions are starting to adopt the online learning model in order to realize different educational benefits (farahat, 2012). the benefits offered such as high interconnectedness between students and educators, high retention, more flexible, and convenience are believed to be able to change students' learning styles from passive acceptance to more active self-oriented learning (castro & tumibay, 2021; chun, 2015; shih et al., 2013). however, despite all current reports championing online education, researchers are still questioning its student's efficacy in balancing the learning process when the learning method is applied, particularly to english as a foreign language learners (paul & jefferson, 2019; ramsin & mayall, 2019). learners' perceived self-efficacy is a significant issue in english language learning. knowing the level of learners' self-efficacy in the learning process is requisite to determine the best way to continue implementing learning approaches such as online learning (ramsin & mayall, 2019). several studies have been conducted on the measurement of students' self-efficacy in online learning (e.g. namaziandost & çakmak, 2020; rahmania, 2020; zarei & naghdi, 2017). however, there are still a few studies investigating the efl learners as a specific target participant with measuring instrument using based on the sources of selfefficacy. thus, the literature on online self-efficacy in the efl context based on the sources of self-efficacy remains underexplored, making the current study relevant to fill in the gap. self-efficacy is defined as an individual’s belief in his or her own capability to organize and perform actions necessary to attain a certain outcome (bandura, 1997). this concept is a reflection of how individuals might feel, think, and be motivated and therefore how they act and behave under certain conditions. the level of student selfefficacy can affect student participation in the learning process. according to schunk (2012), there are information sources that researchers used to measure self-efficacy. these sources are performance accomplishment (i.e., students experience successes and failures in learning), vicarious experiences (i.e., experience from colleagues for their achievements), forms of social persuasion (i.e., feedback from others), and affective states (i.e., emotion, mood, dealing with stress and anxiety during learning). moreover, the selfefficacy concept itself has been used to assess the effectiveness of learning innovations to determine how the learning innovations can be associated with students’ development of their own belief in their ability (punyasettro et al., 2021). students with high self-efficacy would choose to engage in learning, expend greater effort, persist longer, and especially during difficulties (schunk & dibenedetto, 2021). otherwise, students with low self-efficacy beliefs usually have low motivation, measuring efl students’ self-efficacy levels in online learning 150 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 lower academic expectations, and show less academic performance (sembiring et al., 2018). ensuring online learners develop self-efficacy within a course means that they should continue to be successful online learners into the future (taipjutorus et al., 2012). hence, measuring the self-efficacy of efl students related to the online learning method used will provide information about the level of student acceptance of the learning model. therefore, this study aims to measure the level of self-efficacy of efl students during the application of the online learning model. furthermore, based on the background described previously, this study attempts to address the following research question “how is the level of self-efficacy of efl students when online learning is used in the teaching and learning process?” 2. literature review 2.1. sources of the self-efficacy bandura (1995) designated four principal sources that can influence individuals’ efficacious, including mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, social persuasion, and affective states. 2.1.1. mastery experience mastery experience is the result of an individual engaging in a task and achieving what they perceive to be a positive outcome (power et al., 2020). for instance, learners with lacking mastery experience in learning environments have limited exposure in which to experience mastery in learning and have not been afforded the opportunity to develop efficacious beliefs of performance abilities. moreover, when an individual is able to do a task, the level of efficacy in carrying out the activities will increase. in contrast, when an individual fail to do the task, the level of efficacy with respect to that activity will decrease. the negative impact of common failures will be lessened, even then failure is overcome by certain efforts that can strengthen self-motivation if one finds through experience that even the most difficult obstacles can be overcome through constant effort. this information then becomes the base for developing beliefs of proficiency and continuing to engage in various tasks (husain, 2014). 2.1.2. vicarious experience individuals can be inspired to attain their goals by seeing their colleagues succeed. a student's sense of self-efficacy is more positively impacted by others who experience success (lestari et al., 2020). in other words, vicarious experience is a process of comparison between a person and another person as a model. a student may have concerns about doing something even if he/she has the capacity to do it, but when he/she sees other students being competent or successful in doing something where he/she has the same ability, his/her efficacy increases. furthermore, how successfully somebody does a task may be measured by others. in some activities, there may be no measure of whether something was done well or not. as a result, one must assess his/her own skill maman asrobi, siti maysuroh, & zukhruf farizi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 151 by examining the outcomes of others. therefore, fong and krause (2014) stated that seeing individuals similar to one’s self succeed can increase perceived efficacy: if someone similar to the learner is capable, the learner can come to believe that she or he is capable of learning as well. 2.1.3. social persuasion constructive feedback from others can increase individual capabilities. the effectiveness of social persuasion and constructive feedback has been proven to maximize if learners consider the sources of information as reputable and reliable (zarei & naghdi, 2017). social persuasion, including advice, counsel, and guidance so, as to increase his confidence about the abilities possessed that can help achieve the desired goals. individuals who are convinced verbally tend to try harder to achieve success. when praise is perceived as realistic and authentic, students often try harder to succeed in response to positive feedback. moreover, according to fong and krause (2014), effusive praise may be perceived as trivial by the student, who may interpret the instructor as having lower expectations and appraisals of the students. 2.1.4. affective states emotional problems can negatively affect self-efficacy, for instance, stress can reduce a person's confidence in his abilities. however, positive emotions can increase one's self-confidence and skills. emotional and physiological states that a student feels in certain learning situations give rise to the shape of an individual's behavior. rising emotions as well as tension and pressure on a person will show the appearance of the behavior, he/she does. affective states are important in behavior because they can determine how a person's behavior will be carried out. the student who tends to have high efficacy will be able to overcome the emotional state they have when doing a task in learning. in contrast, a student with low self-efficacy tends to be tense and unable to cope with their emotional state during a learning activity. they have when confronted with certain behaviors. however, the physical or affective response is not the sole cause that can affect a sense of self-efficacy, but it is the cognitive interpretation of these bodily and emotional states that ultimately regulates self-efficacy (fong & krause, 2014). 2.1.5. online learning online learning is a type of learning that is carried out without going through faceto-face by utilizing the web as a classroom. this learning method utilizes technology and information (ict) as the medium for distributing the learning material via any electronic media such as the internet, intranet, extranets, satellite broadcast, audio/videotape, cds, video conferencing, and computer-based training (castro & tumibay, 2021). furthermore, online learning or e-learning is the result of the systematic integration of technology components with teaching and learning activities that are characterized by the interaction of learning across time and space. therefore, research on learning techniques measuring efl students’ self-efficacy levels in online learning 152 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 leads to a comparison of the outcomes of various online learning methods, namely asynchronous and synchronous learning. synchronous learning is the online learning environment that is going through in real-time, namely where the teachers and students meet online and carry out two -way communication directly. as stated by amiti (2020), a synchronous class model is a learning model in that teachers and students are all gathered in one videoconference site. the teacher offers the instructions first, and the students then receive all of the attention. however, synchronous learning is highly dependent on technical aspects. for example, on the state of internet quotas for students, the stability of the internet network, and even the state of the device (battery condition, memory, and so on) since the learning takes place in real-time. besides, asynchronous learning is part of an online environment that is carried out using lms (learning management system), where the material has been prepared by the teacher so that it can be accessed by students anytime and anywhere. as stated by perveen (2016), asynchronous environments provide students with readily available material in the form of audio/video lectures, handouts, articles, and powerpoint presentations. this material is accessible anytime anywhere via a learning management system (lms) or other channels of the sort. however, the asynchronous downside is that it tends to remove the touch of social contact, such as talking and disagreeing with other students. asynchronous learning can also lead to student disinterest because there is no immediate response from the teacher. although there are shortcomings in both online learning techniques, some of the benefits of online learning have received serious attention from experts in their research. nguyen (2015) found that about 92% of all distance and online education studies find that distance and online education is at least as effective, if not better, than traditional education. moreover, you and kang (2014) found that online learning encourages students to be self-regulated in online learning. self-regulated leads learners to allocate enough time to complete tasks or to prepare for tests, review material regularly, put sufficient effort into studying, and also maintain their initial motivation throughout the learning process. besides, castro and tumibay (2021), and chun (2015) state students can elect their own pace, place, and time that is suitable for study, encouraging selfconfidence, being more talkative and active and boosting the effectiveness of education. 3. method this research was a descriptive quantitative study based on the distribution of a questionnaire to a plenty number of efl learners. descriptive quantitative research is a research method that attempts to collect quantifiable information for statistical analysis of the population sample. in this study, the researchers used the likert-type scale method survey for collecting data. the survey method is structured questions that respondents complete by filling out a form. maman asrobi, siti maysuroh, & zukhruf farizi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 153 3.1. participants the participants of this study were 60 efl college students (7 men, 53 women) from the english education study program at hamzanwadi university. the study represented a proportional sampling as seen from gender and grade levels. of the total group, 17 students were seniors, 16 juniors, 4 sophomores, and 4 freshmen. with confidence in the learning process, all of the participants used full online learning methods for one year (2021 to 2022), since the pandemic required the institution to use the online learning model. 3.2. research instrument this research used a questionnaire as an instrument for collecting the data. the instrument in this study is adapted from the seqol questionnaire conducted by shen et al., (2013) in their research to investigate the role of self-efficacy in an online learning environment. we then modified the questionnaire so that it became a group based on the sources of self-efficacy, namely as follows: mastery experience (5 items, α = 0.62), vicarious experience (5 items, α = 0.65), social persuasion (5 items, α = 0.79), affective states (5 items, α = 0.65). according to ursachi et al., (2015), 0.6-0.7 indicates an acceptable level of reliability. 3.3. data collection the data collection technique in this research was by distributing the questionnaire using google forms at beginning of the semester in early 2022. a total of 20 statements were given to the 60 students. furthermore, after the data is collected, the researcher checked each incoming answer to ensure the data is not defective and filled in properly. the next step was the researcher collected all responses from the participants and then the data was evaluated using microsoft excel. 3.4. data analysis in data analysis, the researcher used descriptive statistics in analyzing the data. this researcher calculated the mean score and standard deviation using microsoft office excel 2016. according to fraenkel (2012), excel is a software program that can be used to analyze data using tables and formulas to calculate many of the descriptive statistics in the text including means and standard deviation. furthermore, the researchers measured the mean score and standard deviation, which showed an indication of the student's efficacy, and then compared it with the three-point likert standard. the research score criteria are categorized into three, namely low, moderate, and high. table 1 three point-scale categories. likert scale interval category almost never 1.00 1.66 low measuring efl students’ self-efficacy levels in online learning 154 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 sometimes 1.67 2.33 moderate quite often 2.34 3.00 high source: pimentel, (2019) the purpose of categorization is to know the spread of the score on each item that gives meaning to each individual score. categorization is done by finding the average value of each variable which is then matched with a standardized likert interval. 4. findings as an initial stage in data analysis, a statistical description of each variable indicator consisting of mastery experience, vicarious experience, social persuasion, and affective states have been tested. statistical descriptions such as mean and standard deviation were used to interprete the scores based on predetermined interval scores. furthermore, the results of the study are described in the following explanation: table 2 data result mastery experience. no statements mean sd interpretation 1 create a plan to complete the given assignments 2.22 .55 moderate 2 evaluate assignments according to the criteria provided by the instructor 2.07 .60 moderate 3 complete an online course with a good grade 2.27 .60 moderate 4 keep up with course schedule 2.28 .69 moderate 5 initiate discussions with the instructor 2.08 .64 moderate average 2.18 .62 moderate as shown in table 2 above, the average value of respondents' responses to the mastery experience variable number one is (m= 2.22; sd= .55). this shows that students tend to make assignment plans to complete the task but not too often. while the second statement obtained an average value (m= 2.07; sd = .60) which explained that students sometimes evaluate their learning achievement targets based on specific criteria or standards given by the lecturers that must be achieved. moreover, statement number three scored (m= 2.27; sd= .60) indicating that the success of students in completing online learning was not minimal but also did not get a high score. the next is statement number four which gets an average score (m= 2.28; sd= .69) which explained that students are once in a while checking the course schedule. the last is statement number five which gets a score (m= 2.08; sd= .64) indicating that discussion activities between students and lecturers are sometimes on the initiative of the students themselves. thus, the mastery experience variable which describes the experience of students in the online learning process in order to encourage their learning achievement gets an average value (m= 2. 18; sd= .62) which is interpreted as moderate. maman asrobi, siti maysuroh, & zukhruf farizi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 155 table 3 data result vicarious experience. no statements mean sd interpretation 1 pay attention to other students’ social actions 2.23 .64 moderate 2 actively participating in online discussions 2.22 .63 moderate 3 understand complex concepts 2.13 .53 moderate 4 reply to others’ messages in a discussion board 2.17 .61 moderate 5 post a new message in a discussion board 1.92 .74 moderate average 2.13 .63 moderate as shown in table 3 above, the average value of respondents' responses to the vicarious experience variable for statement number one which shows that the average value of respondents' answers is (m= 2.23; sd= .64). this shows that sometimes students take each other as a model in learning which has an effect on the emergence of motivation in learning. the second statement obtained an average value (m= 2.22; sd= .63) which explained that students periodically participate in online learning discussion activities. moreover, the third statement scored (m= 2.13; sd= .53) meaning that students are sometimes in some conditions able to understand complex learning materials explained online, although infrequently. the next is statement number four which gets an average score (m= 2.17; sd= .61) which explained that students sometimes respond to arguments or opinions from other students regarding ongoing online discussions. the last is statement number five which gets a score (m= 1.92; sd= .74) indicating that students sometimes respond to discussions consistently even by sharing new messages about the material being discussed. thus, the vicarious experience variable which describes the experience of student observations of other students as a symbolic model to motivate in order to encourage their learning achievement gets an average value (m = 2.13; sd= .63) which is interpreted as moderate. table 4 data result social persuasion. no statements mean sd interpretation 1 initiate social interaction with classmates 2.55 .56 high 2 apply different social interaction skills depending on situations 2.23 .59 moderate 3 develop friendship with my classmates 2.57 .62 high 4 effectively communicate with my classmates 2.43 .59 high 5 express my opinions to other students respectfully 2.30 .56 moderate measuring efl students’ self-efficacy levels in online learning 156 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 average 2.42 .58 high as shown in table 4 above, the average value of respondents' responses to the social persuasion variable for statement number one which shows that the mean score of respondents' answers is (m= 2.55; sd= .54). this shows that social interaction between students is still intertwined in online learning although individuals do not interact directly. the second statement obtained an average value (m= 2.23; sd = .59) which explained that students moderately interact and communicate with others using different communication skills in any situation in online learning. the third statement shows that the mean score of respondents' answers shows (m= 2.57; sd= .62). this shows that online learning that separates them physically does not prevent students from developing their friendship bonds. moreover, statement number four scored (m= 2.43; sd= .59) indicating that the students effectively communicate and express opinions to their peers in the online learning process, so that the delivery of opinions or messages can be easily achieved. the last is statement number five which gets a score (m= 2.30; sd= .56) which explained that students are wise enough to convey their arguments or opinions in online discussions. thus, the social persuasion variable which describes students' direct and indirect feedback to others that can boost their confidence and motivation in learning., gets an average value (m = 2.42; sd= .58) which is interpreted as high. table 5 data result affective states. no statements mean sd interpretation 1 timely inform the instructor when unexpected situations arise 1.93 .65 moderate 2 request help from others when needed 2.38 .52 high 3 willingly adapt my learning styles to meet course expectations 2.25 .54 moderate 4 seek help from instructor when needed 2.15 .48 moderate 5 clearly ask my questions to instructor 2.13 .59 moderate average 2.17 .56 moderate as shown in table 5 above, the average value of respondents' responses to the affective state variable for statement number one which shows that the mean score of respondents' answers is (m= 1.93; sd= .65). this shows that students tend to be rare in expressing unexpected needs or difficult classroom situations to lecturers during the learning process. the second statement obtained an average value (m= 2.38; sd= .52) which explained that students often ask for help from other students when experiencing difficulties in learning. the third statement shows that the mean score of respondents' answers is (m= 2.25; sd= .54). this shows that students are sometimes willing to adopt new learning styles in order to achieve learning expectations. moreover, statement maman asrobi, siti maysuroh, & zukhruf farizi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 157 number four scored (m= 2.15; sd= .48) indicating that the students sometimes but do not often ask the lecturer for help to solve their problems in learning. the last is statement number five which gets a score (m= 2.13; sd= .59) which explained that students infrequently ask questions to the lecturer about a material that is not clear or least understood. thus, the affective states variable which describes the recognition of students' own feelings, collects and analyzes the information obtained, formulates thoughts and opinions, and acts in the learning process, gets an average value (m = 2.17; sd= .56) which is interpreted as moderate. in the affective domain, students are fairly capable of managing their habits and behavior during online learning. based on the average value of each self-efficacy variable described above, it can be shortened to a table as below: table 6 recapitulation of the mean score of self-efficacy sources. self-efficacy source mean score sd category mastery experience 2.18 .62 moderate vicarious experience 2.13 .63 moderate social persuasion 2.42 .58 high affective states 2.17 .56 moderate average 2.22 .59 moderate as shown in table 6 above, the recapitulation of all the mean scores of each variable, the grand mean for self-efficacy of efl students who use online learning methods in their learning activities is in the interval of 1.67 2.33 namely m= 2.22 and sd .59 which shows that the self-efficacy of efl students in online learning is at the level of moderate. 5. discussion this study was conducted with the aim of answering research questions related to the level of self-efficacy of efl students who use online learning methods in their learning activities. the result of this study revealed that the level of self-efficacy of efl students in online learning was moderate. this result is supported by several previous studies which also found a medium level of self-efficacy in efl students during online learning activity (han et al., 2021; ucar & bozkaya, 2016; yang, 2016). this can be expected because students' mastery of the online learning experience is minimal. the students need more online learning experience to have higher self-efficacy since mastery experience has been shown to be the strongest and best predictor of self-efficacy (ramsin & mayall, 2019). moreover, the moderate level of the vicarious experience variable is related to the students have not been able to highlight themselves as a role model since they are experiencing a few obstacles to getting a high efficacy predicate when the new measuring efl students’ self-efficacy levels in online learning 158 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 model learning is applied. this perceived similarity may lead to the individual belief because they were similar to the role-mode student. in this way, learners are exposed to several models of students with recognized similarities in their abilities and circumstances (wilde & hsu, 2019; zarei & naghdi, 2017). however, students' social persuasion who got high category shows that constructive communication and feedback between fellow students were well established with the result that their self-efficacy in online learning is high. the research conducted by peechapol et al., (2018) also found a strong agreement on the effect of online communication and interactions as an important resource that can help individuals improve their self-efficacy. furthermore, in the affective domain, students are fairly capable of managing their habits and behavior during online learning. they are also able to control difficult situations during learning, exert effort to understand the material, and are willing to optimize engagement with new learning methods. chun (2015) found that students were intrinsically goal oriented and understood that they were responsible for their own learning. 6. conclusion the measurement of the self-efficacy of efl students in online learning is intended to determine how many aspects of the self-efficacy theory have been formulated by experts such as mastery experience, vicarious experience, social persuasion, and affective states achieved by students. therefore, the results obtained in all aspects show that student self-efficacies are at a moderate rank in online learning. moreover, the development of online learning requires students to be able to adapt quickly to new learning models that have thrived over the past decade. it also requires students to develop different learning skills and to be efficacious related to their own abilities in balancing the learning model. high self-efficacy will have an impact on the stronger students' selfconfidence in making more or maximum efforts, the higher the acquisition of learning achievement. on the other hand, if students have low self-efficacy, the lower their learning achievement will be. however, there are some limitations in this study which cannot be denied that the limitations of the respondents and the methods in collecting data are limited, affecting the results of this study. therefore, it is necessary to use interview techniques and increase the number of respondents in further research so that the results obtained are greater for interpretation. references amiti, f. 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(2014). the role of academic emotions in the relationship between perceived academic control and self-regulated learning in online learning. computers and education, 77, 125–133. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2014.04.018 zarei, a.a., & naghdi, f. (2017). sources of self-efficacy as predictors of efl learners’ course performance. european online journal of natural and social sciences, 6, 68-80. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2022. vol. 10, no.1, 54-66 it is all about clauses: speech analysis using systemic functional linguistics theory hieronimus canggung darong english department, universitas katolik indonesia santu paulus ruteng, indonesia email: hieronimusdarong@gmail.com manuscript received april 4, 2022, revised june 2, 2022, accepted june 16, 2022, and published online november 7, 2022. recommended apa citation darong, h. c. (2022). it is all about clauses: speech analysis using systemic functional linguistics theory. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(1), 54-66. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.13029 abstract text and context are tightly related. although previous studies have revealed the benefits of employing systemic functional linguistics theory (sfl) in revealing the language functions, the specific examination of text ideational or experiential focusing on transitivity process type analysis is lacking. therefore, this study aims to describe the transitivity process type of a text. joe biden‟s victory speech was chosen and analyzed to achieve this purpose. in this respect, to make the analysis easily done, the speech text was changed into some sentences and clauses and thereafter analyzed following the aim of the study in question. the results of the analysis have shown that the material process type indicating the action of the participants involved in the speech appears at most. in addition, using transitivity analysis, interpersonal and power relations might be revealed as the existence of pronouns linking to verbs used in clauses of the text. in conclusion, different language patterns might signify different concerns of the experiential or ideational functional category. future research studies using different ways of analysis; might be of benefit to examining the effectiveness of systemic functional linguistics theory (sfl) in text analysis. keywords: clauses; speech analysis; systemic functional linguistics 1. introduction there have been many research studies on speech. metaphor as a rhetoric dimension, speech acts and semiotic layer, word choices, and their usage are of benefit toward text coherence and cohesiveness. as such, the aspects in question contribute to the frame of political issues in the speech (kelly, 2020; moragas-fernández, calvo, & capdevila, 2018; nartey, 2018; da cunha, 2019; xuan, 2017; jitpranne, 2018; martin https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.13029 hieronimus canggung darong englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 55 zappavigna, 2029; schubert, 2019; silke, quinn, & rieder, 2019; zhan & huang, 2018). meanwhile, focusing on thematic information of the texts, modeling approach, framework, socio-pragmatic methodology, and socio-discourse competence of orator and audience are essential factors in revealing and conveying the text message (ahmed, 2017; boch, 2020; brookes & mcenery, 2019; fetzer & bull, 2012; schumacher, hansen, velden, & kunst, 2019; cartagena and prego-vázquez,2018; afzaal, 2020). yet, regardless of the important aspects and the purposed frameworks highlighted by the previous studies, systemic functional linguistics (sfl) was also well-known to reveal the text (andersen, emilie, & holsting, 2018; darong, 2015; darong, 2021; lim, 2018; santosa, 2016). in the view of systemic functional linguistics (sfl) theory, language has three meta-functions. they are ideational, interpersonal, and textual functions. the functions are realized respectively by register categories namely field, tenor, and mode. as such, the functions in question appear simultaneously and can‟t stand alone as they appear as a united function within text including a speech (eggins, 1994; halliday, 1985). pushing further to the register category ahead, some ways of analysis can be done. for example, to reveal the field reflecting the ideational function, one can conduct process types analysis that so-called transitivity analysis, reference analysis, and pronoun analysis. meanwhile, for the sake of the tenor reflecting the interpersonal function, modality and mood structure analysis can be carried out. then, integral to field and tenor, nominal and lexical string analysis can be done for the sake of a mode that reflects the textual function of a text. in this respect, in terms of systemic functional linguistics (sfl) theory, speech as one text genre can be revealed through the mentioned ways of analysis. as a text, speech that functions as social, political, and cultural means of communication goes around with a certain disposition, standpoint, authority, or structure including the meta-functions of language highlighted in systemic functional linguistics (sfl) theory. utilizing the theory of systemic functional linguistics (sfl), the field of the speech texts representing the experiential or ideational function mostly focused on the action involving speaker and audience (ademilokun, 2019; figini, roccia, & rezzano, 2019; kusuma, dewi, & kurniawan, 2018). as such, the studies employed sfl theory focusing on text construction in which the register category of the field was realized. integral to ideational or experiential function, other studies focused on textual function highlighting cognitive and psychological aspects of the speaker that are very essential in conveying a message to the audience, aside from conjunction, reference, and lexical relations as language resources making the text unity (bao, zhang, qu, & feng, 2018; määttä, puumala, & ylikomi, 2021; navarro, macnamara, glucksberg, & andrew, 2020; wang, 2020). the most recent study was conducted by darong (2021)who revealed that interpersonal function might reflect the intimacy between speaker and audience in joe biden‟s victory speech. the study emphasized commodity exchanges and the relations it is all about clauses: speech analysis using systemic functional linguistics theory 56 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 between the orator and americans as the audience. standing on systemic functional linguistics (sfl) theory, grammatical resources and clause structure contributing to the text as a whole determine the intimacy. therefore, modality and mood structure analysis were chosen to analyze. to date, regardless of the fruit-bearing findings of the study in question, what is lacking is the experiential or ideational function of joe biden‟s victory speech. given this backdrop, this study wants to extend the previous study by focusing on transitivity process type analysis to reveal the function in question. this way of analysis is beneficial for knowing the focus and proposition of a text which in turn, might contribute significantly to attaining the goal of communication. in addition, this study contributes to the language teachers. in the context of teaching, this study is of benefit for teachers to cope with choosing different language constituents. having knowledge of the experiential potential meaning of the grammar, a language teacher can explicitly and systematically inform the range of available word choices for expressing human experience in a clause. more importantly, as the experiential grammar offered to create a text is concerned with the objective to be reached by the text along with and the field of the immediate situation, some classroom activities can be designed by the teacher to guide the learners to explore the relationship between experiential grammar, the structure, and the field of the text. 2. literature review systemic linguistics relies on the functional theory proposed by halliday and explains grammar as a resource for expressing and constructing meaning. as such, the grammar in question is built as a set of inter-related choices reflecting optional ways for expressing and creating meaning obtainable to language users (martin & zappavigna, 2019). the choice can be delineated using structural identifications, and lexical and grammatical elements; all of which should be appraised to recognize the meaning of a given expression. in addition, halliday views linguistic meaning in association with its context of use. his concept of language as the principal element of social meaning is mainly concerned with the strategies in which speakers interact with hearers in social speech events. standing on meaningfulness as an important aspect of language, halliday does not concern with what goes on in one‟s mind as it is regarded as complementary. yet, halliday is mainly concerned with how linguistics contributes to such applied fields as stylistic language, and artificial intelligence language used in education. therefore, this theory of systemic functional linguistics (sfl) puts great attention on the relation between language and context. if a text can be understood, there is a great amount about the context in which the text occurs can be revealed. in the meantime, the theory in question has been regarded as a functional semantic approach to language which examines how one uses language in different contexts, and how language, as a system, is formed for use deriving from a discipline called linguistics (hasan, 2014; lim, 2018). saying it differently, „s‟ for „systemic‟ confirms that the theory has a great interest in hieronimus canggung darong englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 57 the system of meaning. the „f‟ for „functional‟ indicates the functional realizations of the system in structures. meanwhile, the „l‟ for „linguistics‟ implies a discipline that socalled linguistics. thus, it is a language – based on the theory that is used to examine the phenomena of language. it is necessary to note that systemic functional linguistics (sfl) describes that language has three metafunctions. such metafunctions of language are the ideational function, the interpersonal function, and the textual function (briones, 2016; eggins, 1994). the former deals with the inner and outer worlds of reality that so-called experiential meaning. the second is concerned with establishing a relationship between people involved in communication. this function is regarded as an interpretation of language in its function as an exchange. bringing to the grammatical level of interpretation, it is understood that the clause is also built as an interactive event involving speaker and listener or writer and reader (andersen et al., 2018; halliday, 1985). meanwhile, the last is concerned with an interpretation of language to its function as a message. at the clause level, this function deals with how inter-clausal items are structured to build unified whole texts that create meanings. as such, it is deputized by the thematic structure of the clause involving theme and rheme within the clause. pushing further to the ideational function ahead, halliday has pinpointed that such function is realized by the transitivity system of language. the outer world that is taken into the inner world of reality in one‟s consciousness, which is encoded in the language transitivity system, is seen as a what-is-going-on process. the term transitivity does not only refer to the distinction or the contrast between transitive verbs and intransitive verbs. it concerns much more the relation between verbs and phrases associated with them. in this regard, the going-on process deals with material actions, events, states, and relations. more specifically, based on the relationship between certain types of verbs and the phrases associated with them, eggins (1994) and halliday (1985) have pointed out the encoding processes of the realities and have also linguistically categorized the various process types namely material, mental, relational, behavioral, verbal, and existential. aside from function, halliday regards context as the language level, highlighting the relationship between form and the extra-textual properties of the situation. as such, there are two kinds of meanings namely formal and contextual meaning. at the semantic level, contextual orientation is revealed through the concept of register. at this level, the word register is defined as the realization of semantic resources that the members of a certain culture link with a situation type (martin & zappavigna, 2019; santosa, 2016). putting it differently, the register is concerned with the meaning potential that might be achieved in a given speech event or social context and is organized functionally into register categories of field, tenor, and mode. the field is a register category that refers to what is happening to the nature of the social action, taking place. it deals with what the participants are engaged with, in it is all about clauses: speech analysis using systemic functional linguistics theory 58 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 which language figures as an essential component. it is an aspect of the situation dealing with the main concern of the activity in certain social events. to add on, transitivity, nominal group, lexical string, and pronoun analysis can be carried out to reveal the field of a text. tenor is concerned with role structure. in this context, this register deals with statuses, who is involving, the nature of the speaker or writer, and his/her interlocutors. in other words, tenor which can be examined through mood structure and modality analysis has something to do with the communication-social role relationship performed by interactants. meanwhile, mode is concerned with the role that language plays in a relationship or in carrying out social action. in relation to the role of language in an interaction, the mode is categorized into two dimensions indicating two different types of distance in the relation between language and situation that is spatial or interpersonal distance, from which the possibilities of immediate feedback are attained, and experiential distance where no immediate feedback attained as the distance exist (eggins, 1994; lim, 2018; montes et al., 2014). thematic expression, using theme and rhymes, is of benefit to revealing the mode. thus, talking about language in the systemic functional linguistics (sfl) deals with both the way language is used in the context of culture and the structure of language for use or context of situation reflecting metafunctional diversity. 3. method this study belongs to a descriptive qualitative design employing the discourse analysis method. even though systemic functional linguistics (sfl) theory points to the three metafunctions namely ideational (field), interpersonal (tenor), and textual (mode), the scope of this study was only concerned with the former. at this point, standing on the theory in question, this study aimed to describe the transitivity process type of a text namely joe biden‟s victory speech which subsequently was regarded as the object of the study. this speech was chosen with a consideration of the united states as the most influential nation controlling the world. he just won the election and the world has been waiting for his socio-political policies for this globe. to make it easier, the speech text was redesigned into some clauses from which potential data were collected. afterward, the data obtained from the clauses were analyzed in terms of the register category of the field representing the ideational function of the speech text. in this study, the field was analyzed in terms of process types the so-called transitivity analysis. the transitivity analysis needs to be done to determine the grammatical pattern such as process types, participants, and circumstances, which are of benefit to unpacking the field of a text. 4. findings relying on transitivity analysis, the total number of process types in this text was 281. it comprised material processes, mental processes, verbal processes, relational processes, behavior processes, and existential processes. it is a fact that the material hieronimus canggung darong englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 59 processes constituted the largest number of processes (58.36%). the second-largest number of process types was relational (17. 79%), followed by mental processes (12.45%), verbal processes (5.33%), existential processes (4.27 %), and behavioral processes (1.78%). table 1. process types process types total percentage (%) material 164 58.36 mental 35 12.45 verbal 15 5.33 behavioral 5 1.78 existential 12 4.27 relational 50 17.79 total 281 100 these 281 processes are distributed in clauses as follows: 1. material processes: 164 clauses: 2b, 3b, 4b, 4d, 4e, 4f, 5b, 5c, 6, 7a, 7b, 8a, 8b, 9b, 10a, 10b, 10d, 11a, 11e, 11d, 12, 13b, 13c, 14c, 16a, 16b, 18a, 18b, 19b, 19c, 19e, 19f, 22, 23a, 23b, 24a, 24b, 24c, 25a, 25b, 25c, 25d, 25e, 25f (2), 25g, 25h, 25i, 25j, 27b(2), 27d, 28a, 28d, 28f, 29a, 29c, 29d, 30b, 30c, 30d, 30e, 31a, 31b, 31c, 31d, 31e, 34a, 34c, 35a, 35b, 37b, 37c, 37e, 38b, 39b, 40b, 41a, 41b, 42a, 42b, 43a, 43b, 44, 45a, 45b, 45c, 45d, 46b, 46e, 47a (2), 47b, 48c, 48d, 49b, 49c, 49d, 49e, 49f, 50c, 50d, 51a, 51b, 52b, 53a, 53b, 54a, 54b, 55b, 55c, 55d, 56b, 58a, 58b, 58c, 60b, 61b, 61c, 62a, 62c, 63c, 63d, 63e, 64a, 64b, 64c, 64d(2), 64e, 65c, 66, 67a, 67b, 67d, 67e, 68, 69c, 70, 71a, 71b, 71c, 72a, 72b, 72d, 73, 74, 77b, 77e, 79, 80b, 82b, 82c, 82d, 82e, 82g, 82k, 82m, 82n, 82o, 82p, 83a, 83b, 83c. 2. mental processes, 35 clauses: 1b, 1d, 2c, 2e, 7b, 10c, 11a, 13a, 14b, 15a, 15b, 27a, 27c, 28b, 28e, 29b, 30c, 37d, 46a, 48a, 51c, 51d, 55a, 55b, 55c, 55d, 63a, 63b, 64c, 65b, 72c, 75, 77c, 78, 82j. 3. verbal processes,, 15 clauses: 1e, 2b, 4c, 11b, 11c, 40a, 50a, 59b, 61c, 63c, 64d, 69b, 77a, 82f, 82l. 4. behavioral processes; 5 clauses: 20a, 39a, 46d, 52a, 82i 5. existential processes, 12 clauses: it is all about clauses: speech analysis using systemic functional linguistics theory 60 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 1a, 14c, 28c, 29c, 30a, 31a, 36, 37a, 43b, 60a, 65a, 76. 6. relational processes, 50 clauses; attributive: 1c, 1f, 2f, 3a, 3c, 3d, 5a, 9a, 14a, 15b, 17, 19a, 19d, 32, 33, 34b (2), 38a, 40c, 42a, 42b, 46c, 48b, 49a, 50b, 52c (2), 52d, 57, 60a, 61d, 62d, 67c, 69a, 77d, 82h identifying: 2a, 4a, 21, 56a, possessive : 20b, 20c, 26, 46c, 51e, 59a, 61, 80a, 81, 82a 5. discussion looking at the data in table 1 and the distribution of process types above, the material processes (164 clauses) that are predominantly used in this text, the speaker tends to expose the performed actions. material process, as a process of doing, used in this text is a good choice to demonstrate what the government has been achieving and will do both home and abroad for a better america. besides, it also arouses the american people‟s confidence in the president and his government and got their support for policies or measures in the following four years. in this respect, the speaker tends to put himself and the people represented in the pronouns “you” and “i”, as the actor of those material processes in question. the use of the first person “i” refers to the speaker‟s appreciation and thanks to those who were involved in the journey of his campaigns such as his campaign team, family, and his opponents as well. meanwhile, in some parts of the text, the use of material processes tends to expose how and what the americans should do for america‟s future. the action representing this type of process is realized by the use of “america”, “you” and “people” as the actor of the clause. the speaker is bringing them to him, showing how they have been and how they will do actions to support him in achieving the success of america. finally, such collaboration was furthermore strengthened by the use pronoun „we” as the actor. aside from shortening the distance between the speaker and the audience, he (biden) included the listeners (americans) into the same arena, thus making the audience feel close to the speaker and his points, regardless of their disparity in age, social status, and professions. thus, the material process, as a process of doing, is a good choice to demonstrate what the government has achieved, what they are doing, and what they will do in different aspects of affairs, at home or abroad. the focus of the action or experience, as what is defined as a material process, is america involving all the americans as the main actors or participants. regarding the mental process, the speech text employed 34 clauses. theoretically, a mental process is a process of feeling, thinking, and seeing. the actor, in this case, is not the real subject of doing, but the feeling. it represents inner hieronimus canggung darong englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 61 experience, such as “perception”, “reaction” and “cognition” with two participants the so-called senser and phenomenon (eggins, 1994; halliday, 1985). in this context, the speaker used this process type to express the inner experiences of the speaker, audience, americans, and all people around the world. the senser of the mental processes of the speech was the speaker himself” as found in clause 10c 11a, 13a 14b 15a, 27a, 27c, 51c, 51d, 63a. 28e, 37d, 46a, 48a, 82j 63b, 64c, 65b, 72c, 77c, 78. besides, to express the inner feeling, the speaker used the word, “know”, “understand”, “love” believe, and “see “. the word “know” is the most used and followed by the “see”. those two words have the same senser, that is, “i and we” emphasizing togetherness at the same arena or stage and collaboratively feel and take action for what and how america will be. in other words, that mental process, as a process of sensing, appeals to the audience‟s inner heart to connect the same political beliefs, ambitions expectations, and hopes. in this way, the listeners‟ emotions of promotion and willingness to devotion are aroused and strengthened to keep freedom, democracy, justice, equality, principles, union, happiness, responsibilities, sacrifice, and the needed reforms in the economy, medicare, or other fields. regardless of the number of clauses in terms of their appearance, they are used for the sake of commitment, judgments of the existence of america, and the great expectation to the next generation in the future of americans. the verbal processes or “the action of saying” reflecting the objectives in question were found in 17 clauses and carried three participants namely sayer, receiver, and verbiage. similar to material and mental process types, these process types are concerned with the good collaboration of americans. the elected presidents should work hand in hand with americans to reach a better future for america. behavioral clauses came in five clauses namely 20a, 39a, 46d, 52a, and 82i of the text. this kind of process is a halfway position between the material and mental process. therefore, the meanings they represent are mid-way between the material process on one side and the mental process on the other. they are clauses expressing the victory, the speaker‟s attitude on the differences and disagreement, the crisis, and commitment to america‟s future. meanwhile, there are 12 clauses in the text that distribute the existential processes. the use of these processes is concerned with the existence of americans, victory, election, the challenge, promise togetherness, history, and programs (clause 1a, 14c, 28c, 29c, 30a, 31a, 36, 37a), 43b. 60a, 65a, 76). finally, the relational process occurred in 50 clauses. the clauses bearing relational verbs are divided into attributive and identifying. the former highlights properties or an entity and category or uniform. this type is used widely in delineating people and objects. it is mostly used as a concept of explicit relational process, as a process of being, to express the composite correspondence between some concrete elements (36 clauses). as such, the process type has only one participant in a clause, that is, carrier, (halliday, 1985) as found in the pronoun “it” in clauses 3a, 5a, 42b, 48b. the construction of these four clauses covers the description of the victory of the it is all about clauses: speech analysis using systemic functional linguistics theory 62 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 speaker and the changes in america in the past and will be. besides “it”, the carrier was also found in “we” in clause 3c, 3d 9a 50b 82h. “we” in these clauses refers to the speaker and the audience. these four clauses are mainly concerned with all americans. in the meantime, as a part of the relational process, the identifying processes appear only in four clauses of the text (clause 2a, 4a, 21, 56a). these process types are not used to describe or classify but define. in this respect, defining includes two participants, that is token standing for what is being defined and value (that which defines). referring to this, two clauses have the same token and value namely clause 2a and 4a, 55 d. these are concerned with the speaker‟s judgment toward the doubtless americans on america as a great nation, the strength of the power of democracy in which the change can be achieved. hitherto, some important points can be proposed from the findings. first, transitivity process types analysis has indicated that the process types found in the text under study mostly deal with the physical actions of the participants involved, both speaker and americans. the actions in question reflect on the verbs which are categorized as the material process in the speech. this indicates that the speaker takes into account the use of verbalization, not nominalization in constructing the text, which is simple for the audience to internalize. these findings, then, mirror the study of tolochko & boomgaarden (2017), darong, 2021 and bartley (2018) pointing out that the structure of information and the verbs in a clause account for a process type with each verb providing the intended meaning. in other words, meaning potentials that socalled ideational or experiential meaning is reflected through language structure of material process highlighting action as the field register category of the speech text. second, relatedness or intimacy between speaker and audience might not be seen through interpersonal analysis of a text. intimacy or interpersonal relationship can be analyzed through transitivity analysis as found in this study. then, this study supports horváth (2017) and hopke and simis (2016) saying that the combination of actions and verbal resources was beneficial to co-narrate stories or texts. besides, aside from modality analysis done by (hieronimus canggung darong, 2021b; gusthini, sobarna, & amalia, 2018; silke et al., 2019), the actor (material process), the senser (mental process), the sayer (verbal process) and the carrier (relational process) that are mostly used in “i”, and “we” pronouns in transitivity analysis, are of benefit to point the interpersonal and power relationships among the involved participants. in the meantime, the previous research studies highlighting the power of words (word choices) is more than action (bartley, 2018; gusthini et al., 2018; määttä et al., 2021; poulimenou, stamou, papavlasopoulos, & poulos, 2016; tolochko & boomgaarden, 2017) might be explored further in the context of its structure within a clause as highlighted under the system of transitivity. of greater importance to this finding is the semantic relationship between the constituents of a clause. as far as meaning is concerned, to label the constituent parts of a clause as a subject, predicate, object/complement traditionally does not convey a hieronimus canggung darong englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 63 sufficient semantic relationship between the constituents of a clause as seen in the following examples: i will work as hard i know we can from these examples, it is clear that the word “i” in the first clause implies a different meaning from “i” in the second clause if it is seen in the context of its semantic relation to the semantic features of the verbs following it. in this context, “i” in the first clause is the doer of the activity of working, while “i” in the second clause is the senser of the perception of knowing. these examples serve as a clue that the term subject here is not effective for distinguishing the semantic feature of “i” in the two clauses in question. the pattern of language referred to as transitivity deals with such a semantic relation in a clause. the term transitivity is not merely intended to highlight the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. it is much more concerned with the relation between verbs and phrases associated with them. therefore, a paradigmatic account of linguistic features in context needs to be explicitly involved in text analysis. such a way is of benefit as it implies the context of the situation (register), system or language structure, and functional categories. the theory of systemic functional linguistics (sfl) in this text analysis serves as a systematic relationship analysis of the linguistic features of the text to the features of its context which in turn reflects the meaning potentials or functional categories of language used in a text. systemic functional linguistics (sfl) was proven beneficial and systematic framework to reveal what and how text is (andersen et al., 2018; hasan, 2014; lim, 2018; montes et al., 2014; santosa, 2016). text analysis should be done in such a way that it is merely intended to point to the macro views. it is much more concerned with the language structure level in the context of the lexico-grammar functions in a clause (semantic relationship between the constituents of a clause) to realize experiential, interpersonal, and textual meanings which in turn, are respectively realized by register category of field, tenor, and mode as advocated by systemic functional linguistics (sfl) theory. 6. conclusion the results of the analysis of the text under study indicate that systemic functional linguistics (sfl) theory is effective in analyzing the link between language and context, particularly the context of situation which is the so-called register category of field. viewed from transitivity analysis, the material process indicating the action of the participants appears at most. the use of the larger proportion of material processes signifies that the text is mostly concerned with the performed activities or actions. the existence of such material process in the text highlights the functional category of experiential or ideational metafunction of the language of the text which in turn, is it is all about clauses: speech analysis using systemic functional linguistics theory 64 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 regarded as the field. integral to such metafunction, the transitivity analysis in this study might enhance the previous analysis of examining interpersonal relations among the involved participants in the text by the existence of some pronouns associated with verbs to which they attach. this study is only 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(2018). critical genre analysis : investigating interdiscursive performance in professional practice. critical discourse studies, 15(5), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2018.1468788. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2022. vol. 10, no.1, 202-216 building moderate attitude and intercultural competence in literature classes: teachers’ experience at higher education institutions syafiyah syafiyah 1 , agwin degaf 1* , irham irham 2 , miftahul huda 3 1 universitas islam negeri maulana malik ibrahim, malang, indonesia 2 sultan hassanal bolkiah institute of education/international and comparative education, universtiti brunei darussalam, brunei 3 department of linguistics and literature, university of antwerp, belgium manuscript received january 14, 2022, revised march 15, 2022, accepted april 8, 2022, and published online november 7, 2022. recommended apa citation syafiyah. s, degaf, a., irham. i, & huda, m. (2022). building moderate attitude and intercultural competence in literature classes: teachers‟ experience at higher education institutions. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(1), 202216. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.11979 abstract foreign language teaching is a medium to raise students‟ intercultural understanding, awareness, and sensitivity important for establishing a tolerant mindset in multi-ethnic community. however, the use of literary works in foreign language teaching, which could help to promote respect and appreciation values, is almost unexplored. this paper examined to which extent the values of moderation are presented during the teaching of literature and explicated in the curriculum, as well as the course outline of literary courses in three participating indonesian islamic universities. this case study research collected data through a semi-structured interview with three lecturers in the english literature department, walian university (pseudonym) administered under indonesian ministry of religious affairs. the data were analysed through a critical exploratory lens. the results demonstrate that lecturers face complex issues regarding the incorporation and promotion of moderation values during the teaching of literature. yet, the curriculum, on the other hand, has not embedded those values but are manifested in the teaching and learning process from the selection of teaching materials or learning activities. the lecturers remain the main actors in uplifting the introduction of moderate attitude during the teaching of literature. * corresponding author: agwin degaf universitas islam negeri maulana malik ibrahim, malang jl. gajayana no.50, dinoyo, kota malang, jawa timur 65144, indonesia email: agwindegaf@uin-malang.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.11979 syafiyah, agwin degaf, irham, & miftahul huda englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 203 keywords: indonesian islamic higher education; teaching; literary works; moderation values 1. introduction cross-cultural understanding becomes a prominent tenet that students should gain in order to lift their intercultural awareness and sensitivity. bryam (2020) and liddicoat and scarino (2013) confirm that language, literature, and culture in foreign language teaching play a significant role in elevating intercultural competence. language teaching and literature are expected to improve students‟ linguistic and literary proficiencies as well as to uplift their inter-cultural and cross-cultural awareness (kusumaningputri & widodo, 2018). numerous scholars have acknowledged foreign language teaching as a medium to raise students‟ (inter)cultural awareness. however, the use of literary works to reach such a goal is rarely examined. byram (2020) argued that the linguistic, aesthetical, affective, pedagogical, and cultural aspects that are latent in the literature become interconnected factors in understanding literature. for that reason, the use of literature in foreign language teaching could provide students with avenues to improve their critical reading which is helpful to understand differences of other cultures. this proposition is supported by a number of studies investigating literature as a medium for raising students‟ intercultural awareness (baker, 2012). tomlinson and masuhara (2006), for instance, propose that intercultural awareness may be gained through experiencing the culture directly (by visiting the culture itself) or indirectly (by “reading” literary works, arts, or films). furthermore, thanasoulas (2010) believes that revelation to literature does not only help the students improve their language proficiency but also enable them to identify, (re)produce, and (re)define their own cultural values by reconstructing the ideas of the target culture. in the same vein, corbett (2010) highlights the importance of using literary works as effective ways to foster intercultural skills and build tolerance and moderate attitude for diversity and empathy. literary texts, therefore, are considered an authentic material beneficial and pivotal to figure out culture-dependent values, ideas, and principles. under that perspective, the teaching of literature can advocate the establishment of inter-cultural awareness as it may open spaces for understanding differences of other cultures, ethnics, languages, or races nonetheless, there is a paucity on the examination of the teaching of literature in foreign language teaching in relation to intercultural competence. earlier works on religious moderation and tolerance focus on examining the role of civic education (fauzi, arianto, & solihatin, 2013; suharyanto, 2017; yusuf 2014), and on teachers as center teaching learning process (umroh, 2015). these scholars, however, did not discuss literature as a way to instill intercultural competence necessary to uplift religious awareness on multi-ethnic diversity setting. to fill in the gap, we examine the teaching of literature in three islamic higher education institutions in java: walian university, kib university, and ts university in relation to building moderate attitude and intercultural competence in literature classes:….. 204 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 „moderation‟. document analysis on the curriculum and semi-structured interviews with selected informants were conducted together with the employment of descriptive qualitative approach. on the basis of the above rationale, this topic is important to carry out given that students enrolling in any department of indonesian islamic higher education institutions should be able to synergize the islamic tenets, cultural heritages, openmindedness, and critical inquiry along the side of the global realms, which are diverse in culture, belief, religion, and way of thoughts. such qualities are of fundamental aspects in building moderate moslems who are not easily misled to be cultural fanatics or religious extremists. and, this ideal may be initiated by the teaching of literature to raise islamic university students‟ intercultural awareness as a gateway to building a moderate attitude. in the global level, moreover, it could provide more nuances on the perception of english language teaching in the periphery which is often blamed as to bring or promote „western‟ values, considered irrelevant for students in islamic universities. 2. literature review 2.1. building intercultural competence in educational contexts the term “intercultural competence” has a complex meaning. the most fundamental aspect of intercultural competence is how individuals are willing to cooperate properly with other people from different ethnic/cultural backgrounds (sinecrope et al., 2012). thus, understanding and respecting cultural diversity becomes the primary components of intercultural competence. another intricate facet of intercultural competence is related to the objectives of courses or actions prepared for individuals to involve in numerous intercultural relationships, contexts, and models, such as international business, global schools, medical careers, and living abroad (sinicrope et al., 2012). it is, therefore, hard to formulate a fixed definition of intercultural competence. regardless of the above difficulty, however, common themes emerge from the research literature about the characteristics of intercultural competence. various types of self-awareness and internal transformation have been identified as initial components producing inter-culturally competent students. bennett‟s (1993) developmental model of intercultural sensitivity (dmis) has put the internal evolution of intercultural interactions into a chart of continuum, moving from “ethno-centrism” to “ethnorelativism”. according to bennet (2004), people‟s worldview should shift from avoiding cultural difference to seeking cultural difference for the sake of mapping intercultural situations. byram (2020), in his multidimensional model of intercultural competence, implies that the first issue that an individual should deal in any intercultural relations is attitude. the term refers to openness and curiosity: an individual must remain openminded in learning new beliefs and values in order to participate in relationships of syafiyah, agwin degaf, irham, & miftahul huda englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 205 equality. byram and wagner (2018) offer a sensible idea for getting students to consider their own perspectives, i.e., by collectively recording their rigid ideas in relation to the foreign culture before the process of discovery starts. bredella (2000), burwitz-meltzer (2001), and kramsch (2003) further suggest teachers to use literary works in the teaching of language since they enable the students to acknowledge and appreciate the “world” from different perspectives and value the diversity of individual perception and belief. the role of literature in raising intercultural awareness lies in its unique ability to involve the students at both cognitive and emotional levels. in addition, hanauer (2001) argues that literary texts, through their textual properties, deal with the process of second language acquisition, which can enhance the students‟ use of semantic activities. last, and this is the most relevant to this study, he advocates the role of literature in raising the students‟ cultural awareness. when adequately selected, literary texts can provide language learners with access to intercultural knowledge of the target language community. therefore, the use of literature in foreign language teaching should be encouraged because it can increase four-fold aspects altogether: learning motivation, language proficiency, literary competence, and intercultural awareness. 2.2. values of moderation in literature literature has rich ingredients of values and experiences distilled from the reality of particular people, groups of people, and or community. in the other words, literature could be considered as a multicultural asset since it brings diverse differences that are prominent to raise awareness of inclusiveness. it is similar to multicultural literature, a typical literary work that represents distinct cultural groups through accurate portrayal and rich details (byram, 2020). for that reason, incorporating literary works in language teaching could help students develop their awareness and sensitivity of differences culture, thought, or belief. multicultural literature might be regarded as a vehicle to accelerate cultural awareness, intercultural understanding, and cross-cultural competence. students would be conscious of self and others‟ identity and raise the appreciation for other cultures since they read and listen to others. moreover, they could also explore belief and values, and experience what others might have experienced through reading multicultural literature which later influences or shapes the way they interact with other people (baker, 2018; vo, 2017). those views are in line with the so-called “moderation” in which people become aware of recognizing and understanding others and keep disrespectfulness and exclusiveness away. moderate attitude could be derived from literary works. the story in storytelling activity, for instance, is a valuable avenue for students to share opinions and listen to other‟s perspectives. on such occasions, students would also try to maintain “self ego” and accommodate other experiences beyond theirs. building moderate attitude and intercultural competence in literature classes:….. 206 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 2.3. studies in the teaching of literature as a medium to raise intercultural competence some studies have confirmed the efficacy of teaching literature to promote intercultural competence. rodriguez and puyal (2012) made use of literary work entitled “gender roles” to promote intercultural competence in content and language integrated learning context. they found a positive response in a way that more than 60% of the respondents agree with the usefulness of literary works as a medium to elevate intercultural awareness. they even confirm that literary works may reduce disrespect towards other cultures, eradicate prejudice, avoid monolithic perspectives, and foster empathy for others (rodriguez & puyal, 2012: 118-119). hibbs (2015) makes use of spanish literature to examine students‟ intercultural understanding and the perception of differences. the results show that students are “able to appreciate the struggles immigrants experience as they learn the cultural tradition of the new homeland” (hibbs, 2015: 7). singh et al. (2016) introduce english language intercultural reading program to promote intercultural understanding in secondary school. besides, mullin (2009) has provided a conceptual framework on using literature to promote intercultural competence. students in an educational environment need the chance, including the ability, to discuss different perspectives and opinions to finally accelerate openness towards differences or diversities in terms of culture or belief system (walton, priest, & paradies, 2013). such a concept of respect can be evidently presented through the teaching of, for example, civic education or religious-based lessons in indonesian education institutions, including in islamic higher education universities. the recent studies on establishing moderate attitude within indonesian educational context focus much on the role of teachers or lecturers, religious-based course, or civic education (pancasila). umroh (2015) examined the role islamic education teachers when introducing the concept of tolerance among students from different religions. she based her data on students‟ response in vocational high school 5 yogjakarta and proved that teachers are the central asset in promoting tolerance. in addition, rahman and weda (2012) study on incorporation of literary works has provided students with better attitude in encountering mutlti-ethnic diversity. the similar results were shared by the studies on the teaching of civic education that were consistently argued as a central course to develop students‟ tolerant attitude (fauzi, arianto, and solihatin, 2013; lestari, 2016; suharyanto, 2017). however, the teaching of literature in relation to the building moderate attitude among difference believers or within the same religious followers is rarely unexplored. 3. method with regard to the data characteristics, the study was designed in terms of descriptive-qualification which, according to miles and huberman (1994), attempts to collect and analyze non-numerical information, such as words, sentences, expressions, actions, and behaviors. bogdan and biklen (1998) typified the qualitative study as a syafiyah, agwin degaf, irham, & miftahul huda englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 207 type of research based on descriptive records, like documents, and interviews, for the sake of producing descriptive information. with its descriptive-qualitative stance, the study tried to analyse the curriculum documents and examine lecturers‟ instructional designs in facilitating the raise of students‟ intercultural awareness. the data of the study were collected through a semi-structured interview with three lecturers to gain depth information regarding the design of teaching short stories in relation to the promotion of moderation values. literary works have been widely used as instructional materials and media in most of the english departments in indonesian universities. all informants, sari, santi, and angga (pseudonyms) were university lecturers in a department of english department literature at walian university. the interview was conducted in bahasa indonesia under their consent and was later translated and transcribed verbatim. this study employed a program evaluation approach (kiely & dickins, 2005) for data analysis, i.e., making judgment based on evaluation of single or several programs by employing questions, data, and interpretation of data. in reviewing the curriculum, this research applied critical exploratory theorizers understanding the courses in terms of what has been, is and might be: a critical analysis of prevalent social structures (marsch, 2004). additionally, it analysed the instructional designs by focusing on such key factors in pedagogical areas as appropriateness of course objectives, the content, and the method (nunan, 1992). 4. findings and discussion 4.1. complexity in navigating values of moderation during the teaching of literature the introduction and promotion of moderation, respect, and appreciation of cultural difference, as well as belief, perception, ethnicity, race, gender, or religion, is the key objective of the teaching literature as a poetic product (culler, 1985). the lecturers in the islamic higher education institution where this research was conducted realized that those values of literature are in line with those of moderation and tolerance concepts in islam. the informants in the present study argued that moderate thinking could be voiced through foreign language teaching, especially by the use of (selected) literary works as teaching materials. sari said that for the literary courses in particular, the department introduces students to genres of literature such as romantic literature, modern literature, and pop literature. it is expected that students by the end of the courses realize upon several genres of literature and are able to comment or view differences wisely, and at the same time reduce ego of selfness (rennek & warren, 1977). she claimed that literature plays a significant role in leading students‟ awareness towards difference and building respect and appreciation to others. yes, i think the literary works which have factual experiences, for example those which tell about the story of immigrants or minority groups are important to teach for students so that they are able to building moderate attitude and intercultural competence in literature classes:….. 208 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 recognize the difference. or, the story about some conflict happened here, like the refusal of a particular community from one region could also be an inspiring story. the currently viral novel, habibi ainun, there have been many values of “respect” that we could take as lesson learned. sari added that she did not select specific literary works related to moderation when she designed the course outline. however, she always introduced values of respect and appreciation to others‟ during her teaching that therefore affirms byram‟s (2020) intercultural assessment tool. hmm, i did not select specific literary work (to be given to students), no, i did not do that in preparing the lesson plan. but i always invite students to recognize values in the literature they are reading, and appreciate the differences they encounter. i often find students who have different opinions regarding the literature they read. that is also a lesson to respect actually. sari‟s academic background in the american studies she took during her master and doctoral program seemed to have influenced the material she chose in the class. she was keen to provide students with american literature narrating about oppression to minority groups or immigrant, women literature, or literature which is written by marginalized communities. she is confident that these materials are rich in moderation values and are able to open and widen students‟ perspectives on seeing the world, especially in relation to unfairness. these conditions would bring students to feel and experience others‟ life which therefore might stimulate “respect” to others (bryam, 2020; liddicoat & scarino, 2013). “i usually give students literary works related to oppression of minority groups of a particular ethnic, like “things fall apart” novel.” sari often made use of a communicative approach in teaching the literature to students which later enabled them to think and interpret the meaning of what they are reading. unlike audiolingual approach which emphasizes on drilling and memorizing, communicative approach makes students develop their ability to understand meaning and interpret it not only from the current text they read but also from life experience and or from other texts (richards & rodgers, 2001). by doing so, students would have more chances to engage with others since they need to later comment, respond, and share their opinion upon the literature to read. “those activities help students recognize and understand the meaning of the literature they are reading and bring life experiences (to the current reading) so that they know the difference they face and how to deal with it”. such activity is relevant with rosenblatt‟s (1978) definition of reading activity in her reader‟s response theory. she believed that reading a “personal experience during which readers connect a story” they read to another part of life. in other words, it is similar to the concept of aesthetic reading that aims to negotiate readers‟ and text‟ meaning. however, this strategy does not intend to search for a correct meaning but to create relevant meaning based on the reader's perspective. syafiyah, agwin degaf, irham, & miftahul huda englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 209 when asked about the strategy used in teaching the literature, sari confirmed that she employed a couple of activities to make students realize and interpret the meaning of the literature they are reading. at first, sari asked students to predict and imagine, creating a picture or the story in their minds. it is important to make students assume and predict what the story would be. afterwards, students were usually required to anticipate what would happen in the story. this step is to train students‟ awareness of the projected story and the thing that will occur. in the following part, students would retrospect and engage with the story, which is to think again what they have already read and how such reading impacts what they are now. engaging and empathizing are the prominent part in this stage of teaching-learning activity since students should be involved in the story and respond to it with their feelings (baker, 2018; kusumaningputri & widodo, 2018; sinicrope et al., 2012). sari also often used additional activities like retelling the story to drill students‟ communicative skills. sari always encouraged students to connect the story to their own lives and value it. sari puts high attention to valuing and evaluating for the assessment process. the evaluation made for this activity does not concern only on cognitive aspects but also on the notion of feeling empathy or of openness attitude. the successful aesthetic reading strategy lies much on students‟ ability to be open-minded (byram, 2020), empathizing, respecting, and appreciating content, characters, and other aspects of the story. for literature teaching preparation, including course outline design, angga stated that he prepared before the course started. however, he did not pick up any specific topic related to islam, moderation, or tolerance for the subject he teaches. for instance, in the process of teaching pop literature, he focused on introducing kinds of pop literature instead of presenting religious-specific types. “indeed, until now, i have never chosen any specific topic of the literature related to particular religion” his response seems to confirm the underlying assumption that most of lecturers teaching literature did not consider particular topic related to islam to promote moderation and tolerance (sumbulah, 2019). instead, they often introduce a general concept of tolerance that is driven from literature like story. this concept encompasses respect and appreciation to other cultures (byram, 2020). hibbs (2015) stated that „respect and appreciation‟ are the main elements in building intercultural understanding and cross-cultural awareness. to that point, angga confirmed that he always led and encouraged students to be „sensitive‟ towards the difference and suggested that they appreciate such discrepancy in terms of culture, language, custom, ethnic, and even religion (kusumaningputri & widodo, 2018). when i teach, i always direct students to be sensitive to the difference. they can read the story, and find something new. even if it is not in line with what they believe in, or the character is from a different ethnic and has a different language. it is important to know. building moderate attitude and intercultural competence in literature classes:….. 210 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 angga added that to measure students‟ successful understanding in the teaching of literature may not only be relied solely on a written test. however, literary works could be assessed in different manners (byram & wagner, 2018) since it does not only convey information but also teaches values which are abstract. therefore, the attitude that students perform upon the completion of the study should be taken into account. in the teaching and learning process, students are encouraged to explore the work of others and themselves. the process of meaning making does not rely on the text they are reading but also in the mind since they engage in the experience, center what is read on what he is living or one‟s living (rosenblatts, 1974). under this scheme, students‟ understanding of the text is among few aspects of the assessment since it functions as initial indication and as stepping stone to the awareness of diversity. the shift of students‟ attitude is far more important to measure whether or not the literature they read has “successfully” made them open to the differences (baker, 2018; bredella, 2000). in the teaching of american and british studies, for instance, angga employed an aesthetic reading (rosenblatts, 1974) strategy that enables students to imagine and predict the literature they read. afterwards, he often asked students to pretend and feel the position or situation as described in the text. by doing so, students would be able to experience and raise empathy. when later students are also able to respect, appreciate, and empathize other‟s stories, they would be considered „successful‟ (kramsch, 2003). he is confident that literature plays a significant role in shaping one‟s perspective of seeing others. “yes, in my opinion, literature has a close relation with the process of shaping one's mindset. people who love reading literary works should become more open minded”. his view is in line with tomlinson and masuhara‟s (2006) notion on literature and intercultural awareness. they said that reading literary works like novels, could evoke consciousness of different cultures. thansoulas (2010) on the other hand, substantiated that literature is an authentic material to facilitate students identify, produce, and define their culture and or value. by doing so, students might not regard their identity or belief as a static or absolute thing. santi also responded that she did not prepare any specific material related to islam, tasamuh values in presenting a lecture in both history of english literature and diaspora literature. the design of the course she made was adjusted to some fundamental information about, for instance, anglo-saxon literature, american literature, or non-british literature, and is followed by examples respectively. “i don‟t take specific literature related to islam, but i introduce my students to anti-mainstream literature, for example asian literature”. such introduction to other areas of literature could help students gain wider perspective and understanding of community‟s story and picture from different regions. when introducing indian literature, the lecturer helped students imagine and feel as syafiyah, agwin degaf, irham, & miftahul huda englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 211 indian during and after being colonized. the portrayal of indian which are often negatively depicted would be caught as non-permanent picture of the belief and culture practiced by them. reading their struggle as a colonized community and oppression during the colonization period could enable students to empathize (byram & wagner, 2018; hanauer, 2001). students would imagine and create picture which later make them feel and experience what indian undergo. during the teaching and learning process, santi employed a couple of activities such as lecturing, discussion, presentation, and question-answer to measure students‟ understanding of the topic being discussed. although the topic of the material does not correspond directly to moderation concept, santi often invited students to comment, respond, and react to the difference they found when they were reading literary works. she always tried to build students‟ positive attitude to respect and appreciate it by, for instance, asking them to predict what would happen or situating them as if they experienced what was told. 4.2 the curriculum of literary courses and values of moderation the design of the curriculum may vary from one university to another. however, islamic higher education institutions administered by the ministry of religious affairs may share a similar spirit of religious moderation which might be integrated to their vision and mission. besides, the curriculum employed at the department of english literature, walian university, we examined has been adjusted to indonesian qualification framework (iqf). as a consequence, the department has set its vision, mission, objective, and graduate profile within the framework of agreed standard among the stakeholders in and outside the university. this standard encompasses graduate profile, learning content, learning process, assessment, lecturers and academic support staff, facilities, and also payment. the department of english literature, in particular, has numerous graduate profiles as indicators of its successful effort in managing the programme. graduates from of this department should master the general concept of english structure, theory and method of english linguistics and literature, be able to apply linguistic and literary competence along with islamic values to respond any linguistic and literature related issue, be able to cooperate and be sensitive to society and environment, and respect different views, beliefs, religions, and cultures. the curriculum and courses in the department did not directly introduce moderation during the teaching of literature. the curriculum emphasizes on the understanding of genre of literature along with its historical background and relevance with the current world. nevertheless, lecturers who teach literature subjects confirm that values of respect and appreciation to other differences are always instilled and promoted to the students during the teaching and learning process. they are brought to classroom discussion and asked to value literary content and listen to other‟s point of view in making a judgment towards the literature (brown, 1995; marsch, 2004). in addition, building moderate attitude and intercultural competence in literature classes:….. 212 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 lecturers often encourage students to connect the literature they are reading to the life experience students undergo or to others‟ experience or other texts.“i always ask students to relate to their experience or other literary works so that they can feel the experience in the story”. [sari] to highlight, the design of the curriculum in the department has not explicitly embedded the values of moderation. however, during the teaching and learning process, both lecturers and students often engage with such values since they are open to difference and always appreciate diversity (o'sullivan, 2017). the teaching of literature on the other hand has helped students to be more aware of cultural differences and be sensitive to various numbers of ethnic, beliefs, views, and way of life. aligned to sari‟s comment, santi said that the department emphasizes on literature teaching more than before since the curriculum amendment in 2015. as a result, students are equipped with some literary courses. santi added that graduate profiles that the deponent has designed are of pivotal factors in arranging what courses to offer, topics to select, and objective to reach. she affirms that literary courses might go hand-in-hand with the vision to produce graduates with “noble morality”. yes, from vision, mission, and graduate profiles we then designed courses in the department that students should take. since “noble morality” is considered as important factor, i agree that besides courses in religion, literary courses should also strengthen (it) through reading activities and the discussion. regarding the selected genre, islam or pesantren (islamic boarding school) related literary works were not accommodated yet. santi said that, however, these principles are somehow integrated consciously or unconsciously in the process of teaching and learning since some lecturers, especially in her experience, are aware of the urgency of promoting these notions to the students through the activity in the class (marsch, 2004; vo, 2017)). moreover, literature subjects present a close and authentic material on the practice of inter or cross-cultural living where students could experience others‟ and connect it with his/her own personal life and or with others‟ as well (hibbs, 2015). “although there is no specific course, lecturers, like me for instance, try to insert those values from classroom activities, for example, the discussion on literary works that students read.”[santi] the document analysis on the curriculum explained that the students are not yet equipped with moderation-related topics through literature teaching since the choice on literature in the department tends to pay more attention to the genre of the literature. nonetheless, the teaching of english skills is adjusted to the literature, for instance, teaching listening to the first semester student with stories as the main object, and so does the reading that takes “narrative” as the center of discussion. angga said that the narrative and story are of salient elements that could albeit unconsciously learn and syafiyah, agwin degaf, irham, & miftahul huda englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 213 appreciate others‟ stories and experiences (thanasoulas, 2001). referring to the inca model and sinicrope et al.'s (2012) findings, such typical approaches are considered effective approaches to build empathy and open-mindedness. to recapitulate, the curriculum of the english literature department at walian university has not explicitly presented specific literature topics or courses related to the promotion of moderation values in a specific manner. the courses are general literature introduction, be it in terms of genre or period of the literature. the promotion of moderation in the recent status quo of literature teaching is often introduced by lectures themselves, not explicitly mandated through the courses. based on that rationale, the successful orientation of moderate attitude would be lied on lecturers‟ awareness in introducing cross-cultural understanding, inter-cultural awareness, and inter-cultural sensitivity. 5. conclusion the present study has demonstrated that lecturers face complex issues regarding the incorporation and promotion of moderation values during the teaching of literature. moderation-related topics for the students were not of specific „interest‟ of the lecturers prior to classroom activities and during material preparation. however, lecturers always lead and encourage students to be open-minded and respect others during teaching and learning activities. the curriculum designed by the department has not embedded values of moderation yet. the literary courses offered in the study program concern much on the genre of the literature such as romantic literature, modern literature, and pop literature. it is the lecturers themselves who pay attention to promote moderation values in the teaching of literature. these evidence affirm that literature, as our informants acknowledged, is an authentic material to promote moderation. given that the curriculum has not yet explicitly mandated the promotion of moderation values in the teaching of literary courses, lecturers themselves become the main actors of doing so. our study provides an overt argumentation for policymakers, the indonesian ministry of religious affairs, or other higher education institutions to consider literature teaching as one of salient tenets to spread moderation values. besides, the results also reaffirm that those stakeholders, including lecturers and teaching staff, should (re)evaluate the extent to which vision, mission, curriculum, lesson plan, and or materials and align them to the spirit of (religious) moderation. 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(2005). developing intercultural competence through literature. celt 5, 27-41. zayd, n.a. (2006). reformation of islamic thought. amsterdam: amsterdam university press. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2022. vol. 9, no. 2, 1-16 donald trump’s grammar: how to trivialize facts on coronavirus achmad fanani universitas pesantren tinggi darul ulum, indonesia achmadfanani@fbs.unipdu.ac.id manuscript received december 19, 2021, revised february 2, 2022, first published may 1, 2022, and available online may 7, 2022. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i2.11742 recommended apa citation fanani, a. (2022). donald trump‟s grammar: how to trivialize facts on coronavirus. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(2), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.11742 abstract this current research reveals how president trump grammatically constructed his clauses to trivialize the coronavirus (covid-19). this research uses a discourse analysis approach with a qualitative design. the research data are president trump‟s trivializing clauses (192 main clauses) taken from his speeches, press interviews, remarks, and tweets from january 2020 to june 2020. hallidayan sfl and straker‟s technique of trivialization are used as the basis of analysis. the result shows that most of the trivializing clauses are declarative while the others are interrogative and imperative. it is also identified that the declarative mood (statements of opinion and fact) reflects the techniques of sneaking through, trivializing the target, and discounting the target. the interrogative mood (rhetorical questions) demonstrates the technique of discounting the target. in addition, the imperative mood (directives) reflects the technique of sneaking through. finally, the result also shows that oversimplification, severity decrease, and exaggeration characterize president trump‟s trivializing clauses. keywords: donald trump; trivialization; clauses; coronavirus; mood analysis. 1. introduction president trump's statements are always worth analyzing, including those dealing with coronavirus issues. several studies (e.g., fanani, setiawan, purwati, & maisarah, 2020; ross & caldwell, 2020; tauberg, 2018; tchaparian, 2017; mohammadi & javadi, 2017) have shown that president trump tends to use controversial statements containing negative rhetorical devices in his speeches, remarks, and tweets. a study by fanani, setiawan, purwati, maisarah, and qoyyimah (2019), for example, revealed that the president used many negative rhetorical devices (e.g., blaming previous us https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6622 https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.11742 donald trump‟s grammar: how to trivialize facts on coronavirus 2 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 presidents) in his speech that potentially ignited controversy, especially among those on the opposite side. regarding the coronavirus (covid-19), president trump had repeatedly been giving statements downplaying or trivializing the virus's threat. since the virus outbreak in the us, president trump had downplayed the virus‟s severe and damaging impact for more than 60 times (blake & rieger, 2020). he always convinced his people that the pandemic was not as serious as what the health officials were worried about (kolata, rabin, & bosman, 2020). he always gave optimistic, yet trivializing, statements, stating that the us would prevail and soon defeat this virus. he also repeatedly noted that the virus would quickly disappear by itself. it is certainly different from what health experts had advised that people should be seriously prepared rather than underestimate the threat. as a us leader, his statements tend to be referenced by his people – especially those coming from the republican side – in dealing with the coronavirus issue. pew research center poll reported that the republican side (54%) believed that trump and the white house get the facts right at least most of the time (perano, 2020). a study by ho (2020) showed that most americans did not take the virus seriously. other studies showed that americans who rely on white house guidelines regarding the pandemic tend to underestimate this virus (mitchell, jurkowitz, oliphant, & shearer, 2020). several studies have analyzed some of the world's leaders who underestimate the coronavirus (e.g., heng, 2020; oxford analytica (oa), 2020; rivers & gallon, 2020). their viewpoints of analysis are generally related to politics. for example, oa (2020) analyzes the political impact of the president downplay of the virus by nicaragua's president and found that (1) opposition parties are starting to form alliances with the hope of benefiting from people's frustration with the government, (2) trade and investment into nicaragua will remain minimal as a result of concerns about the spread of covid-19 in the country. this current study analyzes the same topic but with a different point of view, namely the linguistic analysis of president trump's statements that trivialize the coronavirus. the study results are expected to complement the results of the previous studies above related to the language patterns used by president trump in dealing with coronavirus. linguistically speaking, how did the president deliver his statements that tend to underestimate the problem? it is essential to reveal because his trivializing statements, on one side, were positively responded to and followed by us people. in contrast, they were negatively responded to by the other us people. this current study revealed how president trump patterned his trivializing clauses and how the clauses reflect trivialization techniques of persuasion. by understanding the patterns of trivialization techniques, we can see president trump's actual attitude towards the handling of coronavirus. in addition, we can see how rulers with great power use language to handle complex and challenging issues. achmad fanani englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 3 2. literature review 2.1. hallidayan interpersonal meaning in hallidayan systemic functional linguistics (sfl), meta-function or meaning is one of the prominent discussions. there are three meta-functions: textual, interpersonal, and ideational. this current research is concerned with the interpersonal meaning, which reveals that language is a means of social interaction. the chief interpersonal function represents language uses to articulate social and personal relationships. language is utilized by the speaker to exchange information or services or create and sustain social relationships. the language interpersonal function signifies that the speaker/writer has potential meaning in the communication as a participant. the speaker/writer is utilizing the semantic factor to communicate his opinion or evaluation and influence the views and actions of the audience readers. according to thompson (2008), the interaction will affect one‟s attitude and views and disclose the speaker‟s attitudes in a definite occasion or purpose of particular action. in the interpersonal meaning, the mood system is one of the central discussions. the mood system comprises two basic terms, namely indicative mood and imperative mood (halliday, 2014; eggins, 2004). the indicative mood deals with negotiating a proposition or the exchange of information. there are two basic terms in the indicative mood: declarative and interrogative. typically, the declaratives function as a statement (i.e. facts, opinion, etc.) whose main aim is to provide information. on the other hand, the interrogatives typically function as a question whose main function is to request information (halliday, 2014; eggins, 2004). the imperative mood is concerned with negotiating a proposal to provide services wor exchange goods. the imperatives typically function as instructions, appeals, and commands (eggins, 2004; fanani et al., 2020). in the communication process, the types of mood are utilized to carry out the speech functions. the association between subject and finite is a signal of the interaction in the discourse making the message as a statement, an inquiry, a proposition, and a command. once a speaker or writer gives information to the audience/readers, they make a statement. in terms of providing information, the subject is put before the finite, and this structure of the mood system is called declarative mood (eggins, 2004). clauses are utilized to evaluate how the language is employed to associate with others, negotiate relationships, and to communicate opinions and attitudes. halliday (2014) explains that the relationship between speakers occurs each time the language is used to associate with others. halliday further explains that there are two basic types of speech roles: giving and demanding. thus, a declarative is characterized by a subject that precedes the finite, which generally realizes to a statement (giving information). while speakers/writers needing information, they typically ask questions (demanding information). occasionally they donald trump‟s grammar: how to trivialize facts on coronavirus 4 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 inquire in polar interrogatives which anticipate a yes/no request. in a polar interrogative question, the finite comes before the subject. this order is the signal of the interrogative mood serving as a frequent realization of a question (eggins, 2004). interrogative is indicated by the reversal position of subject and finite in the clauses where finite is put before the subject. in exchanging goods and services, speakers needing goods or services typically give orders or commands. in this type of exchange, there is no clear subject or finite, but speakers/writers can make their demands more forceful by adding a subject or a finite. these formations of the mood system are recognized as the imperative mood, which usually realizes a command (eggins, 2004). speakers/writers who give goods and services commonly propose something. the utterance is usually expressed in modulated interrogatives (eggins, 2004). many researchers had applied sfl from different dimensions and perspectives. kamalu and tamunobelema (2013) used sfl to analyze religious identities and ideologies construed in a literary text. they found out that sfl mood analysis was useful for understanding the participants' structural-based interpersonal relationships in the literary text. ayoola (2013) analyzed some political adverts of two parties in nigeria concerning the interpersonal metafunction (mood system). one of his highlighted findings is that the interpersonal meaning does not always correspond with its lexicogrammar analysis. the writers used different mood types to interact, negotiate, and establish their relationship with the readers. the mood system was also applied to change the readers‟ behavior. ayoola concluded that contextual factors (e.g., the need to reflect the country's economic and socio-political context/situation) profoundly influenced the mood types used in the adverts and their interpersonal meanings. 2.2. trivialization according to straker (2002), when someone does not get what he hopes for, he will feel very disappointed. his hopes and predictions seem ruined. he would even feel more embarrassed when he had told other people beforehand about his hopes and predictions. in response, he might make the situation lighter by telling himself (and others) that it is not as important as he thought before. in other words, he underestimates or trivializes what he previously thought was important. the aim of trivialization is not to lessen the degree of inconsistency but to reduce the significance of the inconsistency by decreasing the importance of one or more of the discordant elements (simon, greenberg, & brehm, 1995). trivializing reframes what is said as being not crucial by implicitly deciding for the choice concerning what is significant and what isn't. what is frequently not referenced are the standards by which significance is judged. trivializing can likewise be applied to the individual, inferring that they are not significant, not master enough, or not senior enough to be heard. achmad fanani englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 5 trivialization is closely related to the strategy of disavowal, which is frequently misjudged as a resistance component (simon, 2009). when someone utilizes the strategy, he is persuading other people that something bad is not generally as awful as or as destructive as what other people think. he may concede that it is, in some part, not the most important one. in other words, by utilizing the strategy, he attempts to control others into believing that something is not such an awful or dangerous one. according to simon (2009), trivializing makes something that is big or important small and insignificant, allowing someone to ignore it. trivializing may also be used as an attack, making small something that others find meaningful. this is often used when someone is facing a situation that makes him feel uncomfortable in some way, and thinks that he is unable to cope with it just now. concerning diseases, some studies propose three possible elements of disease trivialization. they are oversimplified, decreased severity, and comedic representations (pavelko & myrick, 2015). developments in healthcare may cause the oversimplification of some diseases. perceptions that the situation is not serious could lead to trivialization by undermining efforts to describe the realities of ocd, the importance of treatment, and the need for additional research. ford and ferguson (2004) explain comedy or mockery as a form of “disparagement humor” that “belittles or maligns an individual or social group” (p. 79). honored people or groups are inclined to using mockery when conversing with less honored people or groups. people may utilize mockery to strengthen their supremacy over the people in a lower position (romero & cruthirds, 2006). according to straker (2002), trivialization linguistically can be constructed through three following ways: (1) trivializing targets (time, people ideas, money, etc.). in this case one often directly trivializes people or things. for example, one may trivialize time (e.g., it won't take you very long), or people (e.g., you are not that clever), or ideas (e.g., there are better ways of doing things), or money (e.g., it's not very expensive for what you are getting.) (2) discounting others. trivialization is also done to people or something to discount or reduce them in status by comparing them with people, things, or other ways. if one reduces the status of the other person or things, then anything he say or do will be like the following: that was an easy challenge. can you give me a more difficult one? she is hardly among the best ones in this class. is this all you can do? donald trump‟s grammar: how to trivialize facts on coronavirus 6 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 (3) sneaking through. someone sometimes trivializes something indirectly. the trivialization can only be seen from the implications of the sentences he uses. the listener can usually conclude that someone is looking down on something or not. for example: everyone knows we are the best team in this country (implies that „the other team is not a serious threat) everything will be okay (implies that „the problem is not serious‟) trivialization can be constructed with complete sentences and phrases. however, many key words are commonly used: • just: i just want one minute. • only: he is only a little child. • simply: just simply do like this. • hardly: i hardly think it is important. • quite: it is quite easy. 3. method this current study was a discourse analysis that was aimed at finding out the linguistic patterns of president trump‟s trivializing statements. the statements were taken from his speeches, remarks, press interviews, and tweets from january 2020 to june 2020, a period that marks the beginning of the virus outbreak and the peak of the outbreak in the us. there were eight speeches and remarks (taken from https://www.whitehouse.gov/) and 12 tweets (taken from @realdonaldtrump) used as the data source. the data were in the form of clauses indicating trivialization of someone, something, and others‟ conduct or behavior regarding coronavirus issues. the trivializing statements/sentences were then broken down into clauses. a simple sentence, as well as a complex one, was counted as one clause. a compound sentence was counted as two or more, dependent on the number of clauses constructing the sentence. in this current study, in total there were 186 sentences which were then broken down into 192 clauses analyzed. after the clauses were collected, they were classified based on their types of mood and speech function realizations. the results were then analyzed by using straker‟s trivialization techniques to understand how the statements were linguistically structured to convince the us people that coronavirus was not a big problem. to ensure the validity of the data, a peer debriefing technique was applied by working together with several colleagues who hold impartial views of the study (barber & walczak, 2009). two raters (misnadin, ph.d. from universitas trunojoyo and prof. slamet setiawan from universitas negeri surabaya) were asked to check the validity the data. they were given a checklist about the relevance between the author's classification and the theory used. the reliability of the data was carried out using the https://www.whitehouse.gov/ achmad fanani englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 7 inter-rater reliability technique, where the results of the two raters were correlated to see the agreement between the two raters. 4. findings table 1 below summarizes the findings of this current research: the mood types, speech function realizations, techniques of trivialization of the clauses used by president trump to trivialize the coronavirus. table 1 mood type, speech function realization, and technique of trivialization employed in president trumps trivialization clauses. mood type speech function realization techniques of trivialization examples in the data declarative statement of opinion  sneaking through (1) we have the best experts anywhere in the world, and they are on top of it 24/7! (2) it will all work out well.  trivializing the target (3) the coronavirus is very much under control in the usa  discounting the target (4) when you look at the kind of numbers that you‟re seeing coming out of other countries, it‟s pretty amazing when you think of it statement of fact  discounting the target (5) on average, you lose from 26,000-70,000 or so and even some cases more from the flu. ... so far, we have six [coronavirus deaths] here  sneaking through (6) when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.” (feb 26) interrogatives rhetorical question discounting the target (7) many call it a flu, what difference? imperative directive sneaking through (8) stay calm 4.1. the declarative mood president trump, on many occasions used declarative mood in his trivializing clauses. this mood was used to exchange commodities (information) with the audience. in this context, they were used to make statements with two different speech functions: opinion and fact statements. 1) statement of opinion in composing the statements of opinion, president trump applied three techniques of trivialization: (1) sneaking through (2) trivializing the target donald trump‟s grammar: how to trivialize facts on coronavirus 8 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 (3) discounting the target the first technique, the sneaking through, was dominantly used by president trump to trivialize the coronavirus facts. this technique indirectly trivialized the target (i.e., the coronavirus) by providing some evaluations. in general, he evaluated two things: (1) what he and his government had done, and (2) the coronavirus itself. for example, in his remarks on march 7 with president bolsorano of brazil, he said “we‟re doing very well, and we‟ve done a fantastic job” (blake & rieger, 2020). in this instance, he gave a positive evaluation of his administration‟s efforts in handling the prevalence of the virus. the adjunctive element „very well‟ and the complement „a fantastic job‟ contain a high assessment of something. similarly, in a remark during a press conference before a trip to india on february 25, the president said, “we have very few people with it,” (peters, 2020). his clause certainly downplayed the danger of the virus, as represented by the complement of the clause „very few people with it‟. in this trivialization technique, the pattern he commonly used was „exaggeraton to trivialize another thing.‟ many of the exaggerations were about the efforts he had made and the resources he possessed for handling the coronavirus. in his opinion, he had done the right and exceptional decision in managing the proliferation of the virus, as in his statement at a meeting with prime minister varadkar of ireland on march 12, “the united states, because of what i did and what the administration did with china, we have 32 deaths at this point” (peters, 2020). besides, he had tremendous resources to manage the situation, as in his tweet on january 30, “we have the best experts anywhere in the world, and they are on top of it 24/7!” (blake & rieger, 2020). besides, he also exaggerated the number of people who had been recovered from the virus. he exaggerated that the number was tremendously up, as in his statement in a press conference on february 25, “they‟re all getting better” (blake & rieger, 2020). all of these exaggerating statements lead to an inference that this kind of virus was very much under control and would not pose any problem to us people. there were three patterns president trump commonly employed in his exaggeration clauses: (a) because of what i did, the 'x' is very much under control. in the first pattern, the clause-like adjunct 'because of what i did' is the most important element in the exaggeration. it oriented the audience to the determinant factor for the positive result gained. so, when president trump said before a meeting with prime minister varadkar of ireland on march 12, "the united states, because of what i did and what the administration did with china, we have 32 deaths at this point" (blake & rieger, 2020), it means that he emphasized the factor (because of what i did) that led to the positive result (only 32 deaths) while simultaneously trivialized the threat of the virus. the clause construction would easily make the audience conclude that the president had already handled the virus. achmad fanani englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 9 another application of this pattern was in his statement at the briefing room podium on february 26, "because of all we've done, the risk to the american people remains very low”. here, he boasted his success in handling this kind of virus. as a result, the virus could be well managed, and the risk was very low. (b) i have the best stuff to control 'x.' in this pattern, the complement of the clause 'the best stuff' becomes the key element in exaggeration. when someone said, "i have great preparation for the test," it implies that the test would not be problematic for him at all because he had all the required preparation. the same thing occurred when president trump said in his tweet on january 29, "we have the best experts anywhere in the world" (peters, 2020). the complement 'the best experts' clearly indicates an exaggeration which, at the same time, belittles the danger of the virus. in other words, he would like to say to the audience that with the best experts on hand, the virus would generate no problem for us people. another example of the application of this pattern was when president trump said on march 6, "anybody that wants a test can get a test." (blake & rieger, 2020). here, he boasted the number of tests he could provide for the american people. this clause certainly implied that the virus's spread would soon be under control with the abundant supply of test kits. (c) the result (of my effort) is exceptional. in the third pattern, the complement of the clause 'exceptional' contains an exaggeration. for example, when the president said in a remark on february 26, "they're all getting better" (blake & rieger, 2020), he wantedto say that his efforts had worked effectively, and the virus had been well managed. similarly, in his remark on february 28, "we're getting some very good results" (blake & rieger, 2020), the president boasted that his endeavor to cure the covid-19 sufferers had already worked very well and generated very satisfying results. again, this clause implied that the virus was not dangerous, and most of the victims could be well recovered. the second technique of trivialization was trivializing the target. by this technique, president trump directly minimized the threat of the virus. for example, in his remark on march 4, “it is very mild” (peters, 2020), president trump directly minimizes the danger by saying that the virus was very mild. the complement of the clause (very mild) indicates a trivialization that it was not dangerous at all. another example is in a tweet on february 24, “the coronavirus is very much under control in the usa.” (blake & rieger, 2020). in this instance, he assured the audience that he had already been able to handle the virus well, which was in contrast with the fact that the virus was spreading rapidly at that time. the complement of the clause „very much under control‟ would easily imply that something had already been well managed and would not result in something terrible. donald trump‟s grammar: how to trivialize facts on coronavirus 10 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 the third technique in building a statement of opinion was discounting the target. president trump used this technique on some occasions. in this technique, he compared something with another thing. for example, in a speech on march 12, “when you look at the kind of numbers that you‟re seeing coming out of other countries, it‟s pretty amazing when you think of it” (peters, 2020), president trump compared the number of death of coronavirus in the us with that in other countries. in his opinion, the number was very small and should not be worried about. he also used this pattern to compare the number of possible coronavirus victims and those of economic recession and depression as in a speech on march 24, “but you‟re going to lose more people by putting a country into a massive recession or depression” (peters, 2020). here, he trivialized the number of death of coronavirus by comparing it with the possible number of victims due to economic recession and depression. 2) statement of fact in structuring his statements of fact, president trump used the following technique of trivialization: (1) discounting the target (2) sneaking through the technique used by president trump was discounting the target. by this technique, he compared some facts that implied a trivialization of the coronavirus. for example, in his statement at a news conference on march 2, “on average, you lose from 26,000-70,000 or so and even some cases more from the flu. ... so far, we have six [coronavirus deaths] here” (peters, 2020), president trump compared the number of death caused by the common flu with that caused by coronavirus at that time. the comparison led to a belief that this kind of virus was not dangerous at all and that it would not cause fatal death among the victims. similarly, in his statement at a news conference on march 2, “we‟re talking about a much smaller range of deaths than from the flu” (peters, 2020), president trump, again, presented a fact of the lower case of death caused by coronavirus compared to that of the flu. another technique he used was sneaking through. in this case, he was predicting what would happen shortly through the presentation of „data.‟ in his remark during a coronavirus task force briefing on february 26, “when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero” (peters, 2020), he presented the number 15 as those who were infected by a coronavirus. in this instance, he predicted that the very small number shortly would become 0. this clause implies that the virus was very mild and would not spread in the us. 4.2. the interrogative mood two other types of moods used by president trump were interrogative and imperative. however, they were rarely used. the interrogative mood was typically a rhetorical one, which means that the questions did not need any answers. the questions achmad fanani englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 11 were utilized to trivialize the virus as well as its impact. for example, his interrogative clause at a rally on june 27, “many call it a flu, what difference?” (peters, 2020) skeptically sounds to trivialize the danger of the virus. in this instance, he compared the virus with the common flu, which indicates the use of discounting the target. his other questions, in an interview with abc news on may 5, “will some people be affected? yes. will some people be affected badly? yes. but we have to get our country open” (peters, 2020) sound to trivialize the impact of the virus, which implies the application of the technique of discounting the target. he knew very well about the answer, and he realized the implications. however, he belittled it by comparing the disease impact with the cost of closing the country, which he thought was more critical than the virus impact. the trivialization in these two questions can also be seen from the use of the word „some‟ instead of „many‟ in them. the word „some‟ means „not many,‟ hence trivializing coronavirus victims. 4.3. the imperative mood president trump's most infrequently used type of mood was the imperative mood. only a small number of clauses were delivered in this type of mood, commonly applied to give an order to do something. for example, his statement, in a trip to capitol hill for talks on emergency economic bailout on march 30, “stay calm” (peters, 2020), asked the people not to worry about the virus (sneaking through). the complement of the clause „calm‟ bears the meaning of „relaxed‟ and „at ease.‟ when someone says „stay calm‟ to us, we usually would think that the speaker knows the situation very well, assuring that the problem would end and anything would be fine. in this example, he wanted to say that he had a firm conviction that the virus would disappear soon, as indicated by the next clauses accompanying it (“it will go away. you know it is going away”). 5. discussion this study highlights three aspects of sfl in the speech that are interesting to discuss: (1) the high use of declarative moods, (2) the clauses that function as statements of opinion, and (3) the patterns of the trivializing statements. firstly, president trump dominantly used declarative moods to deliver his trivializing statements. according to eggins (2004), the high use of declarative mood indicates that a speaker prefers to tell something rather than ask for information. in this context, by telling them some negative facts related to the virus, president trump tried to convince his audience that covid-19 was not a serious problem. the utilization of declarative mood helps him convey his message straightforwardly without separating him from the audience (halliday, 2014). the declarative mood helps the audience receive the message directly without requiring additional thought and time. the president might want to affirm that "it is the fact" or "it is true," which gave the audience no opportunity to challenge the information. this donald trump‟s grammar: how to trivialize facts on coronavirus 12 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 kind of function cannot be obtained by using imperative or interrogative moods. it is because the moods cause a separation between the speaker and the audience since they require the audience‟s reactions to see whether the information is delivered successfully or not (ayoola, 2013). secondly, the trivializing declarative mood functioned mainly as a statement of opinion for evaluating something. in this case, president trump often used two kinds of evaluation: positive and negative evaluations. first, he positively evaluated any efforts his administration had made to manage the coronavirus problem, which was a part of his sneaking-through technique of trivialization. in martin & white‟s appraisal (2005) this is called positive judgment, giving a positive evaluation of one‟s behavior. in many of his statements, he judged positively what he and his administration had done in many of his statements. in his opinion, everything was already on the right track and would be able to defeat the virus soon. in short, he ensured his people that he had done it rightly. in plutchik‟s wheel of emotion (1997), president trump‟s positive evaluations were to arouse the us people‟s trust in him and his administration. the main point was that the virus would not be a serious problem for the american people with all of his efforts. second, president trump provided negative evaluations of the coronavirus itself. mostly, they were utilized in the clauses that indicate the technique of trivializing the target. on many occasions, he used words or phrases that contained negative judgment on the coronavirus, which were commonly put in the complement of the clauses as well as in the predicator. a negative evaluation was one of the common features found in president trump‟s statements. he usually evaluated his „enemies‟ negatively (tauberg, 2018). the same thing occurred in his trivializing statements on coronavirus. in this context, he treated the virus as his enemies, and, as what he did to his other „enemies,‟ he said negatively on it. many of the negative words or phrases that he utilized contained trivialization such as „very mild,‟ „going to go,‟ „going to leave,‟ „going to be gone,‟ „going to be eradicated,‟ or „disappear soon.‟ in general, the trivializing words or phrases refer to an oversimplification and decreased severity of the problem, which were two common techniques in diseaserelated trivialization (pavelko & myrick, 2015). he oversimplified and reduced the severity of the virus by decisively evaluating that it was mild, not dangerous, and it would disappear soon. for example, in “it‟s very mild” (peters, 2020), the phrase „very mild‟ indicates that the president decreased the level of threat of the virus, which is, in fact, very dangerous. thirdly, another exciting thing to discuss is the clauses that indicate the sneakingthrough technique of trivialization. in this technique, the president exaggerated something to trivialize another thing, either in his statements of fact or opinion. the exaggeration often indicates what aristotle (fanani et al., 2019) said as the ethos of persuasion, enhancing his credibility. for example, the clause “we have the best experts” in “we have the best experts anywhere in the world, and they are on top of it 24/7!” (peters, 2020), enhances the credibility of us health forces in managing the achmad fanani englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 13 virus. similarly, in “we‟re using the full power of the federal government to defeat the virus, …” (peters, 2020), the presentation of his credibility can be seen from the clause “we‟re using the full power of the federal government”. in this instance, he would like to show that his government had done its best (as indicated by the phrase „full power‟), and therefore, the american people should remain calm and believe that the virus would soon be under control in the us. in the technique of sneaking through, exaggeration is central. exaggerating is one of the common patterns found in president trump‟s statement, as revealed by tauberg (2018) in his research. he found that president trump often boasted something with the expectation of positive results. mohammadi and javadi (2017) also revealed that positive statements (positivity) were one of the characteristics often found in president trump‟s statements. this kind of statement was commonly self-promotional, exaggerating his government‟s effort in handling the problem of coronavirus. by utilizing the clauses of facts and opinions, the president tried to raise his image before the american people. the message he would like to convey through the trivializing clauses was that the problem had been well handled with the resources the us government had. the virus, which became a severe problem in other countries worldwide, was a trivial problem in the us, which should not be worried about. besides referring to sneaking through, many of the clauses revealed the technique of discounting the target, either in his statements of fact or statements of opinion. psychologically, he had got a problem with this. naturally, a person facing a complex situation and has got difficulty handling and overcoming it is minimizing or downplaying the problem (hoyk & hersey, 2010). the same thing happened to president trump. he sought justification for the difficult situation he was facing. to do this, he made comparisons. for example, when president trump was faced with the fact that the number of death due to coronavirus continuously rose in the us, he tended to deny it by minimizing the number, saying that it was still far smaller than that caused by flu (peters, 2020). 6. conclusion in making trivializing statements, president trump used clauses that trivialize the virus directly and indirectly. the trivializing clauses indicate an oversimplification and a severity decrease in the clauses that directly downplay the virus. certain trivializing words or phrases (e.g., very mild) play an important role in this case. they are directly used to downplay the virus' level of threat. meanwhile, in the trivializing clauses that indirectly downplay the virus, the clauses contain a lot of positivity which aims more at boasting the success of his efforts in managing the virus. in this case, exaggeration plays a major role. the result concludes that through his trivializing clauses, president trump was trying to position himself as the person who had succeeded in overcoming the coronavirus problem in the us. by constantly proclaiming his success in overcoming donald trump‟s grammar: how to trivialize facts on coronavirus 14 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 this disease, he hoped that his self-image would also rise, which would be very useful for facing the upcoming presidential election. for further studies, it is necessary to analyze the relationship between president trump's trivializing clauses and his failure in the us presidential election. it is possible because his trivializing the viruses 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(2008). introducing functional grammar (3 rd . ed.). london, uk: routledge. twitter @realdonaldtrump http://dx.doi.org/10.1024/1421-0185.65.4.221 englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2022. vol. 9, no. 2, 187-203 an error analysis on efl students' writing yasir mubarok * universitas pamulang, indonesia dosen02264@unpam.ac.id taat budiono universitas pamulang, indonesia dosen02143@unpam.ac.id manuscript received november 23, 2021, revised december 23, 2021, first published may 1, 2022, and available online may 7, 2022. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i2.11386 recommended apa citation mubarok, y., & budiono, t. (2022). an error analysis on efl students' writing. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(2), 187-203. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.11386 abstract this study attempts to analyze the grammatical errors in the writings of indonesian efl students through the error analysis (ea) approach. the subject of this research included the theses which are written by the university students of english letters department at one of the state university, jakarta. the data sources were taken from chapter four, the conclusion, and the suggestion section from six students‟ theses. in this study, the data collection was carried out through several steps: the authors collected data from students, identified grammatical errors, classified errors in students' thesis to determine the frequency of errors, and calculated the data into percentages. the results indicate that there are eleven types of errors commonly found in students‟ writing. they are 5% errors of subject-verb and agreement, 2% errors in word order, 13% errors in preposition, 20% errors in article, 2% errors in plurality form, 19% errors in punctuation, 5% errors in auxiliary, 21% errors in unnecessary words, 5% errors in word choice, 5% errors in parallel structure, and 2% errors in redundancy. the writer observed 125 total errors. the errors are dominated in the form of punctuation, article, and unnecessary words types. the research unveils that students make common grammatical errors encouraged by the incapability to accomplish, recognize and understand the rules of the foreign language and its limitations, a little mastery of grammar and vocabulary. keywords: error analysis; thesis writing; efl students * corresponding author https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6622 https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.11386 an error analysis on efl students' writing 188 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 1. introduction in this day and age, english skills are needed for academic purposes (gunantar, 2016; lauder, 2008; mappiasse & sihes, 2014). crystal (2003) stated that the sum of people in the world who converse in english continues to increase. his survey resulted that people who have studied english as a second language (l2) are estimated at 430 million, but that did not give the whole picture. this fact has proven that english is now used globally. the increasingly widespread use of english is promoted through economics, politics, scientific cooperation, technology and culture, mass media, multinational corporations (clyne, 1984, as cited in coleman, 2006; lo & lin, 2015). crystal (2003) also believed that the strong british colonialism specifies the success of the english language as the most dominant language. this factor has pushed english into a medium of communication in most regions of the world as a mother tongue or second (crystal, 2003; jenkins, 2009). this tendency is being accommodated by the increasing number of schools that use english as a teaching medium (fentonsmith, humphreys, & walkinshaw, 2017; kirkpatrick, 2014; lauder, 2008; manh, 2012; toh, 2016). in addition, jenkins (2014) found that english is now seen as an academic language of instruction. even in europe, there is a growing trend towards english, assuming the dominant language status in higher education (vila, 2015, as cited in toh, 2016). likewise, in indonesia, the phenomenon of english as an international or a second language causes english to become compulsory material in junior high schools to the university level. unlike singapore and malaysia, the two countries are the most proficient in english (yuliandi, 2018). most indonesian students tend to use indonesian or their local language than english. a situation like that directly affects the mastery of the english language. in the view of many scholars, teaching english in indonesia has been labelled as far from successful or less satisfactory (ariyanti & fitriana, 2017; ariyanti, 2016; nur & madkur, 2014; pudiyono, 2012; suryanto, 2015). this can be seen from the fact that most indonesian students cannot use english well (gunantar, 2016). it happens because learners dominantly use the indonesian language in all aspects of life (irmalia, 2016). english contains four skills, reading, speaking, listening and writing. from these skills, writing is considered the most complex skill, especially for non-native speakers (ananda, gani, & sahardin, 2014; ariyanti, 2016; muhsin, 2016; wahyuni, 2017). muhsin (2016) and norrish (1983) as cited in sattayatham & ratanapinyowong (2008) claimed that writing is not easy and more complex than speaking in some ways. research conducted by floranti and adiantika (2019) has shown that writing receives the least amount of attention and priority from teachers and students. this negative attitude arises because of several possible problems. besides, writing well is yasir mubarok & taat budiono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 189 not a skill that is acquired naturally (andrian, 2015). writing is also not an innate ability but is obtained through years of learning and training. it involves a socio-cognitive process with mastery of specific competencies to produce understandable and reasonable texts such as vocabulary, grammar, syntax, style, and knowledge writing system (floranti & adiantika, 2019). efl students' writing is influenced by their first language (l1) and the educational context in which they learn to write. this culturally and socially marked context gives knowledge about writing (i.e. audience views and writing goals) and textual knowledge and linguistic, which influences the way students to produce and process writing (rinnert & kobayashi, 2009). likewise, ariyanti (2016) discovered several differences between english and indonesian such as structural and grammatical terms and styles. raimes (1983) as cited in sattayatham and ratanapinyowong (2008) argued a close relationship between writing and thinking; punctuation, logical content, and correct language are considered necessary in writing. as a result, a student needs to write not only coherently but also correctly. besides, writing also requires more skills and time, especially when writing in a second/foreign language (liu & braine, 2005). generally, the errors made by students when writing are caused by lack of attention, fatigue, carelessness, ideas, reading and writing practice, interference from the learner‟s first language, overgeneralization, translation from the first language, incomplete application of rules, or some other aspect of performance (andrian, 2015; fareed, ashraf, & bilal, 2016; norrish, 1983, as cited in sattayatham & ratanapinyowong, 2008). furthermore, low ability in grammar can hinder writers from writing effectively (fatemi, 2008, as cited in ananda, gani, sahardin, 2014). this study was designed to identify the essential features of students' errors, the causes of their errors, and to categorize the errors. 2. literature review in the 1960s, error analysis was developed as a branch of applied linguistics and began to show that many student errors were not due to the students' mother tongue but reflected a universal learning strategy (richards & schmidt, 2010). ellis and barkhuizen (2005) stated that error analysis (ea) consists of a series of procedures to identify, describe, explain student errors. in contrast, james (2013) argued that error analysis is the process of determining the events, causes, nature, and consequences of language that does not work. in other words, errors can be significant in three ways: (1) they serve pedagogical purposes by showing teachers what students have learned and what students have not mastered; (2) they serve the purpose of research by providing evidence of how language is learned; and (3) they serve the purpose of learning by an error analysis on efl students' writing 190 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 acting as a device where learners can find the rules of the target language (corder, 1967, as cited in ellis & barkhuizen, 2005). the most important contribution of error analysis lies in its fruitfulness in raising the error status from the undesired into a guideline. therefore, errors are no longer seen as “undesirable forms” but as evidence of students' active contributions to second language acquisition (ellis, 1995, as cited in sattayatham & ratanapinyowong, 2008). furthermore, in the view of many scholars, there are two forms of errors, namely, performance and competence, which second language learners generally carry out (ellis, 1994; dulay, burt, & stephen krashen, 1982). performance errors include inattention and fatigue, while competence errors are from a lack of knowledge of language rules. human learning is a way that involves making errors. making errors is an important aspect of the learning process for almost all skills. dulay, burt, and krashen (1982) defined errors that cannot be avoided in the learning process. besides that, making errors is one part of learning; people cannot learn the language without first making systematic errors. dulay, burt, and krashen (1982, p.138) also stated that “the majority of the grammatical errors second language learners make do not reflect the learner's mother tongue. in some second language literature, performance errors have been called "mistakes".” in contrast, the term "errors" is reserved for systematic deviations because students are still growing knowledge of the l2 rule system (corder, 1967, as cited in dulay, burt, & krashen, 1982). hubbard et al. (1983) as cited in andrian (2015) stated that errors are caused by temporary memory lapses, lack of knowledge of the target language, confusion, a slip of the tongue and so on. brown (1980) as cited in sari (2016) argued that the student‟s errors in the second language result from the student‟s assumption. they assume that the second/foreign language forms are alike the native language (interlingual errors) and the negative transfer of items within the target language (intralingual errors). furthermore, richards (1974) as cited in muhsin (2016) confirmed that interlingual errors are caused by interference in native language learners. then, interlingual errors are caused by interference from the first language to the target language being studied. before students master the target language concept, they will constantly use their native language concepts. this type of error is called the inter-language error. another error is an intralanguage error. james (1998) as cited in muhsin (2016) argues that the fewer students know about the target language, the more they are forced to utilise their prior knowledge. it happens because students do not know much about the target language. intralingual errors can be grouped into four types (richards, 1974, as cited in muhsin, 2016, p. 2). yasir mubarok & taat budiono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 191 1) overgeneralization richards (2015, p. 174) stated “overgeneralization generally involves the creation of one deviant structure in place of two regular structures”. overgeneralization happens when the learner creates a distorted structure based on his experience of other structures in the target language. it will be misleading and inapplicable in second language learning. for instance, “he is walks quickly” instead of “he walks quickly.” 2) ignorance of rule restriction in this case, the learner is unsuccessful to recognize the boundaries of the existing structure. for instance, “i enjoy to learn about english language.” it is preferable to substitute „to learn about‟ with the „learning‟ word. 3) incomplete application of rules in this kind of intra-lingual error, we might note the occurrence of structures whose deviancy represents the development degree of the rules required to result appropriate utterances. for instance, “he opening the door”. the verb ending “-ing” cannot arise by itself. it requires to be substituted to make the sentence suitable. 4) false concept hypothesized this intra-lingual error is known as semantic error. this is a wrong understanding of the differences in the target language. these particular errors are normally the output of poor teaching grading. on language learning processes, there are three general terms to be explained: transfer, interference, and overgeneralization (brown, 2007). a transfer is a broad term that describes the accumulation of previous knowledge or performance for further learning (brown, 2007). moreover, odlin (1989) as cited in wang (2015) stated that transfer is the influence resulting from the similarities and differences between the target language and any other language that has been previously (and perhaps imperfectly) acquired. the transfer is shared into two transfers. they are negative and positive transfers. positive transfer occurs when the prior knowledge (l1) benefits the learning task. for example, when a previous item is applied to the present subject matter (l2). negative transfer happens when the final performance (l1) interferes with the second (l2) performance and is also known as interference. based on previous studies, error analysis (ea) is a procedure utilized by the researchers. this entangles collecting samples of language learners, identifying, describing, and classifying sample errors according to their nature and causes, and evaluating their seriousness (corder, 1967, as cited in muhsin, 2016). the ea purpose is to discover what learners know and does not know and find matters that learners face. second language learners are not alone in making errors; the first language (l1) also lead errors. an error analysis on efl students' writing 192 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 in brief, the studies cited above demonstrated that writing problems could occur in some situations. thus, it is interesting to verify the writing errors of university students whose english proficiency is high. the results of this study are supposed to contribute either to efl learners and be reference guides neither in theoretical nor practical. the results can be the evaluation and reflection to improve english proficiency. cook (1989) as cited in hasan and marzuki (2017) argued that students' writing difficulties stem from the complexity of grammatical structures or inadequate lexical items at the sentence level. another problem faced by learners in writing is the convenience and ease of expressing ideas related to cohesion and coherence. 3. method the present study emphasized the learner errors in writing through the error analysis approach (ea). in this research, the writers used the qualitative descriptive method. the method employed by the writers is through four steps. they identified the errors, classified the errors, quantified the errors, and analysed the source of the error (gay, 1987, as cited in muhsin, 2016). in this study, the number of samples selected was six theses. the method used is the simple random sampling method, which is choosing a sample randomly based on existing data. the data sources are the conclusion and suggestions on the thesis. then, the data were investigated using descriptive methods. participants in the research are students of the english letters department at one of the state university, jakarta, who made errors in their theses. in this study, the data collection was through several steps. first, the writers started by reading all theses in analysing students' writing. the writers found grammatical errors, especially in the conclusion and suggestion on the thesis. second, the writers made a table of errors to identify what errors the students performed. third, the writers classified the students' errors to determine the kinds of errors. the last, the writers calculated the percentage of every error by using the formula: x = ∑ er ∑ w which: x = the errors percentage er = various kinds of errors w = words and ∑ = the total number after gathering the students' and counting the mean, the writers determined the percentage of every kind of error (arikunto, 2002). yasir mubarok & taat budiono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 193 4. findings and discussion based on the analysis, the total of errors were 125 occurrences. the distribution grammatical errors showed in chart 1 below. figure 1. the error distributions from the chart 1 above, it can be known the result of grammatical errors in writing chapter four; conclusion and suggestion section from six theses made by the authors in percentage value. there were seven errors (5%) in the subject-verb and agreement, two errors (2%) in the word order, sixteen errors (13%) in the using preposition, twenty-five errors (20%) in the using article, three errors (2%) in the plurality form, twenty-four errors (19%) in punctuation, six errors (5%) in the auxiliary, twenty-seven errors (21%) in the using unnecessary words, seven errors (5%) in the word choice, six errors (5%) in the parallel structure, and two errors (2%) in the redundancy. these results may indicate that the article, punctuation, preposition, verb tense are the most challenging for the learners due to several reasons. in linguistic strategy, the errors are classified based on the morphological syntactic (keshavarz, 2012), and every category can be described through descriptive grammar in the target language (english). the error distributions demonstrated as follows 4.1. subject-verb and agreement in subject-verb and agreement errors, the researchers found seven errors (5%) from all the theses. some examples are given below. subject-verb and agreement 5% word order 2% preposition 13% article 20% plurality 2% punctuation 19% auxiliaries 5% unnecessary words 22% word choice 5% parallel structure 5% redundancy 2% an error analysis on efl students' writing 194 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 table 1 subject-verb and agreement errors. no error correction 1. “the title in this film was “snow white and the huntsman“ it is represents a different film with short story from brother grimm and walt disney film”. “the title in this film was “snow white and the huntsman“ it represents a different film with short story from brother grimm and walt disney film”. 2. “…she fulfill her needs”. “…she fulfills her needs”. 3. “translating movies or subtitling is not the same as intertextual translation”. “translating movies or subtitling are not the same as intertextual translation”. 4. 2. word order in word order errors, the researchers found two errors (2%) from all the theses. some examples are given below. table 2 word order errors. no error correction 1. “talking about translation procedures related to a smaller level of a text are sentence, clause, phrase and word”. “talking about translation procedures related to a smaller text level are sentence, clause, phrase and word”. 2. “the theme for the next research can be about marriage, female characters or the point of view of this novel”. “the theme for the next research can be about marriage, female characters, or this novel's point of view”. 4.3. preposition in preposition errors, the researchers found sixteen errors (13%) from all the theses. some examples are given below. table 3 preposition errors. no error correction 1. “she lets rachel live in her flat and constantly caring to rachel”. “she lets rachel live in her flat and constantly caring for rachel”. 2. “the story is different with short story from walt disney film”. “the story is different from short story from walt disney film”. yasir mubarok & taat budiono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 195 3. “translating consists in reproducing in the receptor language”. “translating consists of reproducing in the receptor language”. 4. “the object of this research is focused on sentences containing modulation in found in the novel”. “the object of this research is focused on sentences containing modulation found in the novel”. 4.4. article in article errors, the researchers found twenty-five errors (20%) from all the theses. some examples are given below. table 4 article errors. no error correction 1. “the comparison between the novel and movie version can also be used as the research”. “the comparison between the novel and the movie version can also be used as the research”. 2. that was represented if snow white has brave character. that was represented if snow white has a brave character. 3. “in process of translating, a translator has to focus on the translation procedure”. “in the process of translating, a translator has to focus on the translation procedure”. 4. “life is interesting discourse for poe to interpret into his works, either intellectually, imaginatively, and emotionally”. “life is an interesting discourse for poe to interpret into his works, either intellectually, imaginatively, and emotionally”. 4.5. plurality the fifth type is plurality form errors. the errors of this type are found in about three errors (2%). here are the errors listed in table 5. table 5 plurality errors. no error correction 1. “this is due to the fact there are many act of removal, addition, and neutralizing in the translation”. “this is due to the fact there are many acts of removal, addition, and neutralizing in the translation”. 4.6. punctuation the sixth type is punctuation errors. there are twenty-four errors (19%). here are the errors listed in table 6. an error analysis on efl students' writing 196 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 table 6 punctuation errors. no error correction 1. “in this case my suggestion to the next research is analyze about revenna’s character, she has masculine too”. “in this case, my suggestion to the next research is analyze about revenna’s character, she has masculine too”. 2. “in the snow white and the huntsman film there is a new person…”. “in the snow white and the huntsman film, there is a new person…”. 3. “the ending story in this film, had a different story”. “the ending story in this film (without comma) had a different story”. 4. “after analyzing snow white and the huntsman," “after analyzing snow white and the huntsman,” 5. “talking about translation procedures, related to a smaller level of a text are sentence, clause, phrase and word”. “talking about translation procedures, related to a smaller level of a text are sentence, clause, phrase, and word”. 4.7. auxiliary the seventh type is auxiliary‟s errors. there are six errors (5%) that can be found. here are the errors listed in table 7. table 7 auxiliary errors. no error correction 1. “she does not easy to choose the person who will companies her live until she died”. “she does not easy to choose the person who will company her live until she died”. 2. “…the result of the translation is not misunderstanding”. “…that the result of the translation does not misunderstand”. 3. “…the text in target language easy to understand”. “…the text in target language is easy to understand”. 4.8. unnecessary words the eighth type is unnecessary words errors. there are twenty-seven errors (21%) that can be found. here are the errors listed in table 8. yasir mubarok & taat budiono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 197 table 8 unnecessary words errors. no error correction 1. “in walt disney a prince becomes as her love”. “in walt disney a prince becomes as her love”. 2. “the equivalence translation of the commissive utterances in this novel uses communicative translation because its translation focuses on target language or the reader”. “the equivalence translation of the commissive utterances in this novel uses communicative translation to focus on the target language or the reader”. 3. “rachel fails to get fulfill the love”. “rachel fails to get fulfill the love”. 4. “she never gives up, and she shows to the people about her power”. “she never gives up, and she shows to the people about her power”. 4.9. word choice the nineth type is word choice errors. there are seven errors (5%) that can be found. here are the errors listed in table 9. table 9 word choice errors. no error correction 1. “in walt disney a prince becomes as her love” “in walt disney a prince becomes as her lover” 2. “she does not easy to choose the person who will companies her live until she died”. “she does not easy to choose the person who will companies her life until she died”. 3. “in order to analyze the character, the writer uses character and characterization theory”. “to analyze the character, the writer uses character and characterization theory”. 4.10. parallel structure the tenth type is parallel structure errors. there are six errors (5%) that can be found. here are the errors listed in table 10. table 10 parallel structure errors. no error correction 1. “she lets rachel live in her flat and constantly caring to rachel”. “she lets rachel live in her flat and constantly cares to rachel”. 2. “this novel tells a story about a woman named rachel watson who always looking at a couple in their house from the train window to fulfill her “this novel tells a story about a woman named rachel watson who always looks at a couple in their house from the train window to fulfill her safety an error analysis on efl students' writing 198 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 safety needs and her love and belonging needs”. needs and her love and belonging needs”. 3. “when the translator translates the novel that include some islamic terms”. “when the translator translates the novel that includes some islamic terms”. 4.11. redundancy the eleventh type is redundancy errors. the errors of this type are found in about two errors (2%). here are the errors listed in table 11. table 11 redundancy errors. no error correction 1. “not only in film walt disney film,…”. “not only in film walt disney film,…”. besides the results above, the errors were dominated by the punctuation, article, and unnecessary words. the students might be confused to select proper constituents. there were many inconsistent used of the article in the theses such as life is interesting (it should be an interesting) discourse …”. this indicates that students might still be confused in using articles. moreover, the students failed to recognise the restriction of existing structures. irmalia (2016) stated that it happens because learners dominantly use the indonesian language in all aspects of life. another set of errors belong to the preposition forms. this shows that students might not know the complete application of rules, particularly the preposition forms. this shows that writing is considered the most complex skill, especially for non-native speakers (ananda, gani, & sahardin, 2014; ariyanti, 2016; muhsin, 2016; wahyuni, 2017). norrish (1983) even as cited in sattayatham and ratanapinyowong (2008) claimed that in some way, writing is not easy. writing is more complex than speaking. in this case, the teacher or lecturer must understand that writing includes practical activities, has guidance, and provides feedback from the teacher (ariyanti, 2016). then, another error is the auxiliary. the students might be confused to select proper constituents in the verb areas, especially in the auxiliary verb. there were many inconsistent uses of auxiliary verbs such as “…the result of the translation is not (it should be does not) misunderstanding”. the students might be confused to pick the auxiliary verb properly. because they were transferring the grammar rules of their mother tongue into the english language. it happened since they did not understand the target language. on the other hand, there are found out incorrect forms of subject-verb and agreement. students are confused in determining the predicate of a subject such as “the title in this film was “snow white and the huntsman“ it is represents (it should only yasir mubarok & taat budiono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 199 represents) a different film”. this indicates that the most apparent difference is verbs in english are determined by tenses while the indonesian language does not have. moreover, floranti & adiantika (2019) had shown that writing receives the least attention and priority from teachers and students. besides that, writing well is not a naturally acquired skill (andrian, 2015). in another case, there are found out incorrect forms of the punctuation such as “talking about translation procedures, related to a smaller level of a text are sentence, clause, phrase (there is the omission of a comma) and word”. although this case did not affect the overall meaning and interpretation of the sentence, it could harm the entire value of the thesis itself. in addition, students tended to be ignorant because the nature of punctuation has no meaningful impact on the reader's mind. this indicates that writing involves a socio-cognitive process with mastery of certain competencies to produce understandable and reasonable texts such as vocabulary, grammar, syntax, style and knowledge writing system (floranti & adiantika, 2019). rinnert and kobayashi (2009) argued that efl students' writing is influenced by their first language (l1) and the educational context in which they learn to write. writing experience (l1) plays a prominent role in students' writing development in efl situations. the other errors found is the word choice. the problem is related to the lack of understanding of the incomplete application of rules. most of the errors are in the form of word choice, such as “in walt disney a prince becomes as her love (it should be lover)”. this indicates that low ability in grammar can hinder writers from writing effectively (fatemi, 2008, as cited in ananda, gani, & sahardin, 2014). rahmatunisa (2014) as cited in ariyanti and fitriana (2017) found three main problems efl students face in writing, precisely, linguistic, cognitive, and psychological issues. she suggested that teachers are required to push students' motivation to write and serve supportive writing activities such as opening the dictionary and providing peer correction. additionally, there were found many errors in parallel structure. this indicates that english parallel structure forms are quite complicated because they must be parallel structures in a sentence such as verb, noun, phrase, or clause. by using this parallelism or parallel structure, we will show that the elements in the sentence are equivalent to one another. most of their errors are in the form of parallel structures such as verb. “she lets rachel live in her flat and constantly caring (must be cares) to rachel”. ariyanti (2016) found several distinctions between english and indonesian such as structural and grammatical terms and styles. besides that, students need to translate meaning from the indonesian context into english so that a text makes sense when it is read by people, mainly native speakers. the other error was found is redundancy. the students might not know about this requirement and might have lack knowledge of the word order itself. raimes (1983) as cited in sattayatham and ratanapinyowong (2008) argued a close relationship between writing and thinking; logical content, punctuation, and correct language are considered necessary in writing. consequently, a student requires to write both an error analysis on efl students' writing 200 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 coherently and correctly. furthermore, james (1989) as cited in muhsin, (2016) argued that the fewer students know about the target language, the more they are forced to utilise their prior knowledge. it happens because students do not find out much about the target language. the results imply that the students' grammatical difficulties must be solved, and the errors were varied, it can emphasise that subject-verb and agreement, word order, preposition, article, plurality form, unnecessary words, punctuation, and parallel structure are the biggest challenges for students. in brief, the errors made by students when writing were caused by lack of attention, fatigue, carelessness, ideas, reading and writing practice, interference from the learner‟s first language, overgeneralization, translation from the first language, incomplete application of rules, or some other aspect of performance (andrian, 2015; fareed, ashraf, & bilal, 2016; norrish (1983) as cited in sattayatham and ratanapinyowong (2008). nur and madkur (2014) showed that most high school students can barely use english in the real world, even for simple purposes. this is also well below the nationally set english language competency standard, and it shows in the university‟s theses. it might be induced by several matters such as norms and beliefs, teacher factors, student characteristics, and aspects of english (fenton-smith, humphreys, & walkinshaw, 2017). as a foreign language, english is infrequently used outside the context of the classroom. outside of class, indonesian students speak indonesian or their local language instead. its condition influences the english mastership of indonesian students (suryanto, 2015). exley (2005) as cited in suryanto, (2015) stated that indonesian students are shy in class, quiet, and culturally passive. they did not join in class activities even though the teacher asked them to participate. regarding language acquisition, the student‟s errors in the second language came from the student‟s assumption. they assumed that the second/foreign language forms are similar to the native language (interlingual errors). in addition, the negative transfer of items within the target language (intralingual errors) makes the student‟s errors (brown, 1980, as cited in sari, 2016). moreover, the transfer was the effect that results from the similarities and differences between the target language and other languages that have been obtained previously (odlin, 1989, as cited in wang, 2015). the transfer was shared into two transfers. they are negative and positive transfer. positive transfer occurred when the prior knowledge (l1) benefits the learning task. for example, when a prior item is absolutely applied to the present subject matter (l2). negative transfer happened when the final performance (l1) interfered with the second (l2) performance and is also known as interference. richards (1974) as cited in muhsin (2016) confirmed interlingua errors induced by interference native language learners. then, interlingual errors were induced by interference from the first language to the target language they learn. before students mastered the target language concept, they would constantly utilize their native language concepts. this type of error is called the inter-language error. another error was an intra-language error. then, it is sub-divided into four yasir mubarok & taat budiono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 201 categories: (1) incomplete application of rules; (2) false concepts hypothesised; (3) ignorance of rule restriction; (4) overgeneralization. 5. conclusion the study results found that of 125 total errors, the dominant errors were in the punctuation, article, and unnecessary words area. the students' errors can be categorised into eleven kinds of errors which include 5% errors of subject-verb and agreement, 2% errors in word order, 13% errors in preposition, 20% errors in article, 2% errors in plurality form, 19% errors in punctuation, 5% errors in auxiliaries, 21% errors in unnecessary words, 5% errors in word choice, 5% errors in parallel structure, and 2% errors in redundancy. this indicated that the source of error involves the learner's inability to use and understand a foreign language system. the errors made by students when writing a thesis were caused by lack of attention, carelessness, fatigue, ideas, reading and writing practice, interference from the learner‟s first language, overgeneralization, translation from the first language, incomplete application of rules, or some other aspect of performance. on the other hand, the source of error involves the students' inability to use and understand a foreign language system. therefore, this study may put forward a few corresponding suggestions. writing is not easy and, in some ways, more complex than speaking. in this case, the teacher or lecturer must understand that writing includes practical activities and provides teacher feedback. writing receives the least amount of attention and priority from teachers and students. besides, the capability to write well is not a naturally got skill. it needs to be trained. teachers need to encourage students' motivation to write and provide supportive writing activities such as peer correction. references ananda, r., gani, s. a., & sahardin, r. 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(2015). negative transfer of mother language in english compositions by jiujiang university students. shs web of conferences, 14, 01008. https://doi.org/10.1051/shsconf/20151401008 yuliandi, v. f. (2018, november 5). singapura dan malaysia jadi 2 negara asia dengan kemampuan bahasa inggris tertinggi. retrieved from https://news.okezone.com/read/2018/11/05/65/1973580/singapura-dan-malaysiajadi-2-negara-asia-dengan-kemampuan-bahasa-inggris-tertinggi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2022. vol. 10, no.1, 127-145 easing the rules of health protocols: a critical discourse analysis of indonesian president’s speech on covid-19 handling in 2022 nihta v. f. liando * , devilito prasetyo tatipang, rinny rorimpandey, yofri karisi english education department, faculty of languages and arts universitas negeri manado, indonesia manuscript received june 24, 2022, revised august 25, 2022, accepted august 29, 2022, and published online november 7, 2022. recommended apa citation liando, n. v. f., tatipang, d. p., rorimpandey, r., & karisi, y. (2022). easing the rules of health protocols: a critical discourse analysis of indonesian president’s speech on covid-19 handling in 2022. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(1), 127-145. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.13755 abstract a president is the icon of a country that allows him to communicate with the public, through making public speeches. misunderstanding from the public regarding the president's speech which was delivered both oral and written became one of the main factors in conducting a critical discourse analysis of the speech. for this reason, the purpose of this research is to analyze the macro structure, superstructure, and microstructure contained in the text of the president's speech, as well as to reveal the elements and aspect of discourse, also the implied characteristics intent of the president who put forward a statement in relation to action, context, history, power, and ideology. the method used in this present study is qualitative approach with the principle of critical discourse analysis from van djik. furthermore, the speech delivered by president joko widodo, which was delivered online on the metrotvnews youtube channel on may 19, 2022, was used as the object of this research. by applying the techniques of documentation, observation, systematic recording, literature study and listening to the data and research objects, the results show that there are three dimensions of critical discourse analysis in speech texts, namely macro structure, superstructure, and microstructure. the characteristics of critical discourse analysis * corresponding author: nihta v. f. liando universitas negeri manado jl. kampus unima, tonsaru, kec. tondano sel., kabupaten minahasa, sulawesi utara 95618, indonesia email: nihtaliando@unima.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.13755 easing the rules of health protocols: a critical discourse analysis….. 128 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 found in news texts are action, context, history, power, and ideology. in addition, five implied intentions were also found in the video that was shown online. keywords: health protocols; president of indonesia; covid-19; critical discourse analysis 1. introduction discourse as a form of language is often used in various events such as seminars, training, socialization, or introduction to limited meetings. discourse comes from the latin, discursus (peters, 2021). in a limited way, this term refers to the rules and habits that underlie the use of language in both oral and written communication. discourse is like oral or written communication seen from the point of view of beliefs, values, and categories, which includes belief here is a world view, an organization or representation of experience (bhakti & kumala, 2019). with the unity of meaning, discourse can be seen as a whole thing, because every part of it is interconnected with each other in a coherent manner. discourse is a complete language unit, so that in the grammatical hierarchy it is the highest or largest grammatical unit (van-djik, 2005). this discourse is realized in the form of a complete essay (novels, book series, encyclopedias, paragraphs, sentences, phrases) even words that carry a complete message. discourse is the most complete unit in the highest or largest grammatical hierarchy. the basic understanding of discourse analysis is that discourse is not understood solely as an object of language study (rahardi, indrayani, & soemantri, 2020). language is of course used to analyze the text (santoso & wardani, 2021) and (liando & tatipang, 2022). language is not viewed in the traditional linguistic sense (tamrin, 2019). language in critical discourse analysis is not only in the text but also in the context of language as a tool used for certain purposes and practices, including ideological practices. discourse analysis in the field of social psychology is defined as a conversation. the discourse referred here is somewhat like the structure and form of the interview and the practice of its users. while in the political field, discourse analysis is the practice of using language, especially language politics (hidayat, 2022). because language is a central aspect of describing a subject and through language ideology is absorbed in it, it is this aspect that is studied in discourse analysis. language is socially and critically a form of action, in a dialectical relationship with social structures (liando, tatipang, & lengkoan, 2022) and (ismail, 2008). therefore, the analysis must be separated from the part that language is formed from social relations and certain social contexts. as mentioned by dezhkameha, layegh, and hadidi, (2021) critical discourse analysis is more concrete by looking at how grammatical language carries certain ideological positions and meanings. in other words, the ideological aspect is observed by looking at the choice of language and the grammatical structure used. language, nihta v. f. liando, devilito prasetyo tatipang, rinny rorimpandey, & yofri karisi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 129 both word choice and grammatical structure, is understood as a choice by someone to be expressed carrying a certain ideological meaning (lumentut & lengkoan, 2021) and (aini & widodo, 2018). the ideology exists in a general sense, showing how one group tries to placate public support and how another group tries to be marginalized using certain language and grammatical structures. critical discourse analysis always considers the context of the discourse such as setting, situation, and condition. teun van dijk sees how the social structure, domination, and power groups that exist in society and how cognition/thought and consciousness shape and influence certain texts. discourse by teun van dijk described as having three dimensions/buildings: text, social cognition, and social context. the essence of teun van dijk's analysis is combines the three dimensions of discourse into a unified analysis (orungbeja & ajilore, 2022). in this case, discourse is seen from the form of power relations, especially the form of the subject and various acts of representation. therefore, the object of research is the text of the speech of the president of the republic of indonesia, ir. joko widodo. this is because the president's position is the highest position that allows him to always communicate with the public, namely making public speeches (emzir & lustyantie, 2018). the understanding of the listeners or the public towards the speech delivered by the president allows misunderstandings to arise in interpreting the meaning it contains, both implied and expressed. in understanding a discourse, text and context are needed. context is needed to find out the relationship of the text to phenomena outside of language such as social and cultural. several previous studies that have conducted their research in this problem have different focuses, such as mukhlis, masjid, widyanimgrum, komariah and sumarlam, (2020) and syawaludin, (2019) which focused their research on three dimensions of the text (newspaper and speeches) that were interrelated with one another, which then deepened each dimension of this text, such as, macro structure refers to the overall meaning that can be observed from the theme or topic raised by a discourse (ismail, 2008). superstructure refers to the framework of a discourse, such as the prevalence of conversation or writing that starts from the introduction, continues with the main content, conclusion, and ends with the closing (syawaludin, 2019). while the micro structure refers to the local meaning of a discourse that can be explored from the semantic, syntactic, stylistic, and rhetorical aspects (agustina, 2017). in addition, other previous studies on critical discourse analysis with van djik's theory were also applied by suharya, wardarita and missriani, (2022) which in their research discusses the three-dimensional text of president jokowi and the implicit implications of the microstructure in the form of strategies to hide meaning. also, hidayati, syaifuddin, nasution and lubis, (2022) who examine the practice of power as one of the aspects contained in the social dimension of the context. this study focuses on the scope of analysis in a novel. however, in previous studies, no one has deeply analyzed the characteristics, elements and aspect of discourse analysis from van djik's, where critical discourse analysis is used to analyze a discourse against other sciences in easing the rules of health protocols: a critical discourse analysis….. 130 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 the realm of race, politics, culture, etc. with characteristics of critical discourse analysis, namely: power, action, history, context, and ideology (ramadhan & assidik, 2022). therefore, this study aims to analyze the three dimensions of the text, elements, and aspect of discourse in the speech of the indonesian president ir. jokowi and the implicit characteristics in critical discourse analysis. 2. literature review 2.1 critical discourse analysis in critical discourse analysis (cda), discourse here is not understood merely as a study of language. critical discourse analysis sees language as an important factor, namely how language is used to see power inequality in society. the discourse of van dijk's model is described as having three dimensions/buildings: text, social cognition, and social context. the essence of van dijk's analysis is to combine the three dimensions of discourse into one unified analysis (bhakti & kumala, 2019). the first dimension of van dijk's model analysis is the text dimension. at this level, what is being studied is how the structure of the text and the discourse strategies used to emphasize a particular theme are investigated. van dijk sees a text as consisting of several structures/levels, each part supporting each other. van djik divides it into three levels, namely macro structure, superstructure, and micro structure. 2.1.1. macro structure ramadhan and assidik (2022) explain that macro structure refers to the general description of a text. it can also be referred to as the main idea, summary, or main idea of a text. suharya et al. (2022) stated that from the topic we can find out the problem and the actions taken by the communicator in overcoming a problem. actions, decisions, or opinions can be observed in the macro structure of a discourse. topics will be supported by several sub-topics. each of these sub-topics supports, strengthens, and even forms the main topic. 2.1.2. super structure the superstructure explains how the parts of the text are arranged into the news; it is also a discourse structure related to the framework of a text. texts or discourses generally have a scheme or plot from the introduction to the end (yanti, putrayasa, & artika, 2019). the plot shows how the parts in the text are arranged and ordered to form a unified meaning. the meaning here is closely related to schematic, where ferlien & rumaf, (2020) said that schematic gives emphasis which part comes first, and which part can be later as a strategy to hide important information. 2.1.3. micro structure in this microstructure, there are four things that are often observed/analyzed, namely semantics, syntax, and rhetoric (mukhlis et al., 2020). microstructure is the nihta v. f. liando, devilito prasetyo tatipang, rinny rorimpandey, & yofri karisi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 131 meaning of discourse that can be observed from a small part of a text or aspect of discourse, namely places, details, meaning, sentence form, propositions, coherence, pronouns, and pictures/graphic. 2.2. characteristics of critical discourse analysis the main thing from van dijk's analysis is to combine the three dimensions (text, social cognition, and social context) of the discourse into one unified analysis. these three dimensions are an integral part and are carried out simultaneously in van dijk's critical discourse analysis. following are the important characteristics of critical discourse analysis: 2.2.1. action ramadhan and assidik (2022) said that discourse can be understood as an action that is associating discourse as a form of interaction. a person speaks, writes, uses language to interact and relate to other people. discourse in this principle is seen as something that aims to debate, influence, persuade, support, and react and so on. 2.2.2. context syawaludin (2019) explained that discourse analysis examines the context of communication: who is communicating with whom and why; the audience, what situation, through what medium, how, the different types and developments of communication and relationships of each party. 2.2.3. history history is about how to place discourse in a particular social context. this means that discourse is produced in context and cannot be understood without including the accompanying context (suharya et al., 2022). therefore, at the time of doing the analysis, it is necessary to review to understand why the discourse that has developed or developed is like that, why the language used is like that, and so on. 2.2.4. power critical discourse analysis considers the element of power. mukhlis et al. (2020) said that the concept of power in question is one of the key relationships between discourse and society. that power in relation to discourse, it is important to see what is called control. 2.2.5. ideology ideology is intended to regulate the actions and practices of individuals or members of a group. discourse for ideology is the medium through which the dominant group persuades and communicates to the public the power they have so that it is legitimate and true (orungbeja & ajilore, 2022). the ideology of the dominant group is easing the rules of health protocols: a critical discourse analysis….. 132 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 only effective if it is based on the fact that members of the community, including the dominated, regard it as truth and reasonableness. 3. method this study uses a qualitative descriptive research method. this is in line with the purpose of qualitative research, namely, to describe facts and seek meaning holistically with perspective. qualitative research methods emphasize more on meaning than generalization (arikunto, 2006). in addition, this study uses van djik's discourse analysis model. according to van dijk, discourse is described as having three dimensions: text, social cognition, and social context (van-djik, 2005). the essence of van dijk's analysis is to combine the three dimensions of discourse into one unified analysis. in the text dimension, what is examined is how the structure of the text and discourse strategies is used to emphasize a certain theme. at the level of social cognition, the process of producing news texts involves the individual cognition of journalists. while the third-dimension studies the building of discourse that develops in society about a problem. the data source in this critical discourse analysis research is in the form of the text of president jokowi's state speech delivered online in youtube on thursday 19 may 2022. the text of the speech was obtained from a video of jokowi's speech on metrotvnews youtube channel with the duration of video is 2:14 minutes, however, the transcript can be found also on cnbcindonesia.com website with 129 totals of words. through this cda, researchers analyzed transcripts obtained from videos containing speeches by the president of the republic of indonesia, ir. joko widodo to analyze textual, discourse practice and sociocultural practice. this speech was chosen as research material/data because this speech is a speech that contains good news about covid-19 handlers in indonesia which was delivered in early 2022 after so much bad news about covid-19. in addition, the inaugural presentation regarding the easing of health protocols such as being free of masks in open spaces, free to travel for those who have had full doses of vaccines is also included in this video which is good news for indonesian citizens after a long slump due to covid-19. in addition, the data collection technique used in this study is an observation technique, namely methods or ways of systematically analyzing and recording records, moreover, listening techniques are also carried out in this study aimed at obtaining data from joko widodo's video speech on youtube. the recordings that have been obtained are then transcribed into written form and analyzed. moreover, in this research, documentation techniques and literature studies are also used by collecting, reading, and studying from various forms of written data such as journals, books, or magazines found in various sources such as libraries, or the internet that can be used to analyze this in studies. researchers collect data that is related to the discourse to be analyzed. nihta v. f. liando, devilito prasetyo tatipang, rinny rorimpandey, & yofri karisi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 133 4. findings and discussion this study used a qualitative approach and the method of critical discourse analysis of the teun a. van djik model (van-djik, 2005). the findings of the analysis data were obtained from a video transcript of the state speech of the indonesian president jokowi which was broadcast online on youtube on thursday 19 may 2022, and to make it easier for researchers to analyze the data, a transcription was carried out so that the data was valid and can be accounted for. van djik's model of discourse analysis analyzes based on three elements or dimensions, namely the text dimension, the social context dimension, and social cognition. the results of the study are described as follows: 4.1. van dijk's discourse structure in the video transcript of president jokowi's speech "jokowi announces mask-free indonesia in open spaces." 4.1.1. macro structure in the text of the speech "jokowi announces mask-free indonesia in open space” the macro structure of discourse consists of thematic elements or topics. the main core of the entire content of the discourse text is also called the topic or theme (pratiwi, nofrahadi, pendri, komalasari, & sumarlam, 2020). topic is the first thing that is determined when writing. starting from the initial topic, it is then developed into writing. the main problem in the speech text that has been described is also called the theme. theme implies the message or purpose to be conveyed (sahmeni & afifah, 2019). this theme will determine the direction of writing or the purpose of an article. the actual problem to be described is determined by what theme will be developed. the main points that the president of the republic of indonesia wants to convey in the contents of his message are revealed in the topic. the topic also shows the dominant, central, and most important concept of the content of a speech text; therefore it is often also called a theme or topic. the general description of a discourse text can be drawn from thematic elements. the theme or topic is referred to as the main idea, summary, or main point of a text. based on the results of the analysis, the theme of the news was "relaxing health protocol regulations during covid-19". the online news contains a subtopic of information about controlling covid-19 which is getting more under control and improving, making the government relax health protocol regulations such as the use of face masks when in open conditions or in the open. pemerintah memustuskan untuk melonggarkan kebijakan pemakaian masker, jika masyarakat sedang berkativitas di luar ruangan atau di area terbuka yang tidak padat orang maka diperbolehkan untuk tidak memakai masker. (jk, 0:43) easing the rules of health protocols: a critical discourse analysis….. 134 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 however, this relaxation of not wearing masks in the open is not recommended for people who fall into the vulnerable category, in this case the elderly and people who have comorbid diseases. moreover, this easing of not wearing masks does not apply to people who experience symptoms of colds and coughs. bagi masyarakat yang masuk dalam kategori rentan dalam hal ini masyarakat lanjut usia dan masyarakat yang memiliki penyakit komorbid maka saya tetap menyarankan untuk tetap memakai masker. (jk, 1:20) in addition, in the closing paragraph, there is a discourse that illustrates that the covid-19 situation in indonesia is increasingly under control, namely the discourse on easing the swab, pcr and antigen tests for domestic and foreign travelers who have been vaccinated with complete doses. bagi pelaku perjalanan dalam negeri dan luar negeri yang sudah mendapatkan dosis vaksinasi lengkap, maka sudah tidak perlu lagi untuk melakukan tes swab, pcr maupun antigen. (jk, 1:50) in fact, when the spread of covid-19 cases soared, all these health protocols were an effort or alternative implemented by the government in breaking the chain of covid-19 spread, and this application had a very good impact and could control the spread of the covid-19 virus. 4.1.2. the superstructure in the text of the speech "jokowi announces mask-free indonesia in open spaces” the superstructure (schematic) is the researcher's strategy to support the general meaning by providing a number of supporting reasons that are arranged (musyafa’ah, 2017). the superstructure as expressed by (van-djik, 2005) is a conventional scheme that presents the overall form of the macro-structured content of discourse. the entire contents of the macro structure include the opening, the core, and the closing. what makes a text is said to be perfect in its systematic arrangement. the structure of the discourse must include a superstructure in which there is a schematic with three important elements included in it, namely the opening in the text, the core of the text and the closing of the text. based on the analysis of the superstructure on jokowi's video transcript which was uploaded online via the metrotvnews youtube channel, the researchers found that the news text/transcript was in line with van dijk who used the appropriate sequence in the preparation of the news text, stated by ramadhan and assidik, (2022) superstructure is the structure of discourse relating to the framework of a text, how the parts of the text are arranged into full news which consisted of an opening, a core and a closing. nihta v. f. liando, devilito prasetyo tatipang, rinny rorimpandey, & yofri karisi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 135 assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh, bapak ibu, saudara sekalian dengan memperhatikan posisi saat ini di mana penanganan pandemi covid-19 di indonesia yang semakin terkendali, maka perlu saya menyampaikan beberapa hal. (opening) pertama, pemerintah memutuskan untuk melonggarkan kebijakan pemakaian masker. jika masyarakat sedang beraktivitas di luar ruangan atau di area terbuka yang tidak padat orang maka diperbolehkan untuk tidak menggunakan masker. namun untuk kegiatan di ruangan tertutup dan transportasi publik, tetap harus menggunakan masker. (core) bagi masyarakat yang masuk kategori rentan, lansia atau memiiki komorbid saya tetap sarankan untuk menggunakan masker saat beraktivitas. kemudian juga bagi masyarakat yang mengalami gejala batuk dan pilek maka tetap harus menggunakan masker ketika melakukan aktivitas. (core) kedua, bagi pelaku perjalanan dalam negeri dan luar negeri yang sudah mendapatkan dosis vaksinasi lengkap maka sudah tidak perlu lagi melakukan tes swab pcr maupun antigen. (core) demikian yang bisa saya sampaikan dalam kesempatan yang baik ini, wassalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. (closing) (jk, 0:00-2:14) for more details, it is illustrated in the diagram below: figure 1. superstructure in the text of jokowi’s speech 4.1.3. microstructure in the text of the speech "jokowi announces mask-free indonesia in open spaces” the third structure, namely the microstructure, consists of semantics, syntax, stylistics, and rhetoric. humaira (2018) stated that semantics is a system in a language or language in general. the syntax of a discourse relates to how phrases and or sentences are arranged to be presented. payuyasa (2017) stated that the stylistic aspect of a discourse relates to the choice of words and styles used by discourse actors. the rhetorical aspect of a discourse refers to the tactics and methods used by discourse actors to emphasize the elements they want to display. rhetorical elements include easing the rules of health protocols: a critical discourse analysis….. 136 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 graphic appearances, written forms, metaphors, and expressions used. the findings of the microstructure can be seen in the following table. no elements of discourse aspect of discourse data (news quote) 1 semantic a. background (places) [1] “pemerintah memustuskan untuk melonggarkan kebijakan pemakaian masker, jika masyarakat sedang berkativitas di luar ruangan atau di area terbuka yang tidak padat orang maka diperbolehkan untuk tidak memakai masker” (jk, 0:43) (english: "the government has decided to relax the policy on wearing masks, if people are active outside the room or in open areas that are not crowded with people, they are allowed not to wear masks”) [2] “namun untuk kegiatan di ruangan tertutup dan transportasi public tetap harus menggunakan masker”. (jk, 1:06) (english: however, for activities in closed rooms and public transportation, you must still wear a mask.” based on the quote above, there are places that meet and do not meet the government's policy of easing the use of masks, including in open places and open areas that are not crowded with people. apart from that, there are also other places such as closed places and nihta v. f. liando, devilito prasetyo tatipang, rinny rorimpandey, & yofri karisi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 137 public transportation that are not included in the policy category for easing the use of masks. b. details [1] “bagi masyarakat yang masuk dalam kategori rentan dalam hal ini masyarakat lanjut usia dan masyarakat yang memiliki penyakit komorbid maka saya tetap menyarankan untuk tetap memakai masker”. (jk, 1:18) [2] “demikian juga bagi masyarakat yang mengalami gejala pilek dan batuk maka tetap harus menggunakan masker ketika melakukan aktivitas”. (jk, 1:33) based on the sentence above, there are details that relate to the control of information being distributed, namely easing the use of masks which does not apply to the category of people who are elderly, have comorbid diseases, have symptoms of colds and coughs. c. meaning [1] “yang kedua bagi pelaku perjalanan dalam negeri dan luar negeri yang sudah mendapatkan dosis vaksinasi lengkap, maka sudah tidak perlu lagi untuk melakukan tes swab, pcr maupun antigen”. (jk, 1:46) based on the excerpt from the transcript of the video data above, it can be concluded that there is an intention or rationality, easing the rules of health protocols: a critical discourse analysis….. 138 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 meaning the truth that serves to lay the foundations of desires, attitudes, and beliefs that have been carried out (emzir & lustyantie, 2018). the purpose is as a form of effort to loosen the rules of health protocols for people who comply with the rules of vaccination with complete doses. in fact, the rules for swab, pcr and antigen tests are a manifestation of the government's efforts to break the chain of the spread of covid-19, which initially increased due to domestic and foreign travelers. d. presupposition [1] “bapak ibu dan saudara-saudara sekalian, dengan memperhatikan kondisi saat ini, dimana penanganan pandemic covid-19 di indonesia yang semain terkendali”. (jk, 0:16) based on the excerpt from the video transcript above, it can be concluded that the sentence above is a presupposition. that the current situation of the indonesian people has begun to improve because the covid-19 pandemic has been increasingly controlled even though it is still in a pandemic condition. based on the video transcript, a presupposition in a sentence is an attempt to support an opinion by providing a guarantee that is believed to be true. nihta v. f. liando, devilito prasetyo tatipang, rinny rorimpandey, & yofri karisi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 139 2 syntax a. sentence form [1] “bapak ibu dan saudara-saudara sekalian, dengan memperhatikan kondisi saat ini, dimana penanganan pandemic covid-19 di indonesia yang semain terkendali, maka perlu saya menyampaikan beberapa hal”. (jk, 0:16) based on the sentence above is an active sentence. that is in the word “observe” or “memperhatikan”. where the word pay attention is included in the category of verbs. b. coherence [1] “dengan memperhatikan kondisi saat ini, dimana penanganan pandemic covid-19 di indonesia yang semakin terkendali, maka perlu saya menyampaikan beberapa hal. yang pertama, pemerintah memutuskan untuk melonggarkan kebijakan pemakaian masker dan yang kedua bagi pelaku perjalanan dalam negeri dan luar negeri yang sudah mendapatkan dosis vaksinasi lengkap, maka sudah tidak perlu lagi untuk melakukan tes swab, pcr maupun antigen”. (jk, 0:20-2:03) this sentence explains the coherence of cause and effect. namely the easing of the policy on the use of masks caused by the increasingly controlled control of the covid-19 pandemic. in addition, policies for easing the rules of health protocols: a critical discourse analysis….. 140 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 swab, pcr and antigen tests are also relaxed for domestic and foreign travelers who have been vaccinated with complete doses. c. pronouns [1] “masyarakat lanjut usia dan masyarakat yang memiliki penyakit komorbid maka saya tetap menyarankan untuk tetap memakai masker”. (jk, 1:18) [2] “demikian yang bisa saya sampaikan dalam kesempatan yang baik ini”. (jk, 2:06) the pronoun "i" or “saya” refers to the president of indonesia, namely jokowi as the person who delivers the news. 3 rhetorical a. graphic [1] lanjut usia dan masyarakat yang memiliki penyakit komorbid maka saya tetap menyarankan untuk tetap memakai masker. (jk, 1:22) [2] demikian juga bagi masyarakat yang mengalami gejala pilek dan batuk maka tetap harus menggunakan masker. (jk, 1:33) the rhetorical aspect found in some of the data in the news is the expression aspect. where (wiharja, 2019) said that the expression is a part to check what is emphasized or highlighted by someone that can be observed through the text. the expression aspect above is the president's emphasis on the category of people who are nihta v. f. liando, devilito prasetyo tatipang, rinny rorimpandey, & yofri karisi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 141 included in the easing of the mask wearing policy. figure 2. microstructure in the text of jokowi’s speech 4.2. van dijk's discourse structure in the transcript of the speech video "jokowi announces mask-free indonesia in open spaces” 4.2.1. action there is an element of action in the news text "jokowi announces mask-free indonesia in open space". the actions that occur are not only talking, but in the form of influencing the community, staying alert, and maintaining health despite the easing of the mask wearing policy by the government which applies only to open spaces and not crowded with people. this can be seen from how the president makes exceptions about places that are allowed and not allowed to open masks. this action is evidenced in the following sentence: pemerintah memustuskan untuk melonggarkan kebijakan pemakaian masker, jika masyarakat sedang berkativitas di luar ruangan atau di area terbuka yang tidak padat orang maka diperbolehkan untuk tidak memakai masker, diikuti dengan peryataan untuk mempengaruhi masyarakat untuk tetap patuh dengan aturan protocol kesehatan ditempat tertentu “namun untuk kegiatan di ruangan tertutup dan transportasi public tetap harus menggunakan masker. the quote from the sentence shows that there is an element of action in the news which is a characteristic of van dijk's critical discourse analysis. where (ferlien & rumaf, 2020) states that discourse is understood as an action (action) and this is in line with the statement above in the news text "jokowi announces mask-free indonesia in open space". the quotations above show that in the text, the actions that occur are not only discourse but there is an action that will be applied and carried out in the form of inviting, forbidding, implementing, and obeying. 4.2.2. context the context that encourages the emergence of discourse in the news text is because the handling of covid-19 cases in indonesia is increasingly under control. in addition, many people have carried out their usual activities, visiting tourist attractions, vacation spots, hangouts, visiting from one province to another, and traveling abroad. the element of context is proven in the following sentence: dengan memperhatikan kondisi saat ini, dimana penanganan pandemic covid-19 di indonesia yang semain terkendali”. diikuti dengan “bagi pelaku perjalanan dalam negeri dan luar negeri. easing the rules of health protocols: a critical discourse analysis….. 142 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 english: by considering the current conditions, where the handling of the covid-19 pandemic in indonesia is increasingly under control. followed by “for domestic and international travelers”. the results of the research above are in line with van dijk's theory which states that a critical discourse analysis (cda) considers the context of the discourse, such as setting, situation, events and conditions (van-djik, 2005). discourse in this case is produced, understood, and analyzed in a certain context. 4.2.3. history the historical characteristics start from the early emergence of covid-19 in indonesia, which has claimed more than thousands of victims, both residents and immigrants. covid-19 cases are widely reported in various sources where there are many arguments and opinions in it, both pro and contra opinions (ramadhan & assidik, 2022). therefore, based on the condition and situation of the covid-19 case in indonesia, which is quite fast and increasing, ppkm level measures are applied during the pandemic and health regulations that must be obeyed by all citizens, especially the implementation of vaccinations in each region. the results showed that the news was in line with van dijk who stated that understanding of the discourse of the text was obtained if it could provide the historical context in which the text was made. 4.2.4. power the characteristics of power are needed to encourage and invite the public to comply with health protocols during the holiday. the power exercised by jokowi as president of indonesia is to invite and oblige every indonesian citizen to comply with every government recommendation regarding health protocols that are made (syawaludin, 2019). this recommendation was made with the aim of being in the interest of public health and welfare in carrying out every activity even though it is still in the pandemic period. the results of the research above are in line with van dijk's theory which states that a critical discourse analysis must consider the element of power in its analysis. the concept of power referred to here is one of the key relationships between discourse and society; writer, listener, or reader who is part of a certain social group. 4.2.5. ideology the ideology that wants to be displayed from the news text is how the news text can lead readers' opinions to agree with the contents of the entire news text (yanti et al., 2019). the ideology that wants to be shown from the video shown via his youtube channel metrotvnews entitled "jokowi announces mask-free indonesia in open spaces" is because the condition of the state of indonesia is getting better in the face of the covid-19 virus infection, which is then emphasized by the government's efforts that are producing results with increasing numbers of people-controlled pandemic. the nihta v. f. liando, devilito prasetyo tatipang, rinny rorimpandey, & yofri karisi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 143 results of the research above are in line with van dijk's theory which states that text and critical discourse analysis cannot be separated from ideology and has the ability to lead the reader towards an ideology. 5. conclusion based on the analysis carried out by the researchers, it can be concluded that the news video entitled "jokowi announces mask-free indonesia in open space" which is shown on his youtube channel metrotvnews edition of 19 may 2022 is in line with the critical discourse analysis of teun a van dijk's approach. in the analyzed news text, the researcher found the results of the three-dimensional analysis of critical discourse analysis according to van dijk, namely macro structure, superstructure, and micro structure. the characteristics of critical discourse analysis found in news texts are action, context, history, power, and ideology, also the elements and aspects of discourse. in addition, through the results of this study, it can also be found that there is an implied intention from the speaker in the video, namely the indonesian president jokowi, the implied intention in this video is the president's effort to invite the public to continue to comply with the health protocol rules for those who fall into the category of easing either for easing the use of masks and easing for swab, pcr and antigen tests, namely (1) elderly (2) has comorbid disease (3) has cold symptoms (4) has cough symptoms and (5) has not been vaccinated with a complete dose. based on the findings, it has been found that there are micro structure, superstructure and macro structure, elements and aspects of discourse, as well as the characteristics of discourse in this study. however, in this study, not all dimensions of discourse analysis were examined, such as ramadhan & assidik, (2022) said that in van djik's critical discourse analysis model there are three dimensions, namely the text dimension, the social context dimension 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(2019). analisis wacana kritis teun a. van dijk pada teks pidato klaim kemenangan pilpres 2019. jurnal imiah pendidikan dan pembelajaran, 3(2), 356–362. https://doi.org/10.23887/jipp.v3i3.21846 englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2021. vol. 9, no. 1, 129-144 learner’s perception of task difficulties in technology-mediated task-based language teaching ranta butarbutar universitas negeri makassar, sulawesi selatan, indonesia ranta@unmus.ac.id manuscript received j u n e 2 8 , 2021, revised july 25, 2021, first published november 1, 2021, and available online november 7, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i1.10079 recommended apa citation butarbutar, r. (2021). learner’s perception of task difficulties in technology-mediated task-based language teaching. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(1), 129-144. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i1.10079 abstract the perception of learners can be used for evaluating task-based language teaching development. however, during the technology-mediated task-based language teaching (tblt), learners faced a few difficulties. thus, this study aimed to investigate learners’ perceptions of task difficulties in technology-mediated (tblt). to collect data, the study used a quantitative design with an open-ended questionnaire, and, involved two hundred learners as participants who came from different departments at the university. the results strongly confirmed that incorporating technology into tblt leads learners to face some difficulties in (1) understanding the meaning of the task, (2) practical instruction in doing tasks, (3) applying new technology to explore profound tasks further, (4) lack of direct lecturer feedback on student tasks, (5) performance assessment, (6) addressing learners’ needs, (7) goal orientation, (8) digital literacy, building knowledge, intellectual, and behavior, and (9) school and curriculum rules. furthermore, the study preferred some strategies to solve learners' difficulties in tblt, such as managing teaching materials to become easier and more interesting, referring technology integration to learners’ ability, implementing bring your own device (byod), improving classroom assessment, teachers broadening technology-mediated, task-based learning internships, and facilitating learners with compatible technology tools and stable internet connection. keywords: technology-mediated; task difficulties; tblt learner’s perception of task difficulties in technology-mediated task-based language teaching 130 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 1. introduction in the last five years, using technology in teaching-learning activity has been exceptionally pivotal in assessing english language learners’ achievement. learners’ achievement can easily be measured by incorporating technology into the task augmented syllabus (sahin & yilmaz, 2020). myriad investigators wielded technologymediated tasks in teaching english as a foreign language (efl) context (nauman, islam, & abir, 2020). on the other hand, learners’ perceptions can be developed by using technology and assessing english language learners’ achievements. however, in implementing technology during tblt, learners faced a few difficulties. with this in mind, the current study presents a better-preferred strategy to solve learners’ difficulties in tblt. chong and reinders (2020) conducted a study that had the potential to scrutinize cases, find symptoms and causes, and overhaul possible assistance to be provided to learners who find difficulties during mediated-technology tblt. therefore, this study is driven by a motivation to identify problems or weaknesses and find out recommended solutions. furthermore, the study’s central focus is to encourage learner motivation, literacy awareness, willingness, and enjoyment of task-based learning. in the quantitative case, the study’s validity and reliability were tested using the sharpen-analysing results of an open-ended questionnaire. the study strongly confirmed that incorporating technology into tblt will lead learners to face some difficulties in (1) understanding the meaning of the task, (2) practical instruction in doing tasks, (3) applying new technology to explore profound tasks in greater depth, (4) lack of direct lecturer feedback on student task, (5) performance assessment, (6) addressing learners’ needs (requires liaising), (7) goal orientation, (8) digital literacy, build knowledge, intellectual, behaviour, (9) school and curriculum rules (gonzález-lloret, 2017; khezrlou, 2021; schrader & kalyuga, 2020). in comparison, the study implied that the government or curriculum decision maker synchronizes learners’ needs analysis with technology; teachers examine cases, symptoms, and causes; and overhaul assistance learners’ difficulties. technology is one of the most effective and best solutions in tblt (gonzález-lloret, 2017; smith & gonzález-lloret, 2020). for this reason, the study's recommendation that online and blended learning be a must for successful tblt is supported by the ministry of education's regulations. referring to the aforementioned background, this study proposed two research questions: 1. what are learners’ perceptions of task difficulties in implementing technologymediated tblt? 2. what are the preferred strategies to solve learners’ difficulties in technologymediated tblt? ranta butarbutar englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 131 2. literature review 2.1. task-based language teaching (tblt) according to chong (2018) and chong and reinders (2020), tblt or taskbased instruction (tbi) is a development approach of communicative language teaching (clt) since it emphasizes the use of native language to do the potential task by target language (tl). in this case, authentic assessment requires real task learners. indeed, this model puts forward fluency compared with accuracy. other foregone scholars confirmed that tblt fine weather is used to enhance learners’ tl communication (kessler, 2018; piątkowska, 2015; ziegler & phung, 2019; zheng & warschauer, 2017) some scholars like chou (2017) and moore (2018) have investigated whether task-based language teaching is considered a good way to help learners increase their listening ability. their investigation also emphasized that there was a comparison between the experimental and control groups in listening strategy, namely that metacognitive awareness states that unit analysis is effective for integrating theory, practice, and contextualization in tblt. comparatively, ellis (2018) classified tblt into some characteristics such as (1) natural use of language, (2) type of task, (3) linguistic focus, (4) focus on form, (5) student-centred, and (6) traditional rebuttal approach (confirming as a new approach). another perspective on task-based learning confirmed that social needs, interactive, and affective elements can be used in tblt. implementing tblt can increase learners’ motivation as highlighted by chua and lin (2020). in this case, for developing productive skills and speaking, tblt was more effective if integrated into online interaction. it is critical to remember that in tblt, teachers' beliefs, classroom practices, and contextual factors must all be taken into account. they also stated that technology-mediated in tblt can be compared as an alternative approach to the traditional method. another key point is that tblt draws attention from some researchers to implement it into english for specific purposes (esp), (alibakhshi & labbafi, 2021; asmali, 2018; bayram & canaran, 2020; malicka, gilabert-guerrero, & norris, 2019; rahmati & izadpanah, 2021; xie, 2021). all the scholars mentioned above agreed that task-based language teaching could help learners gain receptive and productive skills. all in all, tblt is a deliberate approach to building communication and reflecting leaner’ analysis. 2.2. technology-mediated task-based language implementing the tblt approach in the 21st century is considered less relevant and less attractive to students, along with the development of super-sophisticated technology. besides, students in the current millennial era have been very familiar with gadgets, so that they are more motivated if tblt is incorporated with technology. gonzález-lloret, (2017) emphasized that technology should be integrated into the syllabus and curriculum needs analysis. baralt and mercillo-gomez (2017) also stated that community in language teaching can be built and socialized through online technology-mediated tblt. indeed, incorporating technology into tblt can learner’s perception of task difficulties in technology-mediated task-based language teaching 132 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 potentially provide opportunities for developing learners’ soft skills and peer training (iveson, 2019). he added that technology in tblt would be ideal for combining online and blended language learning. furthermore, iveson (2019) summed up that the incorporation of technology in tblt helps learners enhance their digital literacy. besides, learners have been shown to be highly motivated when tblt is combined with mobile technology as butarbutar, uspayanti, bawawa, and leba (2020) had been investigated. shu (2020) on the other hand, believed that combining computer multimedia technology with language teaching can improve learners’ classroom translating ability and raise learners’ awareness of language. similarly, gonzález-lloret, (2017) then smith and gonzález-lloret (2020) investigated technology-mediated in tblt with specific technology. they also investigated learner data using a mobile application and social media, so that investigation contributed to language learning promotion. another evidence that promotes the merits of technology-mediated came from chong (2018), who confirmed that web-based language learning can facilitate learners' enhancement of interaction and collaboration in developing their speaking. incorporating technology into task-based language teaching contributed to a better understanding of the student while doing tasks, both blended and online learning. an empirical study was done by nauman et al., (2020) who conducted a treatment to see students’ writing achievement. they also facilitated technology-mediated communication into three parts: 1) online chatting (private and group chat), 2) writing editing (social media and wikis), and 3) content writing (website and blogging). consequently, there was a significant comparison between the control class (using the conventional method) and the experimental class (using technology-mediated tblt) in writing achievement regarding the ielts-9 band scale. in contrast, carvalho, delgado, and casado (2020) highlighted research findings in portuguese as a non-native language that does not involve technology in tblt as an appropriate teaching strategy. they added that to implement better and effective teaching, language teachers do not use technology. on the contrary, gunuç and babacan (2018), who discovered that incorporating software and hardware technologies into tblt improves learning. technology in tblt has proved to facilitate learners’ materials. hereafter, learners can access ubiquitous low-cost materials and repeated course materials at a different timetable. 2.3. the merits of technology-mediated tblt it is clearly proven that integrating technology into tblt has some merits in terms of helping teachers to assess learners’ achievement. it has been clearly demonstrated that incorporating technology into tblt has some benefits, such as assisting teachers in assessing learners' achievement context (laurillard, kenned, charlton, wild, & dimakopoulos 2018; nauman et al., 2020; sawang, 2017; shen, ho, ly, & kuo, 2019; yeou, 2016). aside from that, the benefits include improving ranta butarbutar englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 133 learners' digital literacy, knowledge, intellectual capacity, and behavior (khezrlou, 2021; gonzález-lloret, 2017; schrader & kalyuga, 2020), as well as providing opportunities for learners to develop soft skills and peer training. iveson (2019) also assisted learners to improve interaction and collaboration while developing their speaking skills through web-based learning. similarly, cong-lem (2018) stated that making materials more accessible so that students can use them. 3. method 3.1. research design this study used a quantitative research design. in investigating the real-world learners’ difficulties in implementing technology-mediated tblt, the study involved two hundred learners as participants who came from different departments at the university. purposive sampling was used to select the students from the first academic year of college who took an english course. table 1 demography of participants. 3.2. technique of collecting data this study used an open-ended questionnaire as a research instrument. the instrument consisted of eight items adopted from hadi (2013). for this reason, participants could write all their perceptions in the blank space. it aimed to help the researcher gather the information needed deeply. however, before being distributed to items number of participants (n=200) percentage *gender female 120 60 male 80 40 *age 17 – 21 190 95 22 – 26 5 2.5 over 27 5 2.5 *department english education 40 20 english literature 15 7.5 others 145 72.5 *frequency using technologymediated in tblt always 0 0 sometimes 120 60 never 80 40 *status fulltime workers & learners 30 15 freelance workers & learners 18 9 pure learners 152 76 learner’s perception of task difficulties in technology-mediated task-based language teaching 134 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 all participants, it was examined through a validity test (r-count = 0.05). afterward, all valid questionnaire items were piloted for twenty participants to examine their validity, and then the valid items were distributed to all participants. 3.3. technique of data analysis all valid questionnaire items were tabulated using 5-point likert scales: 1 "strongly disagree," 2 "disagree," 3 "average," 4 "agree," and 5 "strongly agree" in the case of statistical data, the spss application 23 version was used. pearson product moment correlation was conducted for a validity test with the following decisions: (1) if the value of r count > r table, then the questionnaire item is valid. (2) if the value of r count < r table, then the questionnaire item is invalid. whereas, the reliability test is measured by cronbach alpha. if cronbach alpha > 0.6, then the questionnaire items used are reliable. for massive measurement, reliability statistics are categorized into five qualifications by guilford (1956, p.145 as cited in amaliyah & riyan, 2020) is shown in table 2. table 2 coefficient correlation guilford. no coefficient qualification 1 0.91 – 1.00 very high 2 0.71 – 0.90 high 3 0.41 – 0.70 moderate 4 0.21 – 0.40 low 5 negative – 0.20 very low 4. findings and discussion the questionnaire result for research question 1 shows that r counts as 0.790 > r table as 0.0138. therefore, the correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). the statistical learners’ perception is obviously formulated in table 3. table 3 descriptive statistics summary (n=200). item no mean std. deviation 1 2.79 1.084 2 3.08 .929 3 3.24 .730 4 2.46 .912 5 2.27 .912 6 2.08 .893 7 2.79 1.084 8 3.09 1.028 ranta butarbutar englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 135 in comparison to the reliability test, the measurement was carried out by paying attention to a cronbach alpha > 0.6, indicating that the questionnaire items used were reliable. it is clearly formulated in table 4. table 4 reliability statistics. cronbach’s alpha n of items .0790 8 the learners' perception is classified as high because cronbach alpha (α = .0790) > reliability coefficient 0.6. regarding rq 1, almost all participants agreed that they faced difficulties with technology-mediated in tblt. they argued that the difficulties are categorized as high-level. furthermore, empirical open-ended questionnaires supported their claims, such as (1) understanding the meaning of the task, (2) practicality of instruction in doing tasks, (3) applying new technology to explore profound tasks further, (4) lack of direct lecturer feedback on student task, (5) performance assessment, and (6) addressing learner’s needs (requires linguistics & nonlinguistics element). the study investigated learners’ perceptions of difficulties in implementing technology-mediated task-based language learning (tblt). the results showed learners agreed that they suffered from practical instruction in doing tasks. when the lecturer gave assignment-based lectures, it was mediated by technology, such as creative writing courses. lecturers provided instructions on doing assignments and the limitations of their submission, but some found difficulty in interpreting the instructions given. the study is the evident from the project partly collected outside of the course’s competency standards’ expectations or achievement. iveson (2019) argued that incorporating technology into tblt can potentially provide opportunities for developing learners’ soft skills and peer training. however, he emphasized that it would be more useful to use the blended learning model. furthermore, he found that blended learning was closely linked to outcomes and students’ profiles (classroom attendance, background, and age). regarding learners’ needs (linguistics and non-linguistic element), smith and gonzález-lloret (2020) implemented technology-mediated in tblt with unique technology into particular tasks by exploring learner data using a mobile application and social media. thus, their investigation contributed to language learning promotion. besides, their study supported learners’ non-linguistic speaking by using interactive internet video. statistically, this study noted that learners faced problems in understanding the goal orientation of course lessons. learners should know goal orientation through cognitive ability, acquire new skills, mastery conditions, and learner’s competency. besides, external and internal learners’ motivation would encourage whether they learner’s perception of task difficulties in technology-mediated task-based language teaching 136 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 comprehend course goal orientation in the starting classroom activities (chua & lin, 2020). because goal orientation is linked to learning outcomes and performance evaluation, the study also investigated one factor why learners suffered from technologymediated tblt while applying new technology to explore profound tasks in more detail. it was found that the learners’ demography profile describes a lack of frequent use of technology, and learners’ full-time workers as full-time learners. similarly, carvalho et al. (2020) argued that an appropriate teaching strategy in portuguese as a non-native language did not involve technology in tblt. on the contrary, the high level of frequency involving technology in the learning process is believed to reduce student difficulties in applying new technology (chong, 2018; gunuç & babacan, 2018; smith & gonzález-lloret, 2020). along with the second research question (rq 2), the study offered six preferred strategies to solve learners’ difficulties in technology-mediated tblt. technology has been widely integrated into foreign language teaching contexts over the last few decades. a substantial amount of research has been carried out to investigate and demonstrate the effectiveness of technology integration on student learning in improving language skills such as grammar and vocabulary, as well as four language skills increasing cultural sense belonging, motivation development and auto-learning, and establishing a student-centred environment as investigated by kurt (2021). those strategies are: 4.1. managing teaching materials becomes easier and more interesting the use of information technology in learning, among others, is characterized by the interaction between teachers and students via internet technology, the presence of pre-programmed teaching materials, the teacher acting as a facilitator, and the flexibility in the learning process both in terms of time and place. to understand and create the interesting course material, two perceptions are required: students’ perception and the teachers’ perception. the students’ perception shows that if learning materials are integrated with technology, the teachers’ perception clarifies that it becomes easier when using traditional methods or face-to-face in the classroom. for both those perceptions, blended learning is the best strategy for learners in the 21st century (li & renandya, 2012). in terms of tblt integrated technology, teachers can negotiate and integrate socio-cultural environments into course syllabuses. it has become a beneficial method of providing interesting material for students. for this reason, ma (2017) reinforced that learning materials are easier and more interesting by integrating technology-mediated and combining local content and prior knowledge. he also added that teaching language was more interesting for learners while the teacher allows learners to use bilinguals in the classroom activities. in contrast, butarbutar, manuhutu, and palangngan (2019) promoted a puzzle-based local culture as a beneficial and useful medium used to attract ranta butarbutar englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 137 students interested in learning english, young learners in particular. however, their investigation did not integrate puzzle-based local culture with technology. overall, various approaches begin from local, traditional, contemporary to global, are considerably used to attract learners interested in learning, and the most crucial thing is the teacher’s creativity. 4.2. integrating technology referring to learners’ ability teachers must pay attention to the level, the interest, and context in order to create efficient and effective learning in accordance with what teachers and schools expect. recognizing each learner’s level of ability is one of the competencies required of a teacher as an educator. thus, the teacher can plan, implement, and assess student learning outcomes based on the technology applied. it is called technology pedagogical knowledge content (tpck) (nayar, & akmar, 2020). the concept of the tpack learning approach involves seven knowledge domains. first, the domain of material knowledge is content knowledge (ck) (kurt, 2021). this domain is the mastery that teachers must have regarding the field of study or learning material being taught. an english teacher must understand the learning materials in english. second, the domain of pedagogical knowledge (pk) (kurt, 2021). it is the basic knowledge of the teacher regarding the learning process and strategy. in simple terms, learning strategies can be interpreted as teachers’ efforts to implement and manage various learning methods to achieve the expected goals. thirdly, kurt (2021) added the domain of technological knowledge (tk). this domain is related to teachers’ experience of using digital technology, both hardware and software. technological knowledge is not just a matter of being able to operate a computer. knowledge of the latest software or applications is also essential, such as web meeting applications and video editor software. fourth, the domain of pedagogical content knowledge (pck). pck is a combination of knowledge about studying or learning materials with learning processes and strategies. certain learning materials will be delivered well if the teacher applies specific learning strategies. in this case, one learning strategy is not necessarily suitable for all learning materials. fifth, the domain of technological content knowledge (tck). this domain is related to teachers’ knowledge of digital technology and understanding of subject areas or learning materials (cho, hwang, & jang, 2021; jansen et al., 2021; özgür, 2020). the speaking material in learning english will attract students’ interest more if displayed through videos and accompanied by voices from native speakers. it will also motivate students, even more, when they are allowed to have an interactive dialogue with native speakers. these activities will occur if the teacher can integrate technology into language learning based on each student's level and interests. therefore, professional teachers should facilitate it. learner’s perception of task difficulties in technology-mediated task-based language teaching 138 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 sixth, the domain of knowledge about technology and pedagogy (technological pedagogical knowledge (tpk). this domain is related to knowledge of digital technology and understanding of learning processes and strategies. for the online learning evaluation process, for example, the teacher cannot carry out the assessment directly. using google forms will help teachers provide online reviews to students. seventh, the domain of knowledge about technology, pedagogy, and material (technological, pedagogical, content knowledge (tpck). this domain is expected to happen, where teachers have comprehensive knowledge of digital technology, knowledge of learning processes and strategies, and understanding of subject areas or learning materials. these knowledge packages intersect with each other and produce slices into new knowledge packages that teachers need to develop in learning in the 21st century. the right tpack combination will help teachers teach certain materials well (mishrah & kohler, 2006). 4.3. implementing bring your own device (byod) the use of technology in language teaching is closely related to the possession of devices. the success of technology-mediated learning depends on its completeness. it can be accessed everywhere and anytime. some researchers have investigated the effect of byod on both companies and academics (barlette, jaouen, & baillette, 2021; disterer & kleiner, 2013). their investigation stated the term or slogan byod gives a better contribution to their institution due to reduced operational costs. similarly, schools and colleges are more economical in providing network internet connections while learners and employees use their own personal devices such as laptops, mobile speakers, speakers, etc. for example, an english lecturer will be able to deliver the materials more effectively if he/she brings her own apparatus. byod affects personal characteristics, performance, self-confidence, flexibility, and lifestyle. furthermore, learners have more extensive opportunities to apply self-learning referring to their own learning style in various locations. furthermore, byod allows students to encourage their own potential, creativity, and encouragement by using their own devices. some students feel more comfortable avoiding pressure to do the task in language learning. learners frequently use their own technology devices while attempting to complete learning activities, so the term "byod" refers to a supported technology-mediated task (tblt). 4.4. improving classroom assessment for a long time, assessment of language teaching has focused on learners’ achievement. while integrating into technology, it becomes a mismatch. classroom management, social factors, learners’ language ability, peer feedback, creativity, involvement, behavior are considered assessments. even the assessment standards of the 2013 curriculum in indonesia have shifted to competency-based assessment. previously, tests were used to measure knowledge competencies based solely on results, ranta butarbutar englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 139 but authentic assessments have recently been used to measure all competencies in attitudes, skills, and knowledge, based on processes and results. douglas and hegelheimer (2007) recommended technology assessment language teaching such as authoring computer-based, feedback, developing, scoring, and validating. their investigation suggested computer-based assessment to construct interesting, automatic scoring, self-assessment tests, and more benefits to the test takers. in addition, they added that involving technology in teaching language assessment like computers gave substantive options and more accurate results than conventional assessment. it is important to consider that technology-mediated task-based language teaching should be intertwined with appropriate assessment by considering three essential substantives such as effectiveness, innovation, and equivalency. 4.5. a teacher broadens the scope of a technology-mediated task-based learning internship the result of the open-ended questionnaire shows that teachers also require long-term training in order to integrate technology into language teaching. gonzález (2014) stated that need analysis from a teachers’ perspective implied that developing curriculum required providing and facilitating expanded training for teachers. meanwhile, ruggiero and boehm (2017) concluded that using technology in teaching language to avoid some problems means that the teacher offered running-well utility. to do this, teachers are crucially involved in some kinds of internships, such as virtual internships. training flexibility and functional impact are somewhat inexpensive and have a functional impact on constructing knowledge. further, teachers’ belief and selfefficacy increase in using appropriate technology, which supports successful technology-mediated tblt elaborated (fajrinur, 2019). the competence to integrate technology development into teaching as professional development identified by the motivation to implement new technologies must be considered (tømte, enochsson, buskqvist, & krstein, 2015). their study clarified that in-preservice training facilitated teachers using technology effectively, which is called teachers’ digital competence. in this case, teachers need focus group discussions and internships. also, teachers have to be proficient in using technology for solving learners’ problems at tblt. additionally, to help learners develop their technological pedagogical knowledge, tblt must synchronize with the teacher’s digital competence. 4.6. facilitating learners with compatible technology tools and a stable internet connection generally, researchers agree that learner achievement unquestionably benefits from compatible tools (bervell & arkorful, 2020; lawrence & tar, 2018). similarly, the outcome of students' in technology-mediated tblt absolutely affected compatible technology tools and stable internet connection. many empirical studies have been learner’s perception of task difficulties in technology-mediated task-based language teaching 140 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 conducted, including those that clarified that incompatible tools and unstable internet connections were crucial challenges in teaching language technology integration. one factor of need analysis (na) for better curriculum development is facilitating learners with compatible tools and stable internet connections. in addition, the results showed that the learners' difficulty in technology-mediated learning was caused by incompatible devices. in this case, learners struggled due to the limitation of technology-supported devices to do task-based content. task-based content and compatible devices cannot be separated in the teaching language context. comparatively, in another perspective, it is stated that rapid technology development supports students’ self-regulation (shih, 2010). furthermore, facilitating adequate apparatus for the learner simultaneously increased the learners’ intrinsic motivation to achieve a learning goal setting. in addition, they possess their own compatible technology that enlarges learners’ opportunities to be more aware of outcome performance. in line with the students’ profile overview, the level frequency of having the technology-mediated learning process was supported by technology facilities. as explored, having technology and computer access also encourages learners’ independence, as confirmed by a female teacher’s perspective. 6. conclusion the study sums up that learners’ difficulties during technology-mediated tblt are caused by some factors. first, there is reluctance among teachers to incorporate technology. learners found difficulties while trying to understand the meaning and practical instruction of the task by both self-learning and peer teaching. second, the learners’ enthusiasm for applying new features of technology. some students who are over 27 years old with full-time status, both as workers and learners, are unable to adopt new learning technology tools. third, they were unsupportive learning facilities. the teaching and learning process unsupported with complete facilities is the cause of students having difficulty. fourth, the weakness of the regulation system. policymakers or curriculum designers have a crucial role and must quickly respond to technological learning development in particular. however, the government’s lack of tenacity in imposing sanctions on schools and teachers who have not implemented technology will create a quandary in which both students and teachers will face difficulties in the learning process and achievement. fifth, there is a lack of parental support for the learners’ utilities. the incorporation of technology into tblt has the advantage of facilitating self-learning repeated materials on a different time schedule, gunuç and babacan (2018). nonetheless, it will be contrasted with minimal parental involvement to support learner needs. on the other hand, integrated technology in tblt requires more attention and should be included as core knowledge when developing course syllabuses and curriculum materials for future habiburrahim (2019). it is important to remember that policymakers could offer a massive workshop or internship to teachers, educators, schools, and education practitioners about ranta butarbutar englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 141 technology-mediated tblt and incorporate it into the existing curriculum. in that case, they will have a difficult time meeting the required standard of competency. in addition, combining both online and blended learning has the potential to recognize studentcentred learning (ctl) as the implication of tblt (yamashita, he, & ellis, 2018). it is important to note that policymakers, teachers, and learners work together to integrate technology-mediated learning into the language teaching 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(2017). epilogue: second language writing in the age of computer-mediated communication. journal of second language writing, 36, 61–67. ziegler, n., & phung, h. (2019). technology-mediated task-based interaction: the role of modality. itl-international journal of applied linguistics, 170(2), 251– 276. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2023. vol.10, no.2, 20-36 efl students’ language attitudes toward virtual learning environment: a technology acceptance model avita elok faiqoh*, ashadi ashadi yogyakarta state university, indonesia manuscript received october 4, 2022, revised march 26, 2023, accepted april 8, 2023, and published online may 7, 2023. recommended apa citation faiqoh, a. e., & ashadi, a. (2023). efl students’ language attitudes toward virtual learning environment: a technology acceptance model. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(2), 20-36. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.15178 abstract it is widely believed that l2 learners who have positive attitudes towards the target culture and its people are likely to learn the target language more effectively than those who do not possess such attitudes. as technology continues to be increasingly integrated into language learning, this article aims to explore efl students' attitudes towards technology acceptance via virtual learning environment (vle), as well as the potential advantages of vle in the efl classroom. a quantitative approach was employed in this study, which involved 30 students from english language education departments at a private university in indonesia. the students' computer attitudes were assessed using a likert scale questionnaire with four factors, including affective, perceived usefulness, perceived control, and behavioural intention. the technology acceptance model (tam) developed by davis (1989) was utilized as the framework to further examine these factors. the results indicated that the students had a positive attitude towards the computer attitude scale (cas) factors, which were categorized into affective, perceived usefulness, perceived control, and behavioural intention. the implications of each of these categories in the framework are discussed in relation to behaviourism theory. keywords: efl students; students attitudes; virtual learning environment (vle); technology acceptance *corresponding author: avita elok faiqoh yogyakarta state university jl. colombo yogyakarta no.1, karang malang, kec. depok, kabupaten sleman, diy 55281, indonesia email: avitaelok.2020@student.uny.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.1 avita elok faiqoh & ashadi ashadi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 21 1. introduction the covid-19 pandemic has led to a surge in popularity of virtual learning environments (vles) for learning a second language. vles have become widely implemented in higher education. the acceptance of vles by students is thought to play a crucial role in facilitating interaction and acquisition of a second language (l2). interaction is widely recognized as being important in language acquisition. according to sari (2019), both teachers and students must carefully balance expressing their thoughts and opinions while maintaining appropriate communication in language learning. therefore, to achieve the desired learning outcomes in an l2 language course, the process of learning must include contextual verbal and nonverbal communication through vles. adequate interaction and communication are necessary to achieve instructional goals. health issues have forced higher education to switch to online distance learning, which has disrupted learning interaction and communication. e-learning has adapted to provide various online learning approaches to ensure some measure of educational continuity, including virtual classes, video conferencing, and blended learning. virtual learning environments (vles) have emerged as the most widely implemented learning environment in higher education, offering relevant messaging, repetition, engagement, and actual comments to students using online sessions. these technologies have revolutionized the study of learning effectiveness. however, it can be challenging to determine their usefulness compared to face-to-face learning. thamarana (2016) argued that several vle learning support instruments involve content delivery, communication and interaction, assessment, and meaningful comments, which are essential in language learning. previous researchers, such as al-ruheili (2015), bicen (2015), and dayag (2018), have also found vles to be effective e-learning platforms, as they allow teachers to respond to students' questions, provide feedback, and remind them of deadlines. nonetheless, interaction is crucial in language acquisition, and both teachers and students need to strike a balance between expressing their thoughts and maintaining appropriate communication in language learning, as emphasized by sari (2019). therefore, to achieve the desired learning outcomes in an l2 language course, the process of learning through vles must include contextual verbal and nonverbal communication to foster adequate interaction and communication to achieve instructional goals. due to the covid-19 pandemic, many schools, universities, and colleges had to close to prevent the spread of the virus. on 21st april 2020, 1.723 billion learners were reported to be affected, and several studies have replicated these findings (crawford et al., 2020; day, 2020; ebrahim et al., 2020; kokutse, 2020; quinn, 2020; unesco, 2020b, 2020a; unicef, 2020). as a result, higher education institutions have recommended the implementation of online learning platforms to ensure educational continuity and minimize the spread of covid-19. however, recent evidence from belawati and nizam (2020) highlights that in indonesia, face-to-face learning is more effective than online learning due to the challenges faced by college students, including efl students’ language attitudes toward virtual learning environment: a technology acceptance model 22 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 internet connection issues (41%), overwhelming assignments (26.8%), courses being converted to assignments (9.8%), a lack of concentration (9%), a lack of interaction with lecturers (4.3%), and unmanaged course schedules (1.6%). therefore, there is still a need for research on the effectiveness of vle on learners' attitudes that may be influenced by their acceptance of technology. many students face the significant problem of insufficient exposure to computer technologies. despite the good intentions of educational plans and programs to improve the educational process, government e-learning policies have remained ambiguous and lacking in providing training, support services, or appropriate guidance to achieve their goals or fulfil their aims. to address this, students need to be trained, assisted, and guided in how to use technology effectively to achieve successful outcomes on their tasks and increase their awareness of the potential benefits of using technology for teaching and learning. the successful use of technology tools depends on the attitudes and willingness of students to use them, which can lead to successful implementations of those tools in the classroom. as albirini (2006) argues, learners' attitudes and willingness to use technology are significantly influenced by the successful use of technology in education. additionally, gardner (1985) highlights that attitude is a factor underlying students' motivation to acquire language, and positive attitudes toward the target language are likely to result in greater language achievement. therefore, it is essential to address students' insufficient exposure to technology and to promote positive attitudes toward technology in education to enhance language learning outcomes. this article aims to examine students' attitudes toward vle in efl learning during the covid-19 pandemic, using the technology acceptance model (tam) as the basic theory. prior studies have utilized tam to measure students' attitudes towards computer technologies, including the scale of attitude toward computer technologies (sact) and berries affecting students' attitudes and use (bsau) (sabti and chaichan, 2014). mosquera (2017) also used tam to measure students' attitudes towards technology use, finding that their perceptions and attitudes towards vle were positive. however, it is important to investigate the students' attitudes towards vle specifically in efl learning in terms of affect, perceived usefulness, perceived control, and behavioural intention. therefore, the research objective was to determine english students' attitudes towards the use of vle in language learning and investigate whether their technology acceptance use differs based on affective factors, perceived usefulness factors, behavioural intention factors, and perceived control factors. 2. literature review 2.1. vle concepts since the emergence of web-based learning in the early 21st century, the term vle has been widely used in education, but its precise definition is not clearly agreed upon. several studies have highlighted the necessity of vle for higher education during the covid-19 pandemic era. harmer (2007) defined vle as course content that can be avita elok faiqoh & ashadi ashadi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 23 uploaded on a website accessible only to course participants. similarly, rouse (2011)argued that vle generally refers to online learning, which combines teaching and learning tools to promote students' learning abilities by utilizing computers and online materials. however, the implementation of vle in efl classrooms can affect students' technology acceptance attitudes, although it is not clear how technology acceptance affects students' attitudes. recent research has defined the implementation of vle using synchronous platforms for teaching and learning (bozkurt and sharma, 2020; crawford et al., 2020). jisc (2010) found that vle is an online program covering many tools that enhance learning and are administered to learners. oxford (2016) asserted that vle is a pedagogical process that involves converting resources through a network, including student assessment, tracking tools, and communication and collaboration tools.2.2 vle in efl learning. in the realm of efl, the implementation of vle has led to an increase in the availability of native speaking teachers. hamouda (2020) contends that virtual learning facilitates connections with native speakers beyond traditional learning methods. additionally, vle has played a crucial role in enhancing students' perceived usefulness of english skills, including listening, speaking, reading, and writing. alhawiti (2017) argues that vle enables students to practice their language skills with ease. furthermore, hamouda (2020) justifies the use of vle in efl classrooms, as it has been shown to improve students' speaking scores compared to traditional classrooms, especially with regards to grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, comprehension, and fluency. other collaborative studies mentioned by al-qahtani (2019) and al-rubaat, mathew, and sreehari (2019) have reported that efl teachers agreed that voice and text chat tools are effective in encouraging students to improve their communication skills. similarly, kern et al. (2004) support the idea that video chatting enhances and fosters more sophisticated output. therefore, herrera (2017) claims that vle has brought about positive learning experiences by providing access to various tools and applications. thamarana (2016) posits that virtual learning environments (vles) offer various communication tools, content delivery options, and assessment instruments that enhance teaching and learning. communication tools such as online mail, discussion boards, and virtual conversations enable effective information sharing and idea discussion between students and teachers. this interaction is critical in supporting teaching and addressing student queries, which may be missed in a traditional learning environment. additionally, vles offer diverse content delivery options, including lecture notes, images, sounds, presentations, and seminars that enhance the learning experience. furthermore, vles offer computer-assisted assessment tools that facilitate online evaluation of student performance. while some vles do not provide examination instruments, some independent examination tools may be integrated into the online platform. in conclusion, vles offer a collaborative platform that promotes interactive and active learning digitally. efl students’ language attitudes toward virtual learning environment: a technology acceptance model 24 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 2.2. technology acceptance the study of attitudes toward technology acceptance is a significant field considering the ubiquity of technology in modern society. however, despite its importance, there has been limited research conducted on attitudes toward technology acceptance in the context of virtual learning environments (vles). most studies on attitudes toward technology have focused on computers and information technology (it), rather than the attitudes components of technology use on vles. in the early 1980s, a theory known as the technology acceptance model (tam) was developed by davis (1989) to understand technology use behaviour. tam aims to describe how individuals perceive and use technology. davis, morris, and venkatesh (2003) expanded on the tam model, which has been frequently cited and has extensive empirical support regarding the acceptance of information technology. the tam model was derived from the theory of reasoned actions (tra) by ajzen and fishbein (1975), which investigates factors that influence consciously intended behaviours from the perspective of social psychology. in the literature, there is considerable evidence that perceived usefulness (pu) and perceived ease of use (peou) significantly influence the acceptance of information technology. according to davis et al. (1989), pu refers to the extent to which individuals believe that a particular system enhances their job performance. pu is based on personal perceptions of the usefulness of a system and does not require any additional effort. tam was developed to predict individual behaviour in adopting new technology. sheldon (2016) argues that tam is grounded in the theory of reasoned action (tra), which suggests that behaviour is determined by the intention to perform the behaviour, attitudes towards the behaviour, and social pressure to perform the behaviour. the technology acceptance model (tam) is composed of five variables, among which perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are crucial factors. according to davis (1989), perceived usefulness refers to the degree to which individuals believe that using a specific technology will enhance their job performance. positive or negative attitudes toward computer use are shaped by how users perceive the usefulness of technology in the context of learning and teaching. davis also defines perceived usefulness as the degree to which individuals believe that using a system will be free of effort. additionally, perceived usefulness influences perceived ease of use, which, in turn, is also influenced by attitude. hericko et al. (2011) further assert that perceived ease of use is a factor that affects students' attitudes. in the literature, researchers have focused on the attitude components toward technology use in information technology (it), and there is a lack of research on attitudes toward technology acceptance in virtual learning environments. early research work in the 1980s developed a theory to understand technology-used attitudes, known as the technology acceptance model (tam), which aimed to describe technology use behaviour. tam was derived from ajzen and fishbein's (1975) theory of reasoned actions (tra), which investigated factors affecting consciously intended behaviours in social psychology. sheldon (2016) contends that tam was grounded in tra, which describes behaviour as stemming from the intention avita elok faiqoh & ashadi ashadi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 25 of behaviour performance, attitudes toward the behaviour, and social pressure to perform the behaviour. the technology acceptance model (tam), developed by davis (1989), is a widely used theory for investigating users' acceptance of various technologies. tam2, developed by venkatesh and davis (2000), extended the original tam model by including the subjective norm as an additional predictor of intention in mandatory settings. the computer attitude scale (cas), developed by selwyn (1997), is a commonly used instrument for measuring attitudes towards computer use. the cas includes factors such as effective, perceived usefulness, behavioural intention, and perceived control factors. affective factors refer to an individual's feelings towards computers, while perceived usefulness factors relate to their belief in the usefulness of computers for improving their job. behavioural intention factors refer to an individual's intention to use a particular technology, while perceived control factors relate to an individual's belief that using a technology will require little effort. tam and cas have been applied to a variety of technologies and users, making them useful tools for investigating attitudes towards technology acceptance. the implementation of tam in language learning is influenced by various factors. previous studies have shown that the acceptance of technology use can be affected by user experiences. for instance, alfadda and mahdi (2020) noted that positive user experiences can lead to a positive attitude towards technology. however, there is still a significant amount of uncertainty regarding students' attitudes towards technology use, specifically which attitude components might affect language learning through vle. most studies have focused on teachers' attitudes towards technology use and its effectiveness in achieving learning goals, rather than students' attitudes. furthermore, research investigating the attitude components of technology use that affect language skills in efl classrooms is still limited. to address these issues, a quantitative research method was employed, and data were collected through the computer attitude scale (cas) developed by selwyn (1997) in the form of questionnaires to determine students' attitudes towards vle and their capabilities in the l2 via virtual classes. there is a growing definition in the concept of virtual learning environment and technology acceptance that leaves space for further inquiry. virtual learning environment in the foreign language setting is also developing and it still lacks consensus on what counts as an environment and how to control it. its impact on foreign language learning also remains unclear. to increase our understanding in this issue, this article will examine the student attitudes toward vle in the efl classroom due the covid-19 pandemic. therefore, the following questions are proposed: 1) what is the overall profile of efl students' attitudes toward computer use of vle? 2) do technology acceptances use attitudes differ by affective factors, perceived usefulness factors, behavioural intention factors, and perceived control factors? efl students’ language attitudes toward virtual learning environment: a technology acceptance model 26 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 3. method this study was conducted following a quantitative approach to find the trend of students’ technology acceptances attitudes distinguished by affective factors, perceived usefulness factors, behavioural intention factors, and perceived control factors toward efl classroom due covid-19 pandemic. the setting was in a private islamic university in yogyakarta where its english education department already implements vle in the learning process. 3.1. study sample the population of the study comprised the english language education department (eled) of an islamic private university in yogyakarta. the research involved 30 students from the 2020 batch of the eled program at the university as respondents. the sample size was determined using a table of sample sizes for probability samples with a confidence level of 95% and a confidence interval of 5% for educational societies. 3.2. data collecting method the research employed questionnaires as a data collection instrument for two reasons. firstly, questionnaires enabled the researchers to gather data from a large population in a short period of time. according to cohen et al. (2011), questionnaires are an efficient method for collecting and analysing data from a group. secondly, questionnaires were deemed appropriate for collecting quantitative data. as wilson and mclean (1994) noted, questionnaires are useful for collecting information in the form of numeric data, and are able to be administered and analysed comparatively. therefore, questionnaires were suitable for collecting data in this study. the questionnaires were distributed to respondents using online mobile surveys to save time and cost. dillman et al (2014) asserted that online and mobile surveys are a cost-effective way of administering questionnaires as they eliminate the cost of printed questionnaires. 3.3. instruments the questionnaire used in this study consisted of 21 question items adapted from the computer attitudes scale (cas) developed by selwyn (1997). the likert scale was utilized to answer the open-ended questions and obtain systematic responses in the form of numbers. cohen et al. (2011) claim that the likert scale is a rating scale used to elicit respondents' answers on a statement or question. the rating scale used to determine the data on students' attitudes towards vle in efl classrooms consisted of four categories: 1 = very negative, 2 = negative, 3 = positive, and 4 = very positive. additionally, the rating scale used to obtain data on technology acceptance factor attitudes consisted of four categories: 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = agree, and 4 = strongly agree. the use of the likert scale was chosen to determine the trends in efl students' attitudes avita elok faiqoh & ashadi ashadi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 27 towards vle in efl classrooms. the statements in the questionnaire were categorized into four main domains, as follows: table 1 questionnaire items distribution. part items numbers cas factors 1 6 1-6 affective 2 5 711 perceived usefulness 3 6 12-17 perceived control 4 4 18-21 behavioural intention questionnaire items distribution as seen on table 1, there are 5 parts of cas factors questionnaire items. first, part of the questionnaire was about items number 1 to 6 which were intended to answer the students affective toward efl classroom due covid-19 pandemic. the second part of the questionnaire included items number 7 to 11 intended to find out the students perceived usefulness toward the efl classroom due covid-19 pandemic. the third part, which includes items number 12 to 17, was intended to examine students' perceived control toward efl classrooms during the covid-19 pandemic. the fourth, it provided the items number 18 to 21 intended to answer the students behavioural intention toward efl classroom due covid-19 pandemic. 3.4.validity and reliability of the instruments to increase the validity and reliability, the questionnaire was presented to two experts from the department faculty members at an islamic private university in yogyakarta to gain written responses. according to their feedback and comments, some items were changed to clarify the meaning. some items were modified in a way that is more appropriate to the aim of the study. the reliability of the questionnaire was determined using cronbach’s alpha, and its value showed 0.86, which indicated a high level of internal consistency for the scale. thus, it can be concluded that the questionnaire was valid and reliable for the research. table 2 result of reliability test. no questionnaire cronbach alpha coefficient 1 affective .822 2 perceived usefulness .817 3 perceived control .832 4 behavioural intention .821 efl students’ language attitudes toward virtual learning environment: a technology acceptance model 28 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 according to table 2, the affective dimension exhibits a high level of reliability, with an alpha coefficient of 0.822. similarly, the perceived usefulness, perceived control, and behavioral intention dimensions show alpha coefficients of 0.871, 0.832, and 0.821, respectively, indicating high levels of reliability. based on the minimum acceptable alpha coefficient of 0.40, all four dimensions can be deemed reliable. 3.5. data analysis in this study, responses were analyzed using computer variables and spss, with frequencies and percentages being the primary measures of interest. the resulting data are presented in tables 1 and 2. both descriptive statistics and inferential analyses were used, with techniques including one-way anova. 3.6. procedure the present study employed a structured procedure that involved several preparations prior to data collection and analysis. firstly, the researchers identified a reliable and valid questionnaire for data collection. secondly, the questionnaire's reliability and normality were assessed to ensure data accuracy and relevance. study participants were randomly selected from the academic year 2020/2021 student population, and self-administered questionnaires were distributed during class through a link shared with the class leader. participants submitted their responses online. finally, collected data were analyzed using the statistical package for social sciences (spss) to obtain meaningful results and conclusions. 4. findings this study was conducted at the eled of an islamic private university in southern java, involving 30 students from the 2020 batch. the study aimed to determine the overall profile of efl students' attitudes towards vle computer use, specifically in terms of the cas factors of affection, perceived usefulness, perceived control, and behavioural intention. the mean scores obtained from the questionnaire parts were used to analyse the data. results indicate a positive attitude towards vle in all four factors. the mean score for the affection factor was 3.58, while perceived usefulness, perceived control, and behavioural intention all received a mean score of 3.19, suggesting a positive attitude towards these factors as well. table 3 the students’ attitudes in term of four factor of cas. no cas factors mean score attitudes’ level 1 affective 3.58 positive 2 perceived usefulness 3.19 positive 3 perceived control 3.19 positive 4 behavioural intention 3.19 positive avita elok faiqoh & ashadi ashadi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 29 table 3 displays the descriptive statistics for the four cas factors pertaining to vle use in efl classrooms. it includes mean scores and attitude levels for each factor. the results indicate that the affective factor received the highest mean score, sugge sting that participants prioritize it over the other three factors. additionally, the mean scores for perceived usefulness, perceived control, and behavioural intention were identical, indicating a positive attitude among students. overall, the data provide insights into students' attitudes towards vle in the four cas areas. table 4 affective factors of cas. category frequency precent valid precent neutral 5 3.3 3.3 positive 17 58.2 58.2 strongly positive 8 38.5 38.5 total 30 100.0 100.0 table 4 reveals that 5 students (3.3%) had a neutral affective factor, while the majority (58.2% or 17 students) demonstrated a positive affective factor. additionally, 8 students (38.5%) exhibited a strongly positive affective factor. the highest scores were for statements three and five, "i don't feel apprehensive about using a computer" and "using a computer does not scare me at all." the cas scale shows a clear progression from a neutral to a strongly positive affective factor among the students. table 5 perceived usefulness. category frequency precent valid precent neutral 3 2.3 2.3 positive 21 76.2 76.2 strongly positive 6 21.5 21.5 total 30 100.0 100.0 table 5 shows the perceived usefulness factors and provides insight into students' perceptions. the analysis has revealed that 5 students have a neutral perception, whereas 76.2% of the students have reported a positive perceived usefulness factor. responses to the first and second statements, specifically "computers help me improve my work better" and "computers make it possible to work more productively," are most strongly correlated with this factor. in addition, 21.5% of students exhibit a strongly positive efl students’ language attitudes toward virtual learning environment: a technology acceptance model 30 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 perceived usefulness factor. these results demonstrate the progression of students' perceived usefulness factor from neutral to strongly positive. table 6 perceived control. category frequency precent valid precent neutral 1 1.4 1.4 positive 25 84.2 84.2 strongly positive 4 14.4 14.4 total 30 100.0 100.0 table 6 presents the findings on the behavioural intention factor of vle use among efl students. the results indicate that 1 student (3.3%) holds a neutral behavioural intention factor, while most students, equivalent to 60.0% or 18 individuals, have a positive behavioural intention factor. additionally, 36.7% or 11 students exhibit a strongly positive behavioural intention factor. the highest mean scores were obtained in response to the third statement, which reads "i can make the computer do what i want it to." these quantitative results provide evidence of the progression of students' behavioural intention factor from neutral to strongly positive. table 7 behavioural intention. category frequency precent valid precent neutral 0 0 0 positive 14 41.7 41.7 strongly positive 16 58.3 58.3 total 30 100.0 100.0 table 7 presents the behavioural intentions of students towards virtual learning environments (vles), indicating that most students, comprising 46.7%, have a strongly positive or positive behavioural intention towards using vles. specifically, 16 students have demonstrated a strongly positive behavioural intention, while 14 students have a positive behavioural intention. notably, the fourth question, which pertains to using computers regularly throughout school, had the highest scores. these findings suggest that students possess a positive inclination towards utilizing vles and are likely to integrate them into their academic practices. furthermore, the quantitative analysis reveals a progression in students' behavioural intentions from positive to strongly positive. avita elok faiqoh & ashadi ashadi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 31 5. discussion the study collected the highest students’ attitudes in terms of four factors of cas, it showed from all satisfactions means score in each factor. 5.1 students attitude toward affective factors of vle our analysis showed that the highest of all satisfactions and the students had a positive attitude toward affection. the score was found in affection item number 4 “computers make me feel uncomfortable*”. it presented that the students had a positive attitude to use the computer. as supported by albirini (2006) who pointed out that learners' attitudes and willingness to use technology have been significantly determined by the successful use of technology in educational fields. moreover, gardner (1985) pointed out that attitude is one of the factors underlying the student’s motivation in acquiring language. for that, the language attained language accomplishment seemed to be more highly probable if learners have such a positive attitude toward the target language. although most of the correlated variants have shown positive attitudes towards virtual learning, student opinions on online courses appear to be quite diverse and varied. students affirmed that the lack of interaction with their teachers had hurt their ability to assimilate and understand the subjects taught during the courses. just a few limited numbers of teachers were fortunate enough to deliver their lectures through video conferences. 5.2. students attitude toward perceived of usefulness factors of vle our analysis found that students in the efl classroom exhibited a positive attitude towards the perceived usefulness (pu) factors of virtual learning environments (vle), as evidenced by an overall mean score of 3.19 for all items related to perceived usefulness. davis et al. (1989) define pu as the user's perspective on how using a particular system can enhance job performance. additionally, jisc (2010) asserts that vle is an online program that encompasses various instruments aimed at improving learning outcomes. surani and hamidah (2020) suggest that online learning facilitates easy collaboration and enables students to utilize various sources, thereby enhancing learning efficiency. the convenience factor also emerges as a crucial motivator for students to continue using online learning methods. alhawiti (2017) emphasizes the ease of practice for language skills that vle offers to students. in contrast, hamouda (2020) provides evidence that the use of vle in efl classrooms has led to improvement in students' speaking scores as compared to traditional classrooms, particularly in grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, comprehension, and fluency. however, ganapathy (2019) points out that teachers face certain challenges in adopting vle, such as a lack of awareness, time, ict skills, training, and infrastructure. assoodaret al. (2016) underscore the importance of learner, instructor, course, technology, design, and the environment in enhancing the perceived usefulness of vle. chua and montalbo (2014) have evaluated students' perceived usefulness with the use of vles as a support technology in teaching, which efl students’ language attitudes toward virtual learning environment: a technology acceptance model 32 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 they found to be effective in supplementing traditional classroom instruction. the literature highlights specific vle features that students appreciate, such as handbooks, staff contact information, access to previous modules, assessment information, and further reading. according to data from the national student survey, students also value lecture recordings, improved feedback, updates on planned activities, and more computers to access online resources (reed and watmough 2015). it has been suggested that learners are more motivated to participate in lessons if vles provide tools for selfassessment, contain interesting course materials, and provide faster responses to their queries. 5.3. students attitude toward perceived control factors of vle in terms of the students' satisfactory level, our finding shows that they have a positive attitude toward the perceived control factor, as indicated by the mean score of 3.19. scherer et al. (2019) argue that perceived control factors refer to an individual's belief that minimal effort will be required to use a particular technology. this suggests that the students thought they could use the technology without serious troubles. in the context of efl learning, vle provides several tools that support students' perceived control, including communication tools such as online mail, discussion boards, and virtual conversations, as well as content delivery tools like lecture notes, images, sounds, audiotapes, powerpoint presentations, and evaluation tools such as exams and web-based assessments. thamarana (2016) noted that such tools enhance communication between students and teachers, which fosters information sharing and idea exchange. however, while the present study highlights the positive attitudes of efl students towards perceived control through vle, further research is needed to explore other potential factors that may influence language learning through technology. additionally, more investigations are required to assess the impact of vle on students from diverse cultural backgrounds and educational contexts. 5.4. students attitude toward behavioural intention factors of vle the study has revealed that students held a positive attitude towards the behavioural intention factor, as indicated by a satisfaction mean score in the previous section. turner et al. (2010) emphasized that behavioural intention factors are related to an individual's intentions to use a particular technology. in the efl classroom context, this was demonstrated by how students perceived the use of computers regularly for learning. alfadda and mahdi (2020) noted that users' positive experiences have a significant impact on their attitude towards technology. despite this, there is still considerable ambiguity surrounding students' attitudes towards technology use, particularly which attitudes may influence language learning through vle. many studies have focused solely on teachers' attitudes towards using technology to enhance learning effectiveness, rather than exploring students' attitudes. additionally, there is limited research investigating the components of technology use attitudes that affect language avita elok faiqoh & ashadi ashadi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 33 skills in efl classrooms. further research is needed to address these gaps and provide a more comprehensive understanding of students' attitudes towards technology use in language learning. 6. conclusion the present study aimed to investigate students' attitudes towards technology acceptance through virtual learning environments (vles), and the findings suggest that students' attitudes towards vles are significantly positive. notably, the computer attitude scale (cas) factors of affection, perceived usefulness, perceived control, and behavioural intentions emerged as significant predictors of students' attitudes towards technology acceptance through vles. these results highlight the crucial role of efl students' attitudes in their technology acceptance through vles. furthermore, vles provide numerous beneficial tools to support learning, including communication tools such as content delivery, lecture notes, images, sounds, audio tapes, presentations, qualifications tools, and eclectic instruments. however, several limitations of the study should be acknowledged. firstly, the data were collected exclusively from the english language education department enrolled in one islamic private university in yogyakarta. as a result, these findings may not be representative of the entire population of efl students in indonesia. therefore, future research could target more diverse students in terms of department, institution, and geographic location to strengthen the current findings. additionally, as this study only focused on efl students, the findings may not be generalizable to other languages or wider contexts. secondly, while this quantitative study advanced our understanding of the phenomenon under investigation, further research is also required to collect qualitative data and analysed it with greater nuance and precision. in conclusion, the present study provides valuable insights into efl students' attitudes towards technology acceptance through vles. the findings emphasize the importance of considering students' attitudes towards technology acceptance and the influential role that vles can play in supporting student learning. however, limitations of the study suggest the need for future research to further explore this phenomenon in diverse student populations and contexts using both quantitative and qualitative methods. references ajzen, i., & fishbein, m. 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(2003). user acceptance of information technology: toward a unified view. mis quarterly, 425–478. wilson, n., & mclean, s. (1994). questionnaire design: a practical introduction. co antrim. university of ulster press, newton abbey. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2022. vol.9, no.2, 91-108 using songs to promote the affective domain in learning listening of efl students melisa melisa stkip annur, indonesia melisa_lovely@yahoo.co.id tgk maya silviyanti * universitas syiah kuala, indonesia tgk_maya@unsyiah.ac.id arifin syamaun universitas syiah kuala, indonesia arifin syamaun1957@gmail.com manuscript received november 6, 2021, revised january 28, 2022, first published may 1, 2022, and available online may 7, 2022. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i2.11225 recommended apa citation melisa, m., silviyanti, t. m., & syamaun, a. (2022). using songs in listening class activities to promote the efl students‟ affective domain. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(2), 91-108. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.11225 abstract this qualitative study principally aimed to discover how songs can be used to promote students' affective domain in listening class activities. one english teacher and twentyfive 8th-grade students of a public junior high school in greater aceh, indonesia, were involved in this study. the data were collected through classroom observation. this present study followed krathwohl, bloom, and masia‟s (1973) five observation criteria of the affective domain framework. subsequently, the teacher and four selected students were interviewed for additional data. the results demonstrated that songs have a positive impact on students' affective domain. students become enthusiastic about learning listening skills. they listened well and remembered the title of the new song (receiving phenomenon); actively participated in the classroom activities (responding phenomenon); demonstrated their problem-solving ability by working together (valuing); and effective time management (organization). despite their ability to cooperate in group activities, they had no self-reliance when working individually (internalizing values). however, the students agree that the classroom environment was * corresponding author https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6622 https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.11225 using songs to promote the affective domain in learning listening of efl students englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 92 more comfortable and enjoyable. the results of the study suggest that teachers should consider using songs to not only teaches the knowledge but also the culture associated with the song itself when it comes to teaching listening. aside from the cognitive aspects, teachers should also maintain and track students' progress in the affective domain. keywords: listening; songs; affective domain; taxonomy; elt 1. introduction listening relates to other abilities since it also requires students‟ awareness (sedjiu, 2013). the process is similar to how people learn and acquire language as children to communicate with others (scott, roberts, & glennen, 2011). anderson and lynch (1998) contend that children are able to respond to conversations because they have experienced listening as infants. children cannot understand spoken languages. even so, they acquire language at the end and are able to communicate. in some ways, this might be similar to what english is used as the language in the classroom. listening activities in the classroom makes students aware of language that they learn (green, 2004). english language learners consider listening as a difficult skill to master (seng, 2009). listening to english involves a complex and active process where the students should be able to differentiate the sounds uttered by speakers (vandergrift, 1999). this is due to the fact that listening in a second language is different from listening in a first language. students are required to be familiar with sounds, stress pattern and semantic features (siegel & siegel, 2013). to comprehend sounds, listeners need to pay more attention and concentrate. lack of listening ability will make students unable to comprehend the lesson better since listening is a crucial skill in language learning (al jawi, 2010). in listening activities, there are quite a lot of materials that can be used in the classroom. silviyanti (2014) noted that students are able to learn so many interesting things with the help of the internet, one of which is english song. according to setia et al (2012), the use of songs is effective in learning because students will acquire vocabulary and at the same time improve their pronunciation. taking advantage of songs in english language teaching can improve a student's ability to spell and know phrases effectively (setia et al, 2012). indonesian curriculum of 2013 states that students should be able to understand the meaning of songs (ref 4.18 for grade xi and ref no 4.20 for grade x). the teacher could use songs for english lessons in two grades (grade x and xi) of senior high school). in malaysia, the syllabus design also emphasizes the importance of using song in the classroom (tse, 2015), because when someone is listening to a song, “he tries to appreciate the lyrics, rhythm, vocal melody, and meaning” (nuhung & hastini, 2013, p.2). schoepp (2001) mentioned the following reasons why songs are valuable in the using songs to promote the affective domain in learning listening of efl students englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 93 esl/efl classroom. those are: affective reasons which emphasizes on creating supportive learning atmosphere such as making non-threatening learning place and environment. next reason is cognitive reason which emphasizes on how the topic (song) can enhance students‟ knowledge. last, linguistics reason emphasizes on building students‟ competence in using language such as fluency. songs are sometimes used by teachers for cognitive reasons, such as to assess students' understanding about spoken words or the meaning of songs (millington, 2011; schoepp, 2001). in the process of learning, the cognitive aspects should not stand alone. affective factors should also play a significant role. according to allen and friedman (2010), students' affective is developed by their feelings, attitudes, and values, which later will develop their cognitive processes. consequently, this affective domain creates a positive learning environment for students, teachers and the environment as a whole. affective domain is related to personal and social development (martin & reigeluth, 1999) as well as the growth of „emotion, feeling, interest, attitude and value‟ (anderson, 1981, p.44, as cited in darmadji, 2014). this social development should lead to affect, and these affects might not be separated from curriculum (beanne, 1990, as cited in martin & reigeluth, 1999). burden and byrd (2010, p. 71) mention that affective domain is related to students‟ feelings and attitudes. there are three components in the affective domain (pierre & oughton, 2007), they are: (1) emotion, a fundamental factor for learning; high level of intrinsic value and positive emotions like enjoyment of learning, hope for success, and pride of a given task result in more effective learning (schutz & pekrun, 2007, p. 73); (2) attitude, an attitude is composed of affective, cognitive, and behavioral components that correspond, respectively, to one‟s evaluations, knowledge, and predisposition to act toward the object of the attitude (wagner, 1969, p. 7); and (3) motivation, which is an important area of research on student learning. selfdetermination theory (sdt), one aspect of motivation theory, is a useful starting point that describes students‟ willingness to engage in an activity or lesson based on fulfilling three fundamental psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness (ryan & deci, 2000, p. 59). there are many papers have discussed about the use of song for cognitive domain, yet, not many studies explore using songs for affective domain. since knowledge should not be separated from attitude or behaviour, it is also important to study the issue. thus, this paper will fill in the gap and we formulated two research questions: 1) in what ways does the use of songs promote the students‟ affective domain in learning listening? 2) what are the teachers‟ and students‟ responses towards the teaching and learning listening activities by using song? using songs to promote the affective domain in learning listening of efl students englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 94 2. literature review songs are popular among people. songs are also a great source of knowledge (saricoban & metin, 2000), for example, when young children learn about new subjects. in english language learning, the indonesian curriculum for senior high level also includes lessons on songs and poetry. students are expected to understand the meaning of a song and to explain it in their own words. 2.1. using songs in language learning gardner (1999) mentioned musical intelligence as one of human intelligences. several studies suggested that songs can reduce students' anxiety and create a more relaxed classroom atmosphere (almutairi & shukri, 2016; fata & aprilya, 2021; tseng, 2012). furthermore, music can also evoke emotions, such as exhilaration, nostalgia, and melancholy (lip, 2005). lip explains that when emotions are involved in a learning process, retention is increased, and unmotivated students are likely to wake up and enjoy the learning process. this is why learning should involve both cognitive and affective domains. the process of listening to songs requires repeated exposure (schoepp, 2016). in other words, one song may be played more than once so that students are exposed to the sentences and lyrics of that song. kurnierek (2016), as cited in eken (1996, p.23), argued that there are eight reasons why teachers should utilize songs in english language classrooms. these reasons include (1) presenting new topic, (2) introducing new vocabulary, (3) developing students' cognitive learning, (4) practicing lexis, (5) listening activities, (6) encouraging students to discuss their feelings and attitudes, (7) creating a relaxed atmosphere, and (8) encouraging students to be imaginative and creative. the use of songs as media for language acquisition is common (salcedo, 2002), and students may improve their lexis and vocabulary. song creates a relaxed atmosphere, which will promote the students' willingness to learn english (tse, 2015). considering that songs combine music and language, seng (2009) pointed out that they possess innumerable virtues that merit our attention, “…their richness in cultures and themes, their idiomatic and poetic expressions, their therapeutic functions, and so forth make songs an impeccable tool for language teaching" (p.88). using song in elt can be beneficial in a variety of ways, such as (1) fill-in-thegap exercises, where students learn to recognize foreign words (seng, 2009), (2) using lyrics to solve listening problems (hadian, 2015), and (3) repeated playbacks of songs to help students understand the words spoken (schoepp, 2016). these activities can be developed to train students to develop their competences in others skill as well. using songs to promote the affective domain in learning listening of efl students englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 95 2.2. domain in language learning 2.2.1. bloom‟s taxonomy for all subjects in indonesian curriculum, lesson plans are designed according to bloom's taxonomy. in designing tasks and instructions, bloom's operational keywords are adopted. bloom, englehart, furst, hill, and krathwohl‟s (1956) theory consists of three domains: cognitive, emphasizing knowledge; affective, emphasizing attitudes; and psychomotor, emphasizing skills. miller (2015) contended that bloom et al.'s domains are still relevant even though they were developed many years ago. since the 2000s, character aspect has also been integrated into the curriculum. the affective domain is also becoming more important. as part of indonesian's 2013 curriculum, character education is integrated in a learning process. therefore, the output of learning should be assessed not only in cognitive but also in affective terms. wibowo (2012), as cited from the ministry of education (2013), asserted some values that students must have, they are religious, honest, tolerance, discipline, hard work, creative, independence, curios, grateful, friendly, bibliophile, and social care. teachers' incompetence in integrating character values into classroom lessons is one of the barriers that may arise (fidyati, fhonna, & suryani, 2018). 2.2.1.1. affective domain the affective domain can facilitate the development of social work, students' value, ethics, aesthetic, and feeling (allen & friedman, 2010). according to darmadji (2014), attitude is characterized by a tendency to like or dislike something. furthermore, he explained that the positive attitudes come from positive actions or performances. in affective learning, feelings, attitudes, and values can shape someone's thinking and behavior (allen & friedman, 2010). it also involves motivation, attitudes, and values (smith & ragan, 1999). in affective domain, the emphasis is on the internal changes or processes of the student's behavior during the learning process (martin & reigeluth, 1999). in 1973, krathwohl, bloom, and masia proposed the affective domain model. they explained that affective domains are composed of five levels, starting with characterizing, organizing, valuing, responding, and ending with receiving. 1. receiving: in this level, the students‟ awareness, willingness to receive, and attention are indicated. for example, students pay attention to teachers or other students‟ presentation. 2. responding: students‟ action such as consent, responses, and satisfaction are included in this stage. 3. valuing: the objectives included in this level are students‟ acceptance, preference and commitment. using songs to promote the affective domain in learning listening of efl students englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 96 4. organization: in this level, the conceptualization and organization of values are involved. 5. characterization: a set of values and characterization or philosophy are included in this stage. 2.3. previous studies beasley and chuang (2008) investigated the relationship between songs and listening ability. the study was conducted in taiwan on 196 students and the findings showed that the students were able to enjoy their learning environment. this has resulted on students‟ positive point of view of learning listening with the correlation value 0.704 (r=0.704). different study was conducted by hadi (2019) on the 7th grade students of junior high school in indonesia. the results indicate that song motivates students to become more active and involve in classroom activities. in addition, he noted that the cognitive aspect also improves with each cycle, coming with a higher score on the test. another study was conducted by hadian (2015) towards the second grade students of junior high school in indonesia. the data were collected form teachers‟ field note, students‟ checklist, and video transcription related to their behaviour towards the use of song. in the first meeting, some students acted negatively because they did not understand the lyrics and responded reluctantly to the teachers. in the following meetings, however, the students felt positive and learn listening enthusiastically. they gradually engaged in meaningful activities, such as using song lyrics to address their listening issues, and their motivation increased. despite some studies measuring students' attitudes towards songs, limited research has only focused on the affective domain of listening. thus, we utilized the framework proposed by krathwohl et al. (1973) and analyzed the characteristics of five steps of the affective domain. 3. method according to khotari (2004, p. 5), qualitative research consists of assessing attitudes, opinions, and behaviors of the subject of the study. in this qualitative study, samples were taken from a junior high school in greater aceh, indonesia. all of the participants were in the seventh grade. the school has a language lab which facilitates the learning process. twenty-five students were selected from one class. the class was chosen based on the teachers' suggestions since there were time and access limitation to do research for all classes. the data were collected through a checklist sheet that consisted of five criteria of affective domain. these criteria were (1) receiving phenomena, (2) responding phenomena, (3) valuing, (4) organization, and (5) internalizing values (see results). during the data collection process, the researcher observed the teaching and learning process from the back of the class. the class took place in two meetings and using songs to promote the affective domain in learning listening of efl students englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 97 used an english song to teach english. the lesson lasted in 2 x 45 minutes for one session (or 90 minutes). the teacher played the songs from a laptop that connected to the speaker and the students were sitting facing the front class. following the observation process, the teacher and four selected students were interviewed based on the open-ended questions. there were a total of eight questions regarding the influence of song on students' affective domain. the interviews were conducted in 15 minutes for each interviewee. the interview questions were related to how the students felt about the use of songs in english learning. the participants‟ responses were used to support the observation data. subsequently, the data were analyzed based on creswell‟s (2009) framework of qualitative data. the data analysis outline can be seen in the following figure. creswell‟s qualitative data analysis (2009) the data were organized, read, and coded based on the plausible information from the observation and transcription. next, the coded data were divided into specific themes and descriptions, and further interpreted the themes and descriptions. interpreting the meaning of theme/ description interrelating themes/ description qualitative study themes description coding the data(hand) reading through all data organizing and preparingdata for analyzing validity the accuracy of the information raw data transcript and observation using songs to promote the affective domain in learning listening of efl students englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 98 4. findings according to the results of the observation, using songs to teach listening had a positive impact on students' affective domain. the students listened eagerly to the songs and tried to remember the titles of the songs during the learning process. they were eager to participate in class discussions. furthermore, song has encouraged students' ability to value, organize, and internalize values. in order to fill in the blanks, they paid attention to the words or the lyrics. during the song's performance, they were quiet and did not disturb their friends. in addition, the responses from the interview with both students and teacher revealed that the students were motivated to learn listening. the students were asked whether they would like to learn listening using songs in the future and they positively said yes. they seemed very enthusiast and happy about the possibility. besides, the students also admitted that they had improved their vocabulary after all the activities. 4.1. observation results the teacher administered a two meetings english class using songs activities. this classroom meeting is in accordance with the allocated time dictated in the syllabus. the teaching activities are as follows: 4.1.1. pre activities as the lesson started, the teacher greeted the students and followed by attendance list checking. afterward, the teacher asked the students about what they have learned in the previous lesson, and the students answered the teacher's questions based on their knowledge. following that, the teacher explained the topic of the day as well as the learning objective. right before the main activity, the teacher provided sufficient explanations for the students. 4.1.2. core activities the students were asked to work in pairs. they sat next to each other. as the activity started, the teacher set the speaker and laptop to play a song. the song was selected based on students‟ level. the genre of song was pop songs. there were two different songs played for the two meetings. the level of vocabulary used in the songs was suitable with the students‟ grade. having explained the task, the teacher distributed the worksheet containing lyrics of the song. the students were asked to fill in the blanks with accurate words. the song was played four times. the students seemed confused at first. afterwards, the teacher paused and explained the instructions again by providing examples. during the process, the teacher paused several times to give students a chance to fill in the blanks. when the song was played a second time, some words were already familiar to the students. despite not being able to obtain all the words, the students kept trying and using songs to promote the affective domain in learning listening of efl students englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 99 kept paying attention. sometimes, when the teacher paused the song, the students began discussing the possible answers with their partners. the activities continued until the song had been played four times. the students had to be able to find the words without teacher's help anymore. after they successfully filled all the blanks in, the teacher gave the students a chance to discuss their answers with their peers. afterward, both the teacher and the students checked the answers one by one. later on, the teacher invited the students to write their answers on the whiteboard. wrong answers or spelling mistakes were corrected together. additionally, the teachers taught the students how to pronounce the words in the songs correctly and translated them orally. lastly, they sang the song together. during the observation, it was found that the students listened and respected their partners‟ opinions. the students demonstrate their problem solving ability during the learning process. every answered on the worksheet was discussed at the end of the listening section with their peers. they managed their time well. between short pauses, the students directly discussed the answer and tried to find the right one. the details of the results are shown in table 1 below. table 1 observation results. categories characteristics y n comments receiving phenomena: awareness, willingness to listen, selected attention. 1. listen to others with respect. 2. listen for and remember the name of newly introduced people.   students were eager to listen to the song. they stayed quiet during the listening process. responding to phenomena: active participation on the part of the learners. attends and reacts to a particular phenomenon. learning outcomes may emphasize compliance in responding, 3. participates in class discussions. 4. gives a presentation. 5. questions new ideals, concepts, models, etc. in order to fully understand them.    students were enthusiast in class. the class participation increased when the teacher asked the students to write down their answers on the whiteboard. using songs to promote the affective domain in learning listening of efl students englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 100 willingness to respond, or satisfaction in responding (motivation). they were willing to be volunteers. valuing: the worth or value a person attaches to a particular object, phenomenon, or behavior. 6. sensitive towards individual and cultural differences (value diversity). 7. shows the ability to solve problems.   they respect other students‟ answers even though said students were those of low english proficiency students discussed the problems with their peers. organization: organizes values into priorities by contrasting different values, resolving conflicts between them, and creating an unique value system. the emphasis is on comparing, relating, and synthesizing values. 8. recognizes the need for balance between freedom and responsible behavior. 9. accepts responsibility for one behavior.   they were able to work in pairs and shared their responsibility. for example, assigning one student to open dictionary, and another would answer. internalizing values (characterization): has a value system that controls their behavior. the behavior is pervasive, consistent, predictable, and most importantly, characteristic of the learner. instructional objectives are concerned with the student's general patterns of adjustment (personal, social, emotional). 10. shows self-reliance when working independently. 11. cooperates in pair activities (displays teamwork). 12. revises judgments and changes behavior in light of new evidence.    they were happy and confidence in doing the tasks in pairs. if their answers were incorrect, they were happy to be corrected. in terms of working individually, they still need help. adapted from krathwohl, bloom, & masia (1973). during the observation process, the students paid attention to the teacher‟s explanations. they were eager to listen to the song being played and kept quiet during using songs to promote the affective domain in learning listening of efl students englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 101 the lesson. from this aspect, the students tried to listen with respects. they also asked the teacher to replay the song. they were happy and enthusiastic in the classroom. this positive feeling has led to their willingness to listen and enjoy the class. overall, almost all criteria were completed by the students except for three points; giving presentation, questioning new concept (responding to phenomena) and self-reliance. these limitations mainly happen because the students only answered the questions from their seat. they did not come in front of the classroom to present their answer. the reason why categories 4, 5, and 10 did not happen as expected was likely due to time limitation. the duration of the lesson was only 90 minutes and the teacher had to play the song several times to make the students be familiar with the song. this time constriction might become further concern that the teacher must pay attention to. however, the students seem to be more excited and happy in learning english. 4.2. interview results the interviews of each participant (one teacher and four students) were conducted separately. the results are discussed in two sub-sections. 4.2.1. teacher‟s and students‟ responses the questions were related to their challenges or difficulties during the teaching and learning. the teacher‟s responds were referred as „t‟ and the students‟ were referred to „s‟. 4.2.1.1. the students find difficulty to catch the words due to some technical things (1): “mhm. the difficulty is when i listened to the song, the song sounds cracked. we were not able to listen to it clearly. for example, we hear „said‟, meanwhile the true word is „say‟. what being told and with what we hear is different.” (s1) (2): “if the sound is set louder, the music and lyrics sound are unclear. but, if the sound is small, we can hear the lyrics clearly. then, there are some words that i cannot hear the sounds which made me unable getting the words.” (s2) (3): “mhm. it is difficult to get the words from the song. so, i was left behind.” (s3) (4): “ when listening to the song, there are songs that have fast and slow tempo. if the song is fast, it is difficult for me to get the words.” (s4) (5): “the difficulty….it is difficult for students to know the meaning of words from the song. many words are new for the students. that is why i have challenge in helping them improve their ability in vocabulary aspects.” (t) from the interview, some technical things occurred, mostly related to speaker and volume. to overcome these barriers, the teacher should be fully prepared in regard of equipment before the class started, such as setting the volume, bass and loudness appropriately before the lesson. using songs to promote the affective domain in learning listening of efl students englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 102 4.2.1.2. song helped the learning process become more fun and make the students happy the result indicated that songs have made learning process become more interesting and fun. meanwhile, some of the respondents stated that song helped them improve their listening skills. (6): “i think using song is good, miss, because we seldom use english language. with the use of song in learning listening, we easily understand what is being learned. besides, using song made us feel comfortable.” (s1) (7): “i think learning listening by using song made me easier in comprehending the lesson.” (s2) (8): “it is good. i think using song made us easier in understanding words.” (s3) (9): “it is really fun. i can learn in easier way and the environment in the class is more comfortable, made me enjoy the learning.” (s4) (10): “if we learned in common ways, i felt bored. but, now, using song, i felt happy.” (s2) (11): “i can learn in comfortable, funny and happy ways.” (s4) teachers confirmed that (12): “song makes students relax. they did not have to worry about the mistakes they made during listening. besides, the students are already familiar with song since they gradually listen to. hence, it makes them confidence in learning as well as feel comfortable around the environment that created by the use of song in the class.” (t) 4.2.1.3. songs increase students‟ motivation the students admitted that the use of song has a positive influence on their attitude and motivation of learning. on the following are their reasons: (12): “i feel my attitude change in learning listening. i mean i more focus during learning.” (s1) (13): “the influence is hm-mm i became good in listening.” (s2) (14): “i understand the lesson better and feel motivated in learning. (s3) (15): “i feel high motivation for learning. because, usually when i learned, i felt bored and scared. but, with use of song, i am more relaxed in learning.” (s4) the teacher supported the students‟ answers by saying that: (16): “i am aware that my students looked more focus and paid attention while learning listening using song. and i believe this is a good indication that song influences my students‟ attitude and motivation.” (t) (17): “my students seemed better in learning. they also find it easy in comprehending the lesson.” (t) 4.2.1.4. students prefer to learn listening by using songs the result showed that all students agree and prefer to learn listening by using song. using songs to promote the affective domain in learning listening of efl students englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 103 (18): “i prefer using song in listening. usually, while teacher explains the lesson in the classroom, students are chatting and make the class noise. but, yesterday, when learning using song, the students were quiet and paid attention to the lesson.” (s1) (19): “i prefer learning using song. it is made me faster in learning and understanding the lesson.” (s2) (20): “i like learning by using song, because it makes us become easier and faster in learning.” (s3) (21): “i like listening using song. usually, i feel bored but using song i am more enjoy and comfortable.” (s4) the teacher confirmed that: (22): “the application of song depends on the curriculum. if it is stated in the standard competency of curriculum, then i teach the students using song. hence, i could not say how many times exactly but i did use it if needed.” (t) (23): “usually, i need a lot of preparations to teach listening. but, using song, i only need song as the media and focus on the way i teach the students the vocabulary, pronunciation, and listening aspects.” (t) (24):“after recognizing my students‟ changes of behavior during learning using song. of course, i would like to teach them using song again. but, i also have to manage the use of song in order to avoid students become bored of application of song in teaching-learning listening in the classroom.” (t) 5. discussion the data for the first research question “in what ways does song promote the students‟ affective domain in learning listening by using songs?” were formulated and organized following the affective domain criteria suggested by krathwohl, bloom, and masia (1973). these criteria consist of five major categories: receiving phenomena, responding phenomena, valuing, organization and internalizing values. each category was divided into several actions, such as listening with respect, remembering the names of newly introduced people, participating in class discussions, and making a presentation. 5.1. receiving phenomena the students listened and respected their partners' opinions. most of the students remained silent and eagerly listened to the song being played. likewise, they listened and remembered the title of the newly introduced song. ryan and deci (2000) agree that students‟ willingness to engage in activities is based on three fundamental psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. 5.2. responding phenomena the students were enthusiastic to participate during classroom activities. they readily volunteer to write down their answers on the whiteboard without being asked to do so or being worried that their answers might be incorrect. with regard to item 5 (see using songs to promote the affective domain in learning listening of efl students englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 104 table 1), however, it was found that the students did not challenge new ideals concepts, models, etc. they simply accepted the teacher's explanation of the topic learned, and they readily understood it.in self-determination theory (sdt), ryan and deci (2000) agree that students‟ willingness to engage in an activity or lesson is determined by fundamental needs such as autonomy, competence, and relatedness. 5.3. valuing students were able to solve problems by working together. they need their partners‟ help to find the best solution to the problem they encountered. fata and aprilya (2021) explain that song is a good material in learning, especially when it comes to listening skill. during the learning process, the students show no reluctance of understanding individual and cultural differences. they even discussed the answers with their peers before writing them down on their own worksheets. 5.4. organization when the song was played again, the students discussed the answer directly and tried to recall the correct answers. this indicates that the students realized that there was no time for discussion when the song was playing. beasley and chuang‟s (2008) study also revealed that this positive environment has led to students to enjoy their learning process. 5.5. internalizing values students‟ participation in listening song activity increased (item 10 and 11). however, it was evidence that the students were still not having self-reliance when they worked individually. sometimes, they sang the song along by looking at the lyrics which supposed to be filled. the teacher reminded the students that they have to listen to the song carefully and kept quiet, just then the students become silent. they became quiet and focused in listening to the song as well as filling the answer sheet given. a total concentration during listening is necessary considering this aspect of english skill is difficult to master (seng, 2009). this difficulty is mainly due to the fact that listening involves a complex and active process where the students should be able to differentiate the sounds uttered by speakers (vandergrift, 1999). thus, more and more practices are needed to train students. related to the second question, the study found that the students' english abilities improved after learning the language trough songs. the use of song in english learning can increase students‟ interest, particularly if the song is the popular one (chen & chen, 2009, p13). furthermore, song can encourage students to talk about their feelings, emotions, and attitudes (kusnierek, 2016, p.23). the result of the interview with teacher and students also indicate that songs have had a positive impact on students‟ listening skill. furthermore, students also felt that the class using songs to promote the affective domain in learning listening of efl students englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 105 atmosphere is more comfortable and enjoyable during learning listening using song (see interview results). using song in teaching listening contributes to a better learning environment in the classroom (chuang & beasley, 2008, p. 1). despite some positive results, the students still have difficulties in catching some words especially when the song is rather fast (see interview no 1-4). this is likely the reason why the students are still unable to work independently (see table 1 no 10). thus, group work and teacher‟s help is needed. 6. conclusion this study tried to analyse the affective domain in terms of students‟ behaviour when they used song in listening class activity. from the finding, students‟ affective domain is seen from the students‟ active participation in the classroom. in addition, students‟ motivation also increases. the study reveals some positive attitudes towards using song in english language learning such as how students have more fun, happy and motivated during the learning process. however, some difficulties also appear. in cognitive domain, students find it difficult to catch the correct words mentioned. however, trough group work, pair, and class discussion, they can readily solve the problem, especially those that related to words that they cannot pick up from the song. it is pivotal that teachers use songs that consist of rich vocabulary that have meaningful insight for students. furthermore, teachers can vary the tasks that not only limited to catching the words and filling in the blank. some activities such as blind listening (without looking at lyric) can be done as a prior activity to activate their ability to listen to english words. teachers can also train students‟ pronunciation and tone. the activities can also be done for other skills such as speaking and writing. last, this study is limited only to assess behaviour and attitude as reflected in taxonomy bloom (more popular name for learning taxonomy). more studies related to affective domain and the correlation to cognitive and/or psychomotor domain is also necessary. thus, we recommend this area will be researched in the future. references achmad, d., & yusuf, y.q. 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(1999). facilitating second language listening comprehension: acquiring successful strategies. elt journal, 53(3), 168-176. https://www.academia.edu/6064079/empirical_and_attitudinal_effects_of_bottom-up_listening_activities_in_the_l2_classroom https://www.academia.edu/6064079/empirical_and_attitudinal_effects_of_bottom-up_listening_activities_in_the_l2_classroom using songs to promote the affective domain in learning listening of efl students englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 108 wagner, r. (1969). the study of attitude change: an introduction. in wagner, r., & j. sherwood. (eds). the study of attitude change. (pp.1-18). belmont, c.a: broke cole. wibowo, a. (2012). early childhood education (character building strategy at the age of gold). yogyakarta: pustaka pelajar. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2023. vol.10, no.2, 37-55 students’ perception of social presence in the online efl speaking class brigita woro diyatni kusumaningtyas, thomas wahyu prabowo mukti* sanata dharma university, indonesia manuscript received september 13, 2022, revised november 15, 2022, accepted december 4, 2022, and published online may 7, 2023. recommended apa citation kusumaningtyas, b.w.d., & mukti, t.w.p. (2023). students’ perception of social presence in the online efl speaking class. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(2), 37-55. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.15018 abstract some students claim to suffer from anxiety, which lowers their self-esteem and causes them to feel anxious and uneasy while studying a foreign language. establishing a social connection between the lecturer and the students is one of the possible solutions to this issue. the purpose of this study was to examine students' perceptions of social presence in an online speaking class and how social presence affects students' confidence in speaking class. this study employed quantitative research as its method of inquiry. the researchers distributed questionnaires to 159 students to collect data, but only 51 students responded. in addition, the researchers conducted interviews with a subset of participants to gain additional insight into the data required for the study. the research findings on students' perception of social presence in the online speaking class and the effect of social presence on students' confidence in speaking class revealed that students had a favorable perception of social presence in the online speaking class. the first finding's mean score was seventy-two point nine (x ̅ = 72.9). the findings demonstrated that social presence influences students' self-confidence, encourages them to learn more, and assists students in improving their speaking ability in speaking class. keywords: social presence; perception; online efl speaking class *corresponding author: thomas wahyu prabowo mukti sanata dharma university jl. affandi, mrican, kec. depok, kabupaten sleman, daerah istimewa yogyakarta, 55281, indonesia email: thomaswpm@usd.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.1 students’ perception of social presence in the online efl speaking class 38 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 1. introduction several studies have examined the advantages of online learning, including its convenience (nguyen, 2021) and flexibility (gilbert & fisher, 2015). however, there is still a drawback since there are no face-to-face meetings (moore et al., 2011). the lack of face-to-face meetings in online learning can lead to students having a sense of loneliness as well as a lack of social interactions with the teacher and other peers (gilbert & fisher, 2015) which are needed in a second or foreign language. in addition to the aforementioned problems, several students learning foreign language claim to have anxiety (horwitz et al., 1986) which makes students feel learning challenging, uneasy, and afraid of making mistakes (macintyre, 1999). marzeta (2020) says speaking anxiety reduces students’ self-confidence and causes stress and uneasiness which obstructs students learning. in addition, students stated that it was not easy for them to improve their self-confidence in the online speaking class (alrabai, 2014; al-saraj, 2014; raja, 2017; şenel, 2016). in order to solve these issues effectively, the online learning environment must provide sufficient facilities that allow the lecturers and students to build flexible social interaction. students, as well as lecturers, play a crucial role in determining how social presence in online learning is built. furthermore, teachers and students should make a supportive environment that can improve the students’ self-confidence by creating a social connection for both the lecturers and the students so that the students can nurture their relationship with the lecturers. sung and mayer (2002) described that shaping social presence, such as feeling emotionally connected to people in the learning environment, can help learners overcome insecurity and loneliness and engage in meaningful online learning. this study specifically focuses on investigating how social presence in the online speaking class at one of the private universities in indonesia helps students overcome their challenges in online classes. 2. literature review 2.1. perception everyone organizes, recognizes, and interprets information in their own unique way, and it is determined by what they observe, notice, and think. everyone, in fact, has a distinct point of view about something. perception is the process by which living beings perceive and organize their senses in order to create a purposeful viewpoint (pickens, 2005). in line with this, nolen-hoeksema et al. (2009) stated that perception is the process of humans monitoring and categorizing patterns of information based upon which we make decisions and take action. it demonstrates how people use perception to make sense of their surroundings. according to altman et al. (1985), there are some factors that influence a person’s perception which are a selection of stimuli, organization of stimuli, the situation, and selfconcept. people only pay attention to a small proportion of the stimuli that are presented brigita woro diyatni kusumaningtyas & thomas wahyu prabowo mukti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 39 to them, and it's known as selection. each person's perception is shaped by the stimuli they are exposed to. as a result, people will disregard information that causes them to worry (gibson et al., 2011). the second factor that shapes people's perspectives is organization. the term "organization" refers to how humans arrange selected stimuli for screening (altman et al., 1985). it must be organized in such a way that it becomes significant. someone's past experiences may influence how they view things (gibson et al., 2011). perceiving a circumstance is connected to adapting one's behavior appropriately. self-concept refers to how people perceive themselves and how people see themselves. their vision of the world around them is influenced by how they see themselves. it is crucial in determining how individuals perceive and act. figure 1. self-concept (altman, valenzi, & hodgetts, 2013) 2.2. online learning in this modern era, many people are attending online classes, especially those who have full-time jobs but still want to pursue their educational degrees. online learning gains more popularity because of the pandemic of covid-19. this pandemic stops all faceto-face activities, mainly at schools and offices. students are required to attend class virtually. since then, online learning has been getting more popular. many researchers say online learning offers opportunities for learning experiences through the use of technology. institutionally, formal education in which the learning group is divided and interactive telecommunications systems are used to empower students, facilities, and lecturers (simonson et al., 2015). benson (2002) and conrad (2002) believe online learning increases opportunities for education for non-traditional and disadvantaged learners. all teaching and learning procedures that are traditionally carried out in the classroom are delivered virtually through online learning technology such as learning management system (lms), zoom, whatsapp, skype, etc. according to anderson (2008), there are several technologies used in online learning, which are multimedia on the internet, web conferencing, streaming audio and video, instant messaging, audio chat, voice-over-internet protocol, digital games hand-held and wireless technologies, peer-topeer file sharing, and blogs (weblogs). this indicates that the lecturer teaches in front of a computer in a different place from the students while the students follow the lesson in another place. the learning materials can be available for free that can be downloaded by the students. in contrast, the interaction between the lecturer and students can be done extensively in the form of assignments or discussions. meylani et al. (2015) mention several characteristics of a desirable online learning environment. the ideal online learning environment must include computer tutorials and students’ perception of social presence in the online efl speaking class 40 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 online learning activities because students can learn at their own pace and level, which is beneficial for the retention of old knowledge and the acquisition of new knowledge. the media used in the online learning environment should be interactive. lecturers can use emotions, attitudes, and motivations to develop social relationships in the learning environment. in addition, in order to meet the different demands of every student, good online learning should be adjustable and adaptable. these characteristics are crucial in order to make the online learning environment fun but still meaningful. other than that, it can help the lecturers and students nurture social presence in the learning environment. the lecturers are expected to select, modify, and perfect online class activities that maximize the capabilities of the technology. this will result in enhanced learning outcomes for every student (anderson, 2008). 2.3. speaking in online learning in this pandemic era, students can learn and improve their speaking skills by using online media platforms such as whatsapp, youtube, google classroom, zoom, google meet, etc. the use of online applications in speaking classes will give a different atmosphere for the students. according to marzeta (2020), students believed that speaking class in the online learning environment was challenging to implement. one of the issues that arose was related to the students’ self-confidence. it was difficult to boost students' self-confidence in the online speaking class. one of the ways to help the students to increase their self-confidence in the online speaking class is by building and shaping social presence. polhemus et al. (2001) stated that one of the indicators of social presence is encouragement. according to nunan (1989), providing students with encouragement in the learning environment may increase their learning outcomes. therefore, encouragement is essential in shaping and increasing students’ confidence in speaking in class. moreover, ariani and tawali (2021) stated that lecturers could not maximally train the students to speak because of the learning designs which are still difficult to implement in the online speaking class in order to achieve the learning goals. it is challenging to design activities in the online speaking class. according to kusumawati (2020), in order to achieve the learning goals, the lecturers can use activities that contain a theory-practice feedback process. feedback from the lecturers helps the students increase their sense of self-efficacy and self-esteem (paolini, 2015). furthermore, lecturers should provide learning materials and clear instructions in the online speaking class in order for the students to have enough guidance during the learning process. thus, students will have more confidence to speak and express their ideas in the classroom. moreover, beebe and mottet (2009) stated that lecturers could use these six components to enhance their delivery or presence during an online class in the following. first, look directly at the students (i.e., the camera) and verbally call students by their names when giving feedback to achieve immediacy. second, build a sense of affinity by using facial expressions, a warm tone of voice, and eye contact. third, build relational power in the online learning environment that can brigita woro diyatni kusumaningtyas & thomas wahyu prabowo mukti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 41 result in a better outcome. fourth, enhance credibility by demonstrating the students’ depth of knowledge and making fair decisions. fifth, demonstrate clarity by speaking at a rate order for the students to understand easily. written instructions should be clear and explicit. sixth, humor can be used during online classes to lift the class atmosphere. 2.4. social presence short et al. (1976) initially discussed social presence in the social psychology of telecommunications. they defined social presence as the “salience of the other’ in using communications media.” in general, social presence is the degree to which one perceives the presence of other people while communicating. according to garrison et al. (2000), the community of inquiry (coi) framework has substantially determined today's social presence research. since the community of inquiry framework was formed, there are two other frameworks have been developed, which are the social presence model (whiteside, 2015) and the social connected design framework (van tryon & bishop, 2009). 2.4.1. community of inquiry (coi) framework the community of inquiry (coi) framework was initially proposed by garrison and colleagues in 2000. in 2010, garrison and colleagues explained how the concept arose from the environment of higher education's computer conferencing setting. this framework aims to better understand and identify students' online learning processes. the framework consists of three elements – social, teaching, and cognitive presence. figure 2. community of inquiry (coi) framework (garrison et al., 2000) many researchers have provided suggestions to improve the community of inquiry (coi) framework. shea and bidjerano (2010) hypothesized that there are two aspects that influence students' mental states, which are social and teaching presence. to address learner self-efficacy and self-regulation, the study added learning presence. to improve the coi framework, cleveland-innes and campbell (2012) proposed adding emotional presence to the coi framework. students’ perception of social presence in the online efl speaking class 42 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 2.4.2. the social presence model this model emphasizes the need for social presence in comprehending and learning in order to maximize learning in online and mixed environments (whiteside, 2007). in 2007, 2011, and 2015, social presence model and its five features were revealed in whiteside's study of a blended learning program: affective association, community cohesion, instructor involvement, interaction intensity, and knowledge and experience. figure 3. the social presence model (whiteside et al., 2017) whiteside (2011) stated that the social presence model fosters an understanding of the need of developing connections and nurturing relationships in the learning environment which can make students have greater motivation and increase learning outcomes. in addition, according to whiteside et al. (2017), the social presence model “provides a framework to establish an increased social presence, or connectedness, among lecturers and students for a more enriching educational experience” (p. 22). 2.4.3. the social connection design framework the social connection design framework proposed by van tryon and bishop (2009) suggests three strategies for resolving social connectivity difficulties in online learning environments: more interaction, thorough technological support, and continuous follow-up. this framework aims to “provide more guidance to online instructors about which e-immediacy strategies should be used and when they are needed in order to facilitate the development of group social structure in technology-mediated learning environments” (van tryon & bishop, 2012, p.349). 3. method the researchers conducted this research in december 2021 to explore the students’ perception of social presence in online speaking classes at one of the private universities in indonesia. the researchers employed quantitative research as the research methodology. this method allows the researchers to gather information from a group in order to describe abilities, thoughts, and perceptions (ary et al. 2010; fraenkel & wallen, 2006). brigita woro diyatni kusumaningtyas & thomas wahyu prabowo mukti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 43 3.1. research participants in this research, the participants were students from a study program at one of the private universities in indonesia. they were batch 2019 students who had experienced online speaking classes for 2 years. there were four classes consisting of 159 students. in this research, there were 51 participants who took part in answering the questionnaire. based on the questionnaire results, the researchers chose two participants randomly from each quartile to be interviewed related to their perceptions of social presence in online speaking class and the influence of social presence on students' confidence in speaking class. 3.2. research instruments and data gathering technique in order to collect the data needed for this research, the researchers employed both open-ended and close-ended questionnaires. the researchers adapted the questionnaire from richardson and swan (2003), tu (2002), aragon (2003), and rourke et al. (2001). there are two parts to the questionnaire; part i consists of closed-ended statements and part ii consists of open-ended questions. the researchers provided an explanation at the beginning of the questionnaire to ensure that the participants understand the topic. the first section contained twenty closed-ended statements that provided all of the information required to answer the first research questions. since there were twenty statements in the form of close-ended statements, the likert scale was used in this research. the students had to answer the questions in the closed-ended section based on the options given, which were (5) strongly agree, (4) agree, (3) neutral, (2) disagree, and (1) strongly disagree. it allowed students to answer questions by putting a checkmark next to the options provided. the second section consisted of four open-ended questions. participants were free to respond in any way they saw fit to the open-ended questions. in this case, the researchers discovered how people think by asking open-ended questions. furthermore, it also provided a great deal of data to answer the second research question. the researchers also interviewed the participants to gather more information about the data. there were four questions for the interview. the last, the researchers did a validity and reliability test to check whether the items of the questionnaire used for the research were valid and reliable. here are the results of the validity and reliability tests. table 1 the result of validity test. items rcount rtable description q1 0.634 0.275 valid q2 0.629 0.275 valid q3 0.678 0.275 valid q4 0.701 0.275 valid q5 0.691 0.275 valid q6 0.539 0.275 valid students’ perception of social presence in the online efl speaking class 44 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 q7 0.716 0.275 valid q8 0.453 0.275 valid q9 0.424 0.275 valid q10 0.368 0.275 valid q11 0.624 0.275 valid q12 0.635 0.275 valid q13 0.680 0.275 valid q14 0.507 0.275 valid q15 0.415 0.275 valid q16 0.600 0.275 valid q17 0.689 0.275 valid q18 0.638 0.275 valid q19 0.544 0.275 valid q20 0.625 0.275 valid the researchers used pearson product moment to check the validity of the instrument. based on table 1, the result shows that all rcount of each item is higher than rtable. therefore, the researchers concluded that all items used in the questionnaire were valid (df:49, rcount > rtable). table 2 case processing summary. n % cases valid 51 100.0 excludeda 0 .0 total 51 100.0 table 3 reliability statistics. cronbach's alpha n of items .903 20 pallant (2016) states that the ideal coefficient of cronbach’s alpha is > 0.7. based on table 2, the result shows that cronbach’s alpha is .903. therefore, it can be concluded that the items used in the questionnaire are reliable and can be trusted. 3.3. data collection in this study, the researchers gathered the data from the questionnaires, which were distributed in four classes of elesp batch 2019. after distributing the questionnaires, the researchers asked eight students to interview for the researchers to gain deeper information about the data needed for the research. before distributing the questionnaires, the researchers ensured that all participants had taken the online speaking class. brigita woro diyatni kusumaningtyas & thomas wahyu prabowo mukti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 45 3.4. data analysis in order to provide evidence to answer the research questions, the researchers analyzed the data gathered from the questionnaire. furthermore, the researchers also did an interview to gain more information about the data. to measure students' perceptions, the researchers used a mean score formula. the students were required to respond to twenty close-ended statements and four open-ended questions that the students had to answer. there were twenty statements in part i to measure the students’ perception of social presence in the online speaking class. the participants had to put a check on each statement to show their responses. each response had different points: “strongly agree” had five points, “agree” had four points, “neutral” had three points, “disagree” had two points, and “strongly disagree’ had one point. as a result, the lowest point in part i was twenty, while the highest point was one hundred. the mean score between twenty and one hundred was sixty. hence, if the mean score was higher than sixty (𝑥 = 60), the perception will be positive. otherwise, if the mean score equals to is less than sixty (𝑥 = 60), it causes a negative perception. the researchers determined the mean score, which was then used as the criteria for the positive and negative perceptions. then, the researchers concluded the result based on the students' scores in order to determine if the category had a positive or negative perception. the researchers applied the criteria to determine whether the elesp students of batch 2019 had positive or negative perceptions of social presence in online speaking classes. the criteria are presented in the following table. table 4 positive and negative criteria. mean score class 𝑥 ≤ 60 negative 𝑥 > 60 positive table 4 shows the criteria for positive and negative perception. this allowed the researchers to evaluate whether the students had a positive or negative perception of social presence in online speaking classes. the students had a positive perception of social presence in online speaking classes when the mean score was higher than sixty (𝑥 = 60). otherwise, when the mean score was equal to or was less than sixty (𝑥 = 60), they had a negative perception of social presence in online speaking class when the mean score equals to or is less than sixty (𝑥 = 60). the researchers concluded the analysis of the data by calculating the total mean score. additionally, the researchers used spss to examine the one sample t-test and the normality test for the null hypothesis. a normality test was employed to determine students’ perception of social presence in the online efl speaking class 46 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 whether the data is drawn from a normally distributed population. one sample t-test was used to determine whether there is a difference between an unknown population mean from a specific value. the researchers used the students’ probability value of 0.05. aside from that, two operational hypotheses were used as the guideline for the investigation. 𝐻0 : the students’ perception of social presence in the online speaking class is not positive. 𝐻𝐴 : the students’ perception of social presence in the online speaking class is positive. 𝐻0 : 𝑥 ≤ 60 𝐻𝐴 : 𝑥 > 60 in order to answer the second research question, the researchers provided the result of the open-ended questionnaire analysis. it was described by drawing the conclusion from the answers given by the respondents. the result of the open-ended questionnaire analysis will be presented in the form of a description. other than that, the researchers also did an interview to gain rich information for the data needed for the research. 4. findings and discussion 4.1. students’ perception of social presence in the online speaking class in this section, the researchers present the frequency distribution of the data and the histogram. the frequency distribution shows the frequency of all participants’ score that was obtained from the statements in the questionnaire. moreover, the researchers also present the discussions of the close-ended statements in the questionnaire. table 5 online speaking class students' social presence perception frequency distribution. no. scores frequency percentage cumulative percentage 1 39-47 1 1.96% 1.96% 2 47-55 1 1.96% 3.92% 3 55-63 4 7.84% 11.76% 4 63-71 18 35.29% 47.06% 5 71-79 15 29.41% 76.47% 6 79-87 9 17.65% 94.12% 7 87-95 3 5.88% 100.00% total 51 100 𝑥: 72,9 n: 51 sd: 10.1 according to table 5, the highest frequency was found at number 4, which had a range score between 63 and 71 and received responses from as many as 18 participants. besides, the lowest frequency was in numbers 1 and 2, with the total number of brigita woro diyatni kusumaningtyas & thomas wahyu prabowo mukti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 47 respondents as much as one person. it shows that there was one person who had a range score between 39 and 47, and there was one person who had a range score between 47 and 55. moreover, the mean score derived from the data was seventy-two point nine (𝑥 = 72.9). it indicates that the students have a positive perception of social presence in online speaking classes. as described in chapter iii, the students had a positive perception of social presence in online speaking classes when the mean score was higher than sixty (𝑥 = 60). otherwise, when the mean score was equal to or was less than sixty (𝑥 = 60), they had a negative perception of social presence in online speaking class when the mean score equals to or is less than sixty (𝑥 = 60). figure 4. online speaking students' social presence perception figure 4 indicates normal distribution (pallant, 2020). therefore, it is reasonable for the researchers to use a mean score of seventy-two point nine (𝑥 = 72.9) as the central tendency for further analysis. in order to answer the first research question, the researchers used the data gathered from the questionnaire. there were twenty closedended statements to discover students’ perceptions of social presence in the online speaking class. table 4 shows the mean score of the data was seventy-two point nine (𝑥 = 72.9). therefore, the researchers concluded that the students’ perception of social presence in the online speaking class is positive. based on the findings, the researchers found that social presence in the online speaking class remains an influential key component of the quality of the online speaking class. the students agreed that the social relationship between lecturers and students is essential. however, based on table 4 there are still some students who scored below or equal to sixty (𝑥 = 60). it shows that although the total mean score was seventy-two point nine (𝑥 = 72.9), some students experienced problems regarding social presence. according to whiteside (2011), developing social connections and relationships between lecturers and students is necessary to make a lively and comfortable learning environment. hence, the lecturer should build a more social presence in the class in order to develop students’ greater learning outcomes. however, anderson and garrison (2003) 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 39-47 47-55 55-63 63-71 71-79 79-87 87-95 f re q u e n c y scores students’ perception of social presence in the online efl speaking class 48 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 warned that while insufficient social presence can be disadvantageous to the learning environment, too much social presence may encourage argument and social banter. 4.1.1. testing and requirements for data analysis in order to determine the data analysis and to evaluate the hypothesis, it was necessary to conduct testing and requirements analysis. the researchers presented two test requirements which were a normality test and a one-sample t-test that were used to measure the significance of the findings. 4.1.1.1. normality test a normality test was employed to determine whether the data is drawn from a normally distributed population. in this research, the normality test used was kolmogorov-smirnov. according to the kolmogorov-smirnov test, if p > 0.05, then the data is normally distributed. table 6 normality distribution. tests of normality kolmogorov-smirnova shapiro-wilk statistic df sig. statistic df sig. score .099 51 .200* .969 51 .192 based on the result of the normality test, table 6 shows that the significance value is 0.200. in addition, it shows the normal distribution of students’ perception of social presence in the online speaking class. therefore, the researchers concluded that the data is normally distributed. 4.1.1.2. one sample t-test one sample t-test was used to determine whether there is a difference between an unknown population mean from a specific value. according to ross and victor l. (2017), the one sample t-test compares the mean of a sample to an a priori score (or population mean). table 7 significance test (one sample t-test). one-sample statistics n mean std. deviation std. error mean score 51 72.92 10.123 1.417 brigita woro diyatni kusumaningtyas & thomas wahyu prabowo mukti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 49 one-sample test test value = 60 t df sig. (2-tailed) mean difference 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper score 9.116 50 .000 12.922 10.07 15.77 based on table 7, it can be concluded that the researchers have enough evidence to reject the null hypothesis. the researchers conclude that students’ perception of social presence in the online speaking class is significantly higher than 60 (𝑥: 72,9, n: 51, df: 50, sd: 10.1, p < 0.05). as a result, the conclusion drawn from the alternative hypothesis is acceptable. 4.2. the influence of social presence on students’ confidence in speaking class in this research, the participants were not only required to give their perception of social presence in the online speaking class but also their opinion on the influence of social presence on students’ confidence in speaking class. the result of part ii, which was obtained from the questionnaire and analyzed, showed that social presence positively influenced students’ confidence in speaking in class. in this part, the researchers described the influence of social presence on students’ confidence in speaking in class into four parts. to obtain a deeper analysis, the researchers also provided the result of the interview. 4.2.1. sense of bonding in speaking class according to sung and mayer (2012), social relationships between lecturers and students can improve social presence over time. furthermore, the students will feel more comfortable around the lecturer. therefore, it is crucial to build and nurture the relationship between the lecturer and the students to increase social presence in the learning environment. therefore, the researchers decided to gain more information about the importance of the sense of bonding in the classroom environment by interviewing some of the participants. this issue mostly focused on how students trust their lecturers and vice versa. s3 said, “by having a strong bond with our lecturers and friends, we will have a secure feeling to talk to them.” s44 shared a similar feeling and it helped her to communicate with her lecturers. social presence was even considered one of the vital factors determining the success of the learning process by the participants. s36 highlighted it by saying, “if we aren’t comfortable with our lecturers and do not have a good relationship with them, i believe it will affect our learning as well.” s15 and s17 also uttered similar opinions regarding this issue and they felt a more social presence when they could trust their lecturers. they believed the relationship between the lecturer and students also showed how much the lecturer cared about their students’ perception of social presence in the online efl speaking class 50 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 students. it helped students to be more confident in expressing their ideas and feelings. however, s11 had a different opinion. she felt the closer her relationship with her lecturers, the more she felt the burden of her and her lecturers’ expectations. this was a notable remark since students nowadays were more aware of others’ expectations. based on students’ reflections, the researchers concluded most participants positively agreed that a sense of bonding between the students and the lecturer is one of the key factors to increase social presence in the learning environment. according to so and brush (2008), in order to increase the level of social presence in the learning environment, a sense of bonding plays an important role. building a sense of bonding creates a lively learning environment and affects the students’ learning outcomes as well. other than that, a sense of bonding also helps the lecturer to focus more on developing a deeper understanding of students’ needs. 4.2.2. students’ attitude to social presence building social presence in the learning environment has a big impact on the students’ learning process and outcomes. according to garrison et al. (2000), students’ perception of social presence is directly related to students’ perceived learning in them. in other words, students’ perception is a predictor of their perceived learning. the results of the questionnaire and interview show that the students agreed that social presence is important in the learning environment. the participants of this study highlighted the importance of student-student and teacher-student active communication. s17 expressed how crucial her interaction with her friends. “if our friends do not feel our presence and vice versa, i feel like i am not appreciated, and my opinions are not heard.” s4 highlighted “in learning, we must communicate. communication is a reciprocal relationship.” the utterances show that most of the participants understood and perceived a sense of social presence in the learning environment. the participants believed that it is crucial to have a social relationship between the lecturer and the students in the learning environment because it is one of their support systems to motivate them in learning. as s33 said, he had a social relationship with his friends. therefore, by understanding and familiarizing himself with the personality and characteristics of his friends, he felt a sense of social presence in the class. nonetheless, some of the participants described their speaking class as lacking social presence. s32 believed that her speaking class lacked social presence because some students came late and did not pay attention to the lecture. to solve this problem, it is important to build a social connection between the lecturers and the students because students who feel connected to the lecturers and other peers do better than students who do not (libbey, 2004). 4.2.3. social presence employed to increase self-confidence according to aydin and gumus (2016), high interaction between the lecturers and brigita woro diyatni kusumaningtyas & thomas wahyu prabowo mukti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 51 the students and social presence can increase learning success and motivation in learning. confidence is considered one of the basic skills needed in speaking class. therefore, to increase students’ self-confidence in speaking class, a social presence is needed. most of the participants believed that social presence positively influenced students’ self-confidence in the speaking class. s17 uttered, “i am more motivated and more confident whenever i feel the presence of the lecturer because the lecturer always gives me feedback to improve my thinking and understanding.” additionally, when the students felt the presence of the lecturers and other peers in the learning environment, it made them feel supported and appreciated. furthermore, the lecturer’s and peers’ responses made s36 feel that they acknowledged her presence and paid attention to her. however, some of the students felt more anxious whenever they felt others’ presence. s11 said, “i feel more anxious whenever i have to speak in front of the class in the offline class than in online class because i can see other people directly and feel their presence.” s15 also had the same idea as s11. she stated that it made him a little more confident when he did not feel the lecturer’s presence in the classroom. she said that she always felt more anxious and nervous in the offline speaking class because she could see and feel the presence of other people in the class directly. 4.2.4. the role of encouragement to improve self-confidence one of the indicators of social presence is encouragement (polhemus et al., 2001). according to nunan (1989), providing encouragement to students may help them to improve learning outcomes. therefore, encouragement is crucial in shaping and increasing students’ confidence in speaking in class. the result of this part highlighted encouragement as a key role to improve self-confidence. based on the findings, the participants believed that encouragement helps them to improve their self-confidence. according to díaz-ducca (2014), a lecturer’s positive encouragement influences students’ motivation in learning and self-confidence. the students felt safe because they thought that the lecturers and the students believed in them and supported them. s11 said, “every time the lecturers put a big smile on their faces and spread positive vibes, it makes me confident.” s36 also shared the same opinions. she believed that positive words and encouragement from the lectures and other peers made her motivated to learn more. however, s38 and s17 highlighted different ideas. s38 uttered, “usually, the lecturer encourages me before i perform my speech. i never received any encouragement from my friends. there’s no significant support to boost my confidence.” s17 also stated that though he received encouragement from the lecturers and peers, he did not feel his confidence was increasing at all. the students felt the encouragement they received was not meaningful to them. based on the data which were gathered through the questionnaire and interview, the majority of the participants stated that social presence positively influenced their selfstudents’ perception of social presence in the online efl speaking class 52 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 confidence in speaking class. in addition, to support the data above, the researchers also linked the data to whiteside’s (2011) theory, which states that in order to make students have greater motivation and increased learning outcomes, it is necessary to develop connections and nurture relationships in the learning environment. the questionnaire and interview analysis findings showed that social presence influences students’ self-confidence in speaking class. before the students performed their speech in front of the class, they felt nervous and anxious. in addition, they did not feel confident and were afraid of making mistakes. however, after they felt that the other students were paying attention to them and gave some encouragement and support, it made them feel more confident and less nervous. the findings of the questionnaire and interview showed that social presence positively influences students’ self-confidence, encourages the students to learn more, and helps students to boost their speaking skills in speaking class. 5. conclusion based on the discussion above, it can be concluded that the students had a positive perception of social presence in the online speaking class. social presence influences students’ self-confidence, encourages students to learn more, and helps students boost their speaking skills in speaking class. most of the students experienced the influence of social presence to improve their self-confidence in speaking class. the results of this study highlight several implications regarding social presence in online learning environments. first, the affective association is expected by the students in their learning process therefore, teachers and lecturers should embed this in their teaching and interaction with students. in addition, how the teachers/lecturers were involved in the activities and how intense the interaction was were also considered crucial by the participants (see whiteside et al, 2017). thus, to help students feel a social presence, teachers and lecturers should reflect and revisit how they interact with students. second, both teachers/lecturers and schools/universities should establish a community where the school/university bodies are able to interact comfortably both in terms of personal and/or academic contexts. the researchers admit that the participants of this study were limited to students of batch 2019 from an english department. most of the participants were from similar areas (mostly from java island) and had similar ages and backgrounds. therefore, the findings might not give a bigger picture of how social presence 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(2016). theoretical perspective on how to develop speaking skill among university students. pune research scholar an international multidisciplinary journal, 2(1), 1-10, from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/297013831. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2023. vol.10, no.2, 119-136 the relationship between sociocultural adaptation and l2 pragmatic development during online study abroad ismail tahir*1, aryati hamzah2 1phd candidate at the school of foreign languages, beihang university, beijing, china universitas bina mandiri gorontalo, indonesia 2universitas bina mandiri gorontalo, indonesia manuscript received october 24, 2022, revised january 18, 2023, accepted january 28, 2023, and published online may 7, 2023. recommended apa citation tahir, i., & hamzah, a. (2023). the relationship between sociocultural adaptation and l2 pragmatic development during study abroad. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(2), 119-136. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.15374 abstract although several linguists have examined the studies on study abroad (sa), limited studies have focused on online study-abroad contexts. the current study investigates the production of pragmatic routine and its influence on online sociocultural adaptation during online study abroad. this study involved indonesian students in english and chinese-taught programs at beihang university, china. as a mixed method, this study uses vocabulary knowledge scale (vks) and sociocultural adaptation scale (scas) to measure the students’ pragmatic routines production and online sociocultural adaptation. vks scale is used to investigate the expression categories, including expressions of thanking, requesting, complementing, and greeting. in addition, scas is also used to explore the students’ sociocultural aspects, cognitive aspects, and behavioral situations. as a result, the study shows that most indonesian students enrolling in chinese and english-taught programs tend to produce pragmatic routines even though the chinese aspect is produced more than the english aspect. furthermore, there is also a positive contribution to the production of pragmatic routine and its development influenced by sociocultural adaptation during online study abroad. keywords: l2 pragmatics; pragmatic routines; sociocultural adaptation; online study abroad *corresponding author: ismail tahir universitas bina mandiri gorontalo jl. profesor dr. h. aloei saboe, wongkaditi, kabupaten bone bolango, gorontalo 96128, indonesia email: ismailtahir@ubmg.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.15374 the relationship between sociocultural adaptation and l2 pragmatic development during study abroad 120 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 1. introduction bosker, quené, and de jong (2014) and kuhl et al. (2003) have conducted studies on the importance of learning a second or foreign language with native speakers (dewey et al., 2013). study abroad (sa) helps improve the target language and explore culture learning. therefore, experiencing second language (l2) learning allows language learners to explore linguistic competence and cultural boundaries. as l2 learners, they have to be competent pragmatically and interculturally, which means that they are required to play as intercultural speakers. furthermore, they have to be able to possess language interaction with different interlocutors in terms of their attitudes, society, and norms as well. to bring the phenomenon of study abroad, many indonesian students pursue their degrees (bachelor, master, and ph.d. degrees) every year abroad, especially in china, every year. they seek opportunities like other international students (is) to study in the classroom in several majors with english and chinese language as language instruction. concerning the targeted university for indonesian students, beihang university is one of the universities located in beijing that can be a good university for pursuing their degree. pursuing sa degrees provides several benefits. one of them is to develop students’ pragmatic competence (ren, 2019). however, little research on indonesian students’ sa experience in terms of pragmatic competence exists. therefore, this study is considered as a way to investigate indonesian students’ sa experience of gaining the pragmatic routines when they are studying abroad, especially in china, providing them the opportunities to explore as well as increase their second or foreign language, both english and chinese language as the language instruction in the classroom. many previous studies have conducted the l2 learners’ development in terms of the effect of instruction on pragmatic routines in academic discussion (bardovi-harlig et al., 2015b), developing the teaching materials using a spoken corpus (corpus-based materials) to teach pragmatic routines (bardovi-harlig et al., 2015a), and comparing the use of corpus-based materials and activities on pragmatic routines (bardovi-harlig et al., 2017). to fill the gap of sa research in the pragmatics context, the current case study explores the pragmatic routines of the sa context of indonesian undergraduate students enrolled in different language instruction delivered in their classrooms. some are enrolled in english, and others are enrolled in the chinese program. they are doing the same major in the business program of the school of economics and management, beihang university. furthermore, the pragmatics routines in this study are addressed to explore the influence of the sociocultural adaptation of two indonesian students during the fall term of 2021. the current study investigates the production of pragmatic routines employed by indonesian learners and its influence on their sociocultural adaptation during online study abroad. therefore, the research questions are as follows: to what extent does the production of pragmatic routines by indonesian learners studying in business and international programs delivered in english and chinese language instruction through online study abroad experience? ismail tahir & aryati hamzah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 121 how does online sociocultural adaptation influence the development of pragmatic routines? 2. literature review 2.1. personal experiences in study abroad students studying abroad (sa) will interact with their social environment. they meet many other people who speak differently from their first language. sa experiences provide opportunities for the students to explore several things, such as cultural exchange/differences, educational environment, language, etc. it is considered that this sa experience allows students to learn l2 during their studies. it is believed that sa facilitates the learners to explore more on getting the pragmatic context more in communicating with the nss or other language users, which can lead to a high level of students’ pragmatic competence (ren, 2019). it may develop language skills, increase classroom interaction, and decrease anxiety in the foreign language classroom. some previous studies have investigated the personal or the learners’ experiences when they study abroad. goldoni (2013) investigated the learners’ immersion experiences in study-abroad. the context of the study explored the ways of the learners’ opportunities to interact with the host community when they were studying abroad, including the cultural clash, miscommunication, and misunderstanding context they were facing in their daily interaction that can be done through online communication such as social media (sandel, 2014). by emphasizing this study, it came to the recommendation that it was important thing to provide the pre-departure experience for the learners with a valuable program in terms of study abroad that would help them to become more aware of the socio-cultural identities, the values of the culture, the learning goals, and the expectation of the program. concerning the learners’ identity, kinginger (2013) studied identity and language in the context of studying abroad. this study emphasized the effect of identity to influence the learners’ language qualities learning in the study-abroad setting and the language choices of the learners to be appropriate or rejected. moreover, it holistically defined shaping language learning opportunities and examined the development of pragmatic abilities related to the learners’ identity. this study also identified the classification of nationality or foreigner status, gender, linguistic inheritance, age, and ethnicity. of course, identity and pragmatic context were included for every category influencing the learners' language education and studies abroad. furthermore, kaypak, and ortaçtepe (2014) conducted a study concerning both the language learner beliefs and the study-abroad context focusing on english as a lingua franca (elf). this study explored the relationship between turkish exchange students' beliefs about english language learning and the study abroad in the elf context. the researcher, in this case, used three instruments to obtain the data related to this study. these instruments were llbq (language learner belief questionnaire), elicited journals, and sapq (study abroad perception questionnaire). besides, there were three important findings after gaining quantitative and qualitative results. the first point explored that after the pre-test and post-test results of their beliefs, there was a relationship between the relationship between sociocultural adaptation and l2 pragmatic development during study abroad 122 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 english language learning and the learners’ perceptions of study-abroad experiences. the next one was that it suggested that the students might stay longer than five months so that they would have any changes in their belief about language learning. the last point showed that the learners focused on the accuracy of intelligibility that might help them get interaction among the elf communities. furthermore, langley and breese (2005) studied the students’ out-of-class experiences in a study-abroad program in maynooth, ireland. their study determined three main points: how the program influences the students’ desire to be involved in the out-of-class activities, how the out-of-class activities encourage students to learn irish culture, and how the students’ experiences affect their attitudes regarding the cultures they were facing other than their own cultures. acknowledging the fact that the students’ experiences in the study-abroad context contribute more to some aspects, such as the pragmatic aspect, the contextual factors, and the individual differences (sánchez-hernández & alcón-soler, 2019), thus, the current study explores the students’ experience during study abroad in terms of the context of the pragmatic routine addressing the influence of the socio-cultural adaptation of indonesian students during the fall term in 2021. 2.2. pragmatic routines the pragmatic routines are always expressed by a speech community in a particular situation of everyday life, including (bardovi-harlig et al., 2017) thanking, apologizing, requesting, greeting, insulting, complementing, and offering strategies. moreover, using pragmatic routines in the sa context helps the l2 learners gain confidence and develop their interaction and communication skills with native speakers (nss) and other language users. thus, it allows them to be engaged in the use of the target language (tl) community to a greater extent. the learners’ proficiency level is determined by their routines and the opportunities of their interactions (roever, 2012); moreover, the recognition depends on the exposure to their routines. often called conventional expressions, pragmatic routines consist of strings such as you are welcome, take it easy, nice to meet you, and have a great day, which native speakers use in particular contexts. moreover, pragmatic routines are crucial to communication in social life, dealing with social knowledge expressed by daily situations. the concept of pragmatic routines may be expressed by one community because every region might have different pragmatic routines used by a particular generation. the pragmatics routines are categorized based on their meaning and function. the meaning category is illustrated to be more loosely or tightly linked to specific situations. a particular routine can imply a literal significance, for example, do you need my help?, or it may make only in a particular situation of the context (a situationally-bound meaning) “let me help you.” besides, an utterance may have more than one meaning, for example, “do you have the time?” ignoring the context, this expression indicates the time expressed in hours, minutes, and even seconds. on the other hand, it can also indicate the availability of someone. to distinguish the meaning directly linked to the specific situations and the function, the specific ismail tahir & aryati hamzah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 123 situation is used in a situation with a more fixed internal structure, as in the question what would you like to order? or what do you want? asked by a waiter to the diner(s) at the beginning of ordering the food and drink. thus, the significance of the expression is a little bit difficult to be understood without contextual clues. on the contrary, functional routines involve a more flexible form. these expressions may be used in different settings and discerning where the meanings are less presented. moreover, the inferential reasoning of the functional routines is not necessary, for example, do you mind if…? several studies have conducted the pragmatic routines produced by l2 learners during study abroad. sánchez-hernández (2018) investigated the effect of sociocultural adaptation related to the development of pragmatic production during study abroad, which focused on pragmatic routine production. this mixed-method research found that socio-cultural adaptation development obtained a partial effect on pragmatic gains and a direct effect on the learners’ cultural background based on the quantitative analysis. moreover, the qualitative analysis said that those socio-cultural adaptations, background culture, and gains played the role of pragmatic routine production. bringing back to the study by taguchi (2013), this preliminary study emphasized the effect of the proficiency and experience of studying abroad on the routine production of the learners’ ability. the participants involved in this study were 64 japanese students studying at a university in japan who taught english-medium as the language instruction in the classroom. the study results indicated a significant effect of the proficiency and study abroad experience on the appropriateness, planning time, and speech rate aspects. the next study by sánchezhernández, and alcón-soler (2019) investigated the l2 learners’ pragmatic development in the context of study abroad. the present study focused on recognizing the pragmatic routines affected by the influence of sociocultural adaptation. the study suggested that it was important to consider the study abroad program for acquiring pragmatic routines. 2.3. pragmatic development on sociocultural competence the exposure to cultural competence is considered the feature to accommodate l2 learners’ pragmatic development (taguchi, 2018) because the students are expected to be interculturally competent (root & ngampornchai, 2013). besides, intercultural competence is a complex of abilities needed by someone to communicate effectively and appropriately when interacting with other people linguistically and culturally. elola and oskoz (2008) studied intercultural development in the study abroad context. they investigated the study abroad and at-home students’ context to seek the intercultural competence obtained by the students as the blog users to mediate over the courses of a semester the students were taking. their study showed that the study abroad and foreign language learners employed intercultural competence by showing the unique characteristics of each group; moreover, the blog interaction positively affected the development of intercultural competence's development. furthermore, lee (2011) stated in the result of his study that the use of the internet, particularly the use of blogs, could maximize the learners’ potential in terms of their learning autonomy and intercultural communication or competence. the relationship between sociocultural adaptation and l2 pragmatic development during study abroad 124 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 similarly, the intensity of interaction during study abroad can significantly affect the students’ recognition and production in terms of conventional expressions. bardovi harlig and bastos (2011) conducted a study related to the proficiency, length of stay, and intensity of interaction employed by the host-environment learners of english, focusing on the use of the conventional expression in l2 pragmatics. this study showed that the conventional expression of the learners significantly influenced both proficiency and interaction intensity. in contrast, the length of the study did not significantly affect the recognition and production of conventional expressions, particularly in l2 pragmatic development. dwyer (2004) investigated the impact of study abroad program duration. this study measured the impact of program duration in terms of five learning outcomes: student academic choices, career development, the development of personal and social, the use and commitment to foreign language, and intercultural competence and awareness. as a result, it was found that studying abroad significantly influenced the mentioned outcomes. surprisingly, this study states that the impact investigated in this study would be sustained for as long as fifty years. in conclusion, several previous studies have explored the potential of intercultural competence and interaction intensity in the study-abroad context for developing pragmatic routines. however, no previous study has investigated indonesian students’ pragmatic routines development during study abroad, taking english and chinese language as language instruction in the everyday classroom. the current study fills this issue by enriching the knowledge and research of this study. 3. method the present study employed a mixed-method approach. the qualitative data were explored further by obtaining quantitative results. the combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches in the pragmatic context was supported by exploring the pragmatics routines in the illustration of making practical, contextual, and consequential considerations (datta, 1997). 3.1. participants and settings the participants involved in the current study were indonesian undergraduate students enrolled in different language instruction in their online classroom activities. there were 12 students majoring in business and international trade programs at beihang university. all these students were asked to fill out a questionnaire related to online sociocultural adaptation and their pragmatic routine production during their online first year in 2021, the fall semester. furthermore, they were also asked to have an in-depth interview to explore their online sociocultural adaptation. unfortunately, there were only two students who were able to participate in the in-depth interview conducted by the researchers. one is english taught and the other is enrolled in a chinese taught program. the names presented in the present study are pseudonyms. they both are women. nelly was in her first semester and her first year studying in china, majoring in business and international trade at beihang university, having english as the language instruction. however, silva was in her first year studying at beihang university, taking chinese as ismail tahir & aryati hamzah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 125 the language instruction in the business and international trade program, and her second year studying in china. she had been studying the chinese language for one year in 2020. 3.2. instruments in collecting the data on the participants’ vocabulary knowledge of the pragmatic routines, the adapted multilevel vocabulary knowledge scale (vks) version (wesche & paribakht, 1996) was used. this vocabulary test uses five scales to gain the core knowledge of the given words. the current study used those five possible answers in creating some expressions. the vkss were created in two forms, one was created to be distributed to the student who was currently having english as the language instruction, and another vks was for the student who had chinese as the language instruction. in creating the chinese format, the researcher asked for help from his friend, who is mastering the chinese language. example 1 shows one of the test items given to the participants. instructions: read the key carefully and make sure you understand the four choices below mark the appropriate column for each word after you read each of them. you are not allowed to use a dictionary while doing this test. a: i do not remember or see this expression before b: i have seen this expression before, but i do not have any idea about it c: i have seen this expression before, and i think i know the meaning of this expression d: i know this expression. it means ________ e: i can use this expression in daily life (translation, synonym, or explanation) besides, the sociocultural adaptation scale (scas) by ward and kennedy (1999) was used to measure the sociocultural adaptation of the participants focusing on both behavioral and cognitive adaptation. this adapted test was created to have the participants’ responses in rating from 1 (very difficult) to 5 (not difficult). there were 25 items included in this test. the original scale had 41 items, but this adapted scale was reduced to 25 items (ward & kennedy, 1999). these items included five cognitive aspects, including “understanding the educational system of china” and “seeing the particular regulation of china,” and 20 behavioral situations, such as “making friends,” “getting used to the environment,” and “finding a place to enjoy.” this situation also included the communication experienced by the participants, such as “understanding the utterances including jokes and humor” and “making themselves understood.” to make it understandable, the present study used the rating score based on the original version. thus, the higher score corresponds with a positive adaptation. table 1 the adapted items from the sociocultural adaptation scale. no items 1 making friends 2 using the transportation 3 making yourself understood 4 getting used to the environment the relationship between sociocultural adaptation and l2 pragmatic development during study abroad 126 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 5 going for shopping 6 joining the social events 7 having talked with others 8 being understood by the jokes and humor 9 being dealt with unpleasant 10 getting used to the local environment (food, drink, etc.) 11 following the regulations 12 being adapted to the local accommodation 13 communication with people who have different ethnic 14 being related to different gender 15 being dealt with unsatisfactory service 16 being dealt with people staring at you 17 going and enjoying the coffee shops 18 understanding the local language, including the accent 19 being adapted to the local etiquette 20 relating to elderly 21 understanding the educational system 22 seeing the particular regulation 23 being dealt with the bureaucracy 24 dealt with the foreign staff at the university 25 understanding the different cultures “the items used in the sociocultural adaptation” moreover, the qualitative interview was used to have an informal conversation with the participants. this qualitative interview was used to obtain additional evidence to make the research more valid. the participants were interviewed to check their pragmatic development related to pragmatic routines focusing on intercultural adaptation. 3.3. data collection and analysis as the preliminary data obtained from this study, the questionnaires were distributed once to seek the participants’ second language vocabulary knowledge or expressions and their pragmatic routines regarding their intercultural adaptation. table 2 word categories in vks. no vks thanking requesting complementing greeting total expressions 1 preliminary vks in english 5 5 5 5 20 2 preliminary vks in chinese 5 5 5 5 20 the participants were asked to put a tick in front of the option they thought was right. as mentioned above, there were five options in front of each expression. the result of this scale would help the researcher identify the participants' pragmatic routines. in coding the participants’ pragmatic routines, each response in the vks test obtained a point value for each participant. the average scores of this test were calculated on a scale from 0 to 4. option a): “i do not remember or see this expression before” received zero points. b): “i have seen this expression before, but i do not have any idea about it” received 1 point; c): “i have seen this expression before, and i think i know the meaning ismail tahir & aryati hamzah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 127 of this expression” received 2 points, d): “i know this expression. it means ________” received 3 points and e): “i can use this expression in daily life” received 4 points. moreover, in supporting the data collection on the participants’ pragmatic routines to have the qualitative analysis, a case study was employed to obtain an in-depth understanding of the participants’ dynamic interaction in the online study abroad environment for their cases. for four months, observations, interviews, and documents were conducted to collect the data. the observations have been applied from september to december to determine how each participant interacts with others in their environment in the online classroom. 4. findings 4.1. quantitative findings: general patterns the production of pragmatic routines was explored to answer the present study's first research question (rq1). as a preliminary result, the vks test was distributed to each participant. as mentioned earlier, the response given by the participant receives a point value from 0 to 4. as calculated from each vks, both english and chinese, it consisted of four categories: thanking, requesting, complementing, and greeting. the overall scores were the sum of the production of the pragmatic routines. thus, the maximum score each participant could achieve in overall pragmatic routine production was eighty points. the preliminary results obtained from the vks in english and chinese version as follows: table 3 summary data for the pragmatic routines based on four aspects (thanking, requesting, complementing, and greeting). the preliminary vks test mean sd n 1 preliminary vks in english 13.50 1.91 4 2 preliminary vks in chinese 14.75 2.22 4 to elaborate on the result above, the pragmatic routines are divided into four aspects, as follows table 4 means and standard deviation of pragmatic routine expressions based on five rates (0-4). no vks pragmatic routine expression mean std dev n 1 vks in english thanking 3.00 .71 5 requesting 2.20 1.30 5 complementing 2.60 .55 5 greeting 3.00 1.00 5 2 vks in chinese thanking 3.40 .55 5 requesting 2.40 .55 5 complementing 3.20 .84 5 the relationship between sociocultural adaptation and l2 pragmatic development during study abroad 128 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 greeting 2.80 .84 5 the statistical analysis above indicates that the preliminary vks test for chinese taught is greater than for english (mean = 14.75, and mean = 13.50). moreover, in a particular aspect of the five scales, the chinese pragmatic routine produced by the participant is greater than the english one. it can be seen from the overall mean in the result of vks in chinese. even one aspect (greeting) is not greater than the english one. overall, both table 1 and table 2 are similarly based on the mean provided. to conclude the results related to rq1, the current investigation reveals that indonesian students mostly use the pragmatic routines, but the chinese language taught is higher than the english taught in the production of the pragmatic routines in the first semester of their first year during study abroad at beihang university. besides, the findings of this investigation provide new insight that proficiency in the language influences the production of pragmatic development in terms of pragmatic routines. the present study's second research question (rq2) investigated whether sociocultural adaptation influences the production of pragmatic routines. table 5 sociocultural, cognitive, and behavioral adaptation by the chinese language taught. mean std dev sociocultural adaptation 3.56 .71 cognitive 4.0 .71 behavioral 3.45 .69 based on the result obtained from the participant, mostly his participant responded to a scale of 3 or 4, which means that most of her responses positively contributed to the pragmatic development influenced by sociocultural adaptation. moreover, concerning the mean and standard deviation in sociocultural, cognitive, and behavioral adaptations, the participant is adaptable to the living environment. on the contrary, some participants show the same contribution in producing pragmatic routines. still, some also show different responses in the sociocultural adaptation aspects, as shown in the table below. table 6 sociocultural, cognitive, and behavioral adaptation by english taught. mean std dev sociocultural adaptation 1.32 1.38 cognitive .00 .00 behavioral 1.65 1.35 obtaining the results above, the sociocultural adaptation for the participant (taking english as the language instruction) shows a little bit of positive contribution to the development of pragmatic development compared to the participant taking chinese as the language instruction. in summary, the results of the pragmatic routines focusing on the sociocultural adaptation during one semester of the participant taking chinese as the language instruction revealed that the sociocultural adaptation supports the development of the ismail tahir & aryati hamzah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 129 participants’ pragmatic development, particularly the pragmatic routines. however, it shows a slightly different contribution to the participant taking english as the language taught. 4.2. qualitative findings (both rq1 and rq2) an in-depth interview was conducted to gain information related to their pragmatic routines’ awareness and sociocultural adaptation in the l2 of the study abroad context to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the quantitative results above responded by indonesian undergraduate students as the results obtained from the interview showed that nelly experiences all aspects in the production of pragmatic routines but not in sociocultural adaptation aspects, however, silva experiences all aspects as well as the sociocultural adaptation aspects. these two students were voluntarily interviewed. moreover, their names were pseudonyms. nelly as mentioned, the names in the present study are pseudonyms; nelly has been enrolled in online learning for one semester studying at beihang university. she provided an ielts result when she applied to pursue her bachelor’s degree at this university as she told the researcher that she got 6.0 on the ielts score. moreover, to illustrate her environment, most of the people she communicates with are indonesian students since she lives in indonesia, but she sometimes communicates with other people using english. she explained that she does not have enough time to communicate using english outside the classroom. also, she gets confused about whom she needs to talk to, but she always spends her time watching movies, tv, or videos in english. concerning the research result from this participant, the positive development of the pragmatic routine production was not only evident by the results received in each expression of the vks version but also by her comments during the interview. regarding sociocultural adaptation, she determines that it has a low influence on her pragmatic development during online study abroad. “as my first year studying here, i seldom interact using english both in the classroom and outside the classroom. i also communicate with my indonesian friends who speak the same language.” compared to her responses in the production of pragmatic routines shows a positive contribution to pragmatic development. however, as a result, revealed in terms of the quantitative and qualitative sociocultural adaptation, she responded that the sociocultural adaptation is quite influenced. silva to support the quantitative results revealed by this participant, the qualitative result emphasizes that this participant illustrates the strong influence she obtains from the sociocultural adaptation for developing pragmatic routines during online study abroad context. as it is shown in table 5, the cognitive aspect shows the highest mean among those three aspects (sociocultural, cognitive, and behavioral). his comments during the interview session also revealed her pragmatic routines were influenced by sociocultural adaptation. most of her comments positively contribute the relationship between sociocultural adaptation and l2 pragmatic development during study abroad 130 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 to her pragmatic development focusing on pragmatic routines. as shown in a short comment by this participant: i always talk to everyone wherever i am. during my daily activities, i always use the mrt as public transportation, but sometimes i also take the buses to a particular place. i think i always say thank you and say ni hao / hi to everyone. her answers in the production of pragmatic routines and their form influenced by sociocultural adaptation illustrate positive expressions. she explains that her environment, including the place she lives, and the people she meets daily, including classmates, teachers, or strangers, help her improve her chinese language skills. even though she said, "i think my chinese has decreased a little bit compared to one year studying in the previous college, i still think that people around me still help me keep my language skills.” this case illustrates that this participant does not experience a low language skill level. it can also be explained that some factors effectively affect her use of chinese. the reason is that she has to manage her time to deal with many assignments and homework. she also has to manage her time to follow and join several online events of the students' union program. it is because this participant joins as a member of the indonesian student union. 5. discussion the current study attempts to investigate the development of the pragmatic routines influenced by sociocultural adaptation employed by two indonesian students taking english and chinese as the language instruction for their bachelor program by addressing two research questions. the one asked whether a semester contributes to the development of the pragmatic routines at beihang university, china. the second one explored whether sociocultural adaptation determines the production of pragmatic routines in the context of study abroad. the findings related to the first research question indicate that the two indonesian undergraduate students positively contributed to the development of pragmatic routine production during study abroad in their first year at beihang university, china. these results support the development of pragmatic studies (anderson et al., 2006; taguchi, 2011; taguchi, 2015; sabater, 2011; félix-brasdefer & hasler-barker, 2015) and particularly in the development of pragmatic routine (soler & hernández, 2017; sydorenko et al., 2018; üstunbas, 2017; barron, 2019). moreover, the present study innovates in producing pragmatic routines during a short time as the preliminary research of pragmatic development is influenced by sociocultural adaptation. like its results, this study emphasizes the participants’ pragmatic ability to express the meaning they obtain in their daily lives. the participants encourage themselves to keep practicing communicating with others such as classmates, teachers or instructors, strangers, and roommates anywhere. these findings are in line with the previous studies (taguchi, 2008; shively, 2011; sabater, 2011; anderson et al., 2015). furthermore, concerning the results of the first question (rq1), it collaborates with the previous investigation of the second language pragmatics development in the short-term study abroad (reynolds-case, 2013) and (hassall, 2013), particularly the ismail tahir & aryati hamzah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 131 pragmatic routines (hernández & boero, 2018; halenko et al., 2019). in this study, the production of the pragmatic routines highlights the various expressions employed by the participants. each participant shows a positive production in their pragmatic routines, such as “you did a great job” as they complement others and “could you please do me a favor” as they request people to do something for them, which facilitates them of the development of pragmatically appropriate language in the request form over time. regarding the second research question (rq2), the obtained findings of the production of pragmatic routines are determined by the influence of sociocultural adaptation. each participant shows the different results of the pragmatic routines in this aspect. the participant taking the chinese language taught positively influences the sociocultural adaptation to her pragmatic-routine development. however, the other one shows almost the same result as the chinese language taught program, but it does not significantly contribute to developing pragmatic routines. these results reveal some factors influencing their sociocultural adaptation, such as the increased social interaction related to communication and literary adaptation. this illustration is in line with the previous investigation by (forbush & foucault-welles, 2016). moreover, the next piece of evidence is that both participants join extracurricular activities while studying at beihang, which can influence their sociocultural adaptation concerning the development of their pragmatic routines. the previous studies have emphasized the intervention activities both in the academic and co-curricular in the context of sociocultural adaptation (antonakopoulou, 2013) as well as their second language beliefs (yang & kim, 2011) because the sociocultural adaptation will fully result in the development of the drawing the personal experiences during study abroad of the global cultural awareness (savicki et al., 2013). another proof also concerns the different cultures the participant faces in the study abroad context influencing their sociocultural adaptation. as explored by (presbitero, 2016) in his study, adapting to a different culture can negatively affect sociocultural adaptation. thus, it is highly suggested that every participant become more aware of sociocultural adaptation (gieser, 2015; wilson et al., 2013). notably, the influence of sociocultural adaptation on the development of pragmatic development in terms of pragmatic development represents the contribution to the pragmatic interlanguage field because, during study abroad, the students will experience many changes over time (matsumura, 2001; matsumura, 2007). regarding the findings revealed from the findings of the current study, both behavioral and cognitive are important for the development of pragmatic routine production. therefore, supporting (ren, 2014) emphasized the l2 learners’ cognitive skills during study abroad, revealing the students’ perceptions of the factors affecting their pragmatic development. moreover, the behavioral aspect can collaborate with the way how the participants communicate and how they motivate themselves (hernández, 2010; allen, 2010) to be encouraged to be involved in social interaction among all ages, particularly dealing with adults (xiao, 2015) because during study abroad, the students are expected to more adaptable with a foreign culture that is usually becoming ever more pressing (savicki, 2010). overall, the findings from the present study contribute to the understanding of how the students studying in the study abroad context acquire the production of pragmatic the relationship between sociocultural adaptation and l2 pragmatic development during study abroad 132 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 routines (sánchez-hernández, 2018). hassall (2013) reported that the production of pragmatic development could be obtained during a short-term period. this study explores the first semester in the first year of the participants’ academic lives. moreover, sánchezhernández (2018) explored that sociocultural adaptation partially influenced the students’ pragmatic development during study abroad. thus, the students should be able to use language proficiency and intercultural competence (watson & wolfel, 2013) as well as experience cultural development (anderson & lawton, 2011). 6. conclusion the findings from the current study have revealed that the development of pragmatic routines focusing on the pragmatic routines experienced by indonesian students currently studying at beihang university majoring in business and international trade (english and chinese language instruction) showed a positive contribution to the production of their pragmatic routines. it is determined mainly by the sociocultural adaptation experienced by the participants having chinese language instruction. there is also a positive contribution experienced by the students having english instruction, but it gains a few influences compared to the chinese ones. specifically, the present study has shown that the production and acquisition of pragmatics and intercultural competence are interrelated in bridging the l2 learners' interaction with native speakers or other different second language users in the context of studying abroad. furthermore, this study has several limitations that present future directions for future research. in mixed-method research, quantitative instruments were proposed to measure the participants’ production of pragmatic routines and intercultural adaptation. moreover, in supporting the enrichment of the findings and their analysis to gain more validity, the qualitative has been conducted by including the interviews to understand the quantitative results further. in addition to this study, the current analysis focuses on indonesian students at beihang university, china. therefore, the findings obtained from this analysis may not be generalized to indonesian students in the chinese population. thus, future research is needed to conduct the study with different sa learner samples of pragmatic routines. references allen, h. w. 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(2011). sociocultural analysis of second language learner beliefs: a qualitative case study of two study-abroad esl learners. system, 39(3), 325-334. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2011.07.005 englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2022. vol. 9, no. 2, 130-153 prophets and people of the semitic religion in english translated quran: corpus and cda over western power dominance rafika rabba farah * universitas muhammadiyah malang, indonesia rafikafarah@gmail.com puji sumarsono universitas muhammadiyah malang, indonesia pujisumarsono@gmail.com sukarma universitas islam negeri sunan ampel, indonesia sukarmafahmy@gmail.com manuscript received august 28, 2021, revised november 13, 2021, first published may 1, 2022, and available online may 7, 2022. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i2.10672 recommended apa citation farah, r. r., sumarsono, p., & sukarma. (2022). prophets and people of the semitic religion in english translated quran: corpus and cda over western power dominance. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(2), 130-153. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.10672 abstract the quran is the oldest scripture revealed by allah to the prophet muhammad (peace be upon him), and its originality has been preserved to this day, as evidenced by the language it employs—arabic. it has become a popular reference for muslims and nonmuslims alike, especially since the 9/11 tragedy. not surprisingly, its native text, arabic, is now widely available in translated versions, with english-translated quran being the most frequent. the current study intends to investigate the meta-religious text concerning prophets and the people mentioned in the quran. the primary data of this study were obtained from the english-translated quran by talal itani and analyzed with qualitative analysis software, nvivo 12 plus, using the text search and query feature. following that, discourse analysis was used to examine the text, social cognition, and sociocultural context. the results indicate that moses ranked first in the prophets category with 135 references, while the other prophets had a varied distribution: abraham had 72, jesus had 25, and muhammad had 12 references. people of israel were the most frequently discovered words with 42 mentions, followed by jew, * corresponding author https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6622 https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.10672 rafika rabba farah, puji sumarsono, & sukarma englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 131 christian, and muslim. this research reveals surprising discursive evidence showing muhammad and muslims were the lowest of all categories. this means that the quran is a revelation that is aimed not only for muslims but also for all humanities, particularly the other semitic religions: christianity and judaism. keywords: english-translated quran; corpus linguistics; critical discourse analysis; prophets and people 1. introduction islam has received negative portrayals from mainstream media, however, has placed its teaching into its peak of popularity. post 9/11 tragedy, muslim in america became more known, they started to be visible, vocal, and extrovert in public sphere (takim, 2004). people all over the world have been questioning what religion does actually islam teaches its followers. nowadays, there are many non-muslims try to find sources related to islam from internet or printed one. eventually, few of them start reading the quran from cover to cover with the help of english translated quran. capturing this phenomenon, pew research has projected that there will be a surge on muslim population by 70% in 2060; this number will take over the christianity (pew research center, 2017). quran is central and sacred religious text that its original language is still well maintained in arabic. however, in the sake of better spread the message of quran, its version has been translated into many languages such as english, mandarin, hindi, germany, and etc. quran in its english translated form has been used across nationalities for studying and teaching. nasr (2015) refers that the central message of quran is acknowledging allah as the only one god worthy of worship, other messages contain about creation of the heaven and earth, law, nature of human beings, ethics, economics, and politics. furthermore, throughout the surahs, quran details the sacred history of many prophets and their people. some studies about quran have been done in numbers. there are at least four domains that the quran has been studied by the researchers. first, it is in the domain of studying its linguistic elements such as semantic (yunus, zainuddin, & abdullah, 2010), morphology (zeroual & lakhouaja, 2016), ontology (ismail, rahman, & bakar, 2017), and cognitive meanings (al-saggaf, yasin, & ho-abdullah, 2013). second domain, the quran study was about the surah in english-translated quran, such as surah al-fatiha (mohamad, zadeh, lashkarian, & zadeh, 2018) and surah an-naba (hussain, shahzad, sadaf, farman, & sarwat, 2020). the third one was on the translation issue, such as researching about translator religious ideology (khosravi, 2012) and topicalization of english translation (mohammadpour & nikoopour, 2017). lastly, it is about a tool used to analysed the english-translated quran using qurana (sharaf & atwell, 2012) and weka (hamoud & atwell, 2016). among the four domains mentioned, the two first domains were done by researchers in computer science and their research discussions are on computerized prophets and people of the semitic religion in english translated quran: corpus….. 132 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 word occurred in the text; while the other two were conducted by researchers with the background of english major in which their discussion was more into content-based study. thus, this research attempts to integrate two domains between computer-based analysis, its corpus linguistics, and content-based analysis, its discourse analysis. the study aims to analyse the frequency of prophets and their people mentioned in the english translated quran, this focus is considered as a new topic emerged in the area. corpus data are analysed using qualitative data analysis software, nvivo 12 plus afterwards the meaning behind the text will be analysed using discourse analysis lens. hence, the present research can fill the research gap that still limitedly done in the existed previous studies which integrates two research methods—corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis—towards meta religious text (the quran). lastly, the research questions formulated in this research are: (1) what is the frequency of prophet and people in the english translated quran? (2) what is the grand theme emerged for prophet and people discussed in the english translated quran? (3) what is the most frequent word found in the english translated quran? what is the social cognition and sociocultural context of the frequency of prophet and people mentioned in the english translated quran? these research questions are going to be answered using nvivo 12 software (rq 1, 2, and 3), and then the results of data will be analysed using cda concept (rq 4). they were text, social cognition, and social context. 2. literature review 2.1. history of english translated quran translation is a complex process that a translator proceeds to convey meaning from the source text into the target text, it is all done with the purpose of breaking down the barriers between two languages. to better comprehend the source text through the target text, thus, the translation process needs to maintain the main parts of the source language. nevertheless, the message is difficult to be fully understood by readers. as a divine sacred book, translators find it challenging to translate the words of the quran. according to al-aqad et al. (2017), translating quran has always been a problem and controversy for scholars in islamic theology. as english is the most international language used around the globe, it is significant to have the work of translating the quran into english. english translated quran is a widely translation version spread in the world. according to tabrizi and mahmud (2012), historically, english translated quran firstly published in 1649 by alexander ross from french then in 1734 by george sale, a missionary man, and today there are about 80 translated qurans are available to study. al-saggaf et al. (2013) justify that it is known in the history that the work of translating the quran was done by scholar outside the ring of islam aiming at converting muslims into christianity. further, it is explained that the effort of translating quran by the insider (muslim) was firstly done by indian muslim. rafika rabba farah, puji sumarsono, & sukarma englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 133 2.2. studies of english translated quran a study on the field of english translated quran is limited, particularly in the domain of researching its corpus of historical content on prophets and their people. however, there are few scientific works on its linguistic difficulties in translating quran from arabic to english (ali, et al., 2013). their work figured out the difficulties in lexical which is caused by the absence of equivalent english expressions in islamic terminologies; grammatical realization of location in time; semantic problem; metaphoric usage; metonymy; ellipsis; and polysemy by selecting some verses of the surahs. moreover, a study on semantic meaning of puns in the english translated quran was done by aqad, et al. (2019). this research compared three different sources of english translated version of the quran by taking sample from certain verses of the surahs while in the end giving the evaluation on the puns that perceived the ambiguity happens. of the many researches on the english translated quran, the domain of analysing the corpus of prophets and their people is still very limited, thus, this present research is significant to be conducted. the prophets being research in this present research are chosen for the ones who are popularly described in the history to convey message to the semitic religion (judaism, christianity, and islam) and until today still being regarded by the followers; they are prophet abraham, moses, jesus, and muhammad. meanwhile, for the people researched in this current research are jew, israel, christian, and muslim. for the jew and israel belong to the same category, however, for the sake of capturing wider category, those two separated term used in this research. 2.3. semitic religion this article explores prophets and their people believed by three semitic religions, i.e. judaism, christianity, and islam. semitic religions are the religions that belong to the same root and share some similar teachings. however, as the history developed, it turns out that in the three religions are found differences in some theological aspects. instead of historical construction, political power seems to play its part for those differences. numbers of researchers have been undertaken in regards to these differences, such as topics about woman role and pluralism. qureshi et al. (2020) who study on the perspective of woman role in those three religions: judaism, christianity, and islam concluded that women in some religions are liberated their roles and another is restricted in their homes; however, the roles have shifted and women‘s responsibilities are changing in this modern life. the look on how these semitic religions view pluralism has been researched by biyanto (2015). results revealed that each religion of judaism, christianity, and islam teach a unique concept of pluralism. it is highlighted that islam as the one religion assumed as not being tolerant has proven that prophet muhammad had shown his best roles of living side by side among jewish tribes of bani quraidhah, bani nadhir, and bani qainuqaa in madina. further, the prophet had been successful in establishing brotherhood between muhajirin and prophets and people of the semitic religion in english translated quran: corpus….. 134 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 anshar. it is to say that even the three semitic religions differ in certain aspects of religious teaching, theologically and socially, they actually rooted in the same foundation, believing in their prophets and divine books. 2.4. western dominance islam in the history has been portrayed as a religion that is associated to many prejudices, such as its link to terrorism and radicalism. furthermore, the 9/11 tragedy had become a bombing case to explode and legalize the stereotype. its followers, muslims, have been judged as suspects in the airport for many criminal issues and their muslim identity and attribute such as beard, hijab, and abaya are accused of being radical. all in all, in that tension, muslims are banned in public sphere. research topic on this issue have been done by many such as on a niqab and veil banning (razack, 2018; al-saji, 2010); islamophobia in europe and us (garner & selod, 2014); and islamophobia in australia (briskman, 2015). islamophobia is a term crafted and known widely by the western world which then they drive people to islamophobic prejudices. bayrakli & hafez (2015) assert that ―…islamophobia is about a dominant group of people aiming at seizing, stabilizing and widening their power by means of defining a scapegoat—real or invented—and excluding this scapegoat from the resources/rights/definition of a constructed ‗we‘. islamophobia operates by constructing a static ‗muslim‘ identity, which is attributed in negative terms and generalised for all muslims‖ (p. 7). it is to conclude that this world perspective has been dominated by the western view, which can be significantly subjective, especially on how muslim and islamic symbols are attributed. thus, this piece of work is to see how actually this world has been dominated by the power of western worldview through cda concepts. 3. method 3.1. corpus linguistics a study on corpus linguistics has been widely applied to search for data set of written text or transcription of recorded speech. this study has the ultimate aims in analysing linguistic data verifying a hypothesis about language through sample. in its specific objective, this method is to gain objective data and to answer the questions on how frequent the language is used quantitatively about how much, how many, how often, and which language or terms appear together. it is now the sophisticated it is a facility for researcher to conduct a complex process of data gathering. for a specific analysis, a researcher working with corpus by uploading the dataset into computer software, then running the specific feature of the software such as running the frequency counts to get the result (ngula, 2018). 3.2. critical discourse analysis critical discourse analysis (cda) is often discussed and applied by discourse researcher to explore the association between socio-cultural context over discourse, rafika rabba farah, puji sumarsono, & sukarma englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 135 power, dominance and social inequality (van dijk, 1996). thus, it is to summarize that cda is used to analyse how and why text is used over social context with the embodiment of discourse, power, dominance, and inequality. van dijk‘s concept of cda is represented through social cognition and later into a broader concept of social context. in this present study, the result of quran analysis will be examined using cda concept by looking at how quran is portrayed over western power and dominance. thus, the data derived from the english-translated quran by talal itani will be analysed using cda lens under van dijk‘s concept to see the text, social cognition, and also social context. 3.3. research object the object of this research used english-translated quran by talal itani. this version was chosen as it claims the language written in the sacred book used modern english. this english translated-quran published by clearquran in dallas beirut. the online version was downloaded from www.clearquran.com. the chapters (surah) translated were exactly the same as its original version in arabic that consist of 114 chapters from al-faatihah (the opening) to an-nas (mankind) all-inclusive in 30 juz. 3.4. data analysis data were analysed by implementing qualitative data analysis software, nvivo 12 plus. one of the features used was ‗text search‘. in its process, the words in data group 1, names of the prophets including abraham, moses, jesus, and muhammad; whereas data for group 2 includes jew, israel, christian, and muslim are put into the software in turn ‗with their stemmed words‘. as it is calculated, the ‗word tree‘ of each word was drawn. the ‗word tree‘ listed out how the ‗words‘ were used in the context which is very interesting to dig out more on its discourse. 4. findings and discussion 4.1. corpus of prophet in the english translated quran the first word group studied was about the corpus linguistics of prophets mentioned in the sacred book, the quran. moses appeared as the most frequent prophets mentioned with 135 references, came afterwards abraham (72 references) and jesus (25 references). meanwhile, strikingly muhammad as the prophet sent down to him the quran, the ultimate revelation from allah, was found as the least one with only 12 references, 1: 12 compared to moses. table 1 frequency of prophets mentioned in the quran. prophet references coverage prophets and people of the semitic religion in english translated quran: corpus….. 136 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 moses 135 0,04% abraham 74 0,03% jesus 25 0,01% muhammad 12 0,01% with 135 references in the quran, the words in context related to moses were about the story of pharaoh, allah sent him to tyrannical people, striking the sea with his stick, and etc. in a complete narration, one of the saying found in the word tree was the book of moses brought a light and guidance. figure 1. a corpus on ‗moses‘ word tree 4.1.1. abraham’s word tree about abraham, the father of all prophets, he was mentioned in the context of quran about fighting against his people/faith of his father, his family, his being tested to kill ishmael, his being monotheist, etc. one of the words in context says, … abraham said to his father, azar. rafika rabba farah, puji sumarsono, & sukarma englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 137 figure 2. a corpus on ‗abraham‘ word tree 4.1.2. jesus’ word tree with 25 references, jesus words in context told about his being messiah, son of marry, his relation to his relative zechariah, his being killed, he was mentioned along with abraham, moses, jonah, job, elias, and other fulfilling stories. one of the contexts says, jesus came with the clarifications. prophets and people of the semitic religion in english translated quran: corpus….. 138 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 figure 3. a corpus on ‗jesus‘ word tree 4.1.3. muhammad’s word tree muhammad happened to be the least prophet mentioned in the quran, compared to the other three prophets although the book is revealed to him. the quran narrated his being a messenger of allah, the truth of quran, his graceful manner, etc. and one of the words in the context used was … muhammad is the messenger of god. figure 4. a corpus on ‗muhammad‘ word tree meanwhile, the name of muhammad is also called ahmad. for its frequency, the word ahmad is mentioned only once in surah as-saff (column) verse 6. the use of the rafika rabba farah, puji sumarsono, & sukarma englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 139 word ahmad instead of muhammad is in the context of jesus informing the children of israel about the coming prophet after him, he is muhammad. it says in the quran, ―and when jesus son of marry said, ―o children of israel, i am allah‘s messenger to you, confirming what preceded me the torah, and announcing good news of a messenger who will come after me, whose name is ahmad,‖ figure 5. a corpus on ‗ahmad‘ word tree 4.2. corpus of people mentioned in the english translated quran the finding shows that the most frequent people mentioned in the quran was israel with 42 references, following it jew with 19 references; and christian with 15 references; meanwhile remarkably muslim as, let say, the owner of the book, have the lowest frequency of mentions with only 10 references, or around 1:4 division. table 2 corpus of people mentioned in the english translated quran. people references coverage israel 42 0,02% jew 19 0,01% christian 15 0,01% muslim 10 0,01% 4.2.1. the israel the word ‗israel‘ was drawn into a word tree so that the context of how the words used were clearly captured. it was found that ‗israel‘ was frequently mentioned with its collocation ‗the children of israel‘. the example listed in the context from the word tree was ‘we delivered the children of israel the book, and wisdom, and… another was and let the children of israel across the sea. and when… prophets and people of the semitic religion in english translated quran: corpus….. 140 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 figure 6. a corpus on israel word tree 4.2.2. people of jew for ‗jew‘, this word was frequently mentioned in the quran with its stemmed words ‗the jews‘. the example of the context how the word was used is as follow … ‘believe; and among the jews say, “god’s hand is tied… another was prophets ruled the jews…‘ figure 7. a corpus on jews word tree rafika rabba farah, puji sumarsono, & sukarma englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 141 4.2.3. the christians the word ‗christian‘ was frequently used with its stemmed words christians. the results preview that one of the words in context used was they say, “be jews or christians—whoever believes in god and… another was ‗they say, “those who say we are christians are not based on anything…’ figure 8. a corpus on ‗christians‘ word tree 4.2.4. the muslims lastly, similar to the previous section, the word muslim was also mostly used with its stemmed words muslims. the word in context was ‗do not die except as muslims…’ another was ‗disbelieve would like to become muslims before, and in this…’ figure 9. a corpus on ‗muslims‘ word tree prophets and people of the semitic religion in english translated quran: corpus….. 142 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 4.3. grand themes emerged for prophets and people in the english translated quran upon drawing on prophets and people‘s corpus, the next finding discusses the major themes appeared from each category. a clear distribution is presented in figure 9, whereas to understand more on the content of the corpus linguistics, two words in context are also given for each category to better explain the words occurrence. figure 10. grand theme emerged for prophets and people 4.3.1. prophets 4.3.1.1. moses the word moses has the most frequency compared to the other prophets, it is detailed in the english translated quran related to his prophethood, that god (allah) spoke to him directly; the word moses also used frequently associated to his people— the children of israel. further, the word moses traced for the many dialogues with his people and reminders about the blessing given to them; also, the relation between moses and pharaoh as his caretaker as well as enemy is detailed in the event of his preaching or a call to serve allah only; lastly, the word moses is mentioned several times together with his scripture. words in context: prophecy (40) 164. some messengers we have already told you about, while some messengers we have not told you about. and allah spoke to moses directly. 144. he said, ―o moses, i have chosen you over all people for my messages and for my words. so take what i have given you, and be one of the thankful.‖ 37 40 39 34 19 12 7 6 6 5 9 7 6 19 15 11 9 3 2 2 3 3 8 3 1 1 1 3 2 1 1 4 2 1 2 1 rafika rabba farah, puji sumarsono, & sukarma englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 143 children of israel (39) 54. and recall that moses said to his people, ―o my people, you have done wrong to yourselves by worshiping the calf. so repent to your maker, and kill your egos. that would be better for you with your maker.‖ 20. when moses said to his people, ―o my people, remember allah‘s blessings upon you, when he placed prophets among you, and made you kings, and gave you what he never gave any other people.‖ pharaoh (37) 104. moses said, ―o pharaoh, i am a messenger from the lord of the worlds.‖ 117. and we inspired moses: ―throw your staff.‖ and at once, it swallowed what they were faking. he said, ―who is your lord, o moses.‖ scripture (19) 2. and we gave moses the scripture, and made it a guide for the children of israel: take none for protector other than me (al-isra‘: 2). 35. we gave moses the scripture, and appointed his brother aaron as his assistant. 4.3.1.2. abraham abraham is the father of all prophets as many prophets are on his descendant. the word abraham is used several times in relation to the narration of his prophethood; his being monotheist as he is not an idolater; and some test he confronted with his father (idolater), the ruler king at the time, and a test given by allah to sacrifice his son; lastly, abraham is also mentioned as the first builder of the house of allah, the ka‘ba. words in context prophecy 33. allah chose adam, and noah, and the family of abraham, and the family of imran, over all mankind. 26. we sent noah and abraham, and established in their line prophethood and the scripture. some of them are guided, but many of them are sinners. monotheist 135. and they say, ―be jews or christians, and you will be guided.‖ say, ―rather, the religion of abraham, the monotheist; he was not an idolater.‖ (al-baqarah: 135) 67. abraham was neither a jew nor a christian, but he was a monotheist, a muslim. and he was not of the polytheists. test 69. we said, ―o fire, be coolness and safety upon abraham.‖ prophets and people of the semitic religion in english translated quran: corpus….. 144 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 35. recall that abraham said, ―o my lord, make this land peaceful, and keep me and my sons from worshiping idols.‖ house of allah 125. and we made the house a focal point for the people, and a sanctuary. use the shrine of abraham as a place of prayer. 127. as abraham raises the foundations of the house, together with ishmael, ―our lord, accept it from us, you are the hearer, the knower. 4.3.1.3. jesus jesus, son of marry is one of the prophets respected in the quran. his names are frequently mentioned in the idea of telling his prophethood that allah does not differ him from any other prophets; also, jesus is detailed on his effort to call for the children of israel to believe in allah; his miraculous birth through the womb of noble women marry. lastly, jesus‘ name is also related to the revelation given to him, the gospel. prophecy 84. say, ―we believe in allah, and in what was revealed to us; and in what was revealed to abraham, and ishmael, and isaac, and jacob, and the patriarchs; and in what was given to moses, and jesus, and the prophets from their lord. we make no distinction between any of them, and to him we submit.‖ 171. o people of the scripture! do not exaggerate in your religion, and do not say about allah except the truth. the messiah, jesus, the son of mary, is the messenger of allah, and his word that he conveyed to mary. children of israel 78. cursed were those who disbelieved from among the children of israel by the tongue of david and jesus son of mary. that is because they rebelled and used to transgress. 6. and when jesus son of mary said, ―o children of israel, i am allah‘s messenger to you, confirming what preceded me of the torah, and announcing good news of a messenger who will come after me, whose name is ahmad.‖ but when he showed them the miracles, they said, ―this is obvious sorcery.‖ miracle we gave jesus son of mary the clear miracles 45. the angels said, ―o mary, allah gives you good news of a word from him. his name is the messiah, jesus, son of mary, well-esteemed in this world and the next, and one of the nearest. gospel 46. in their footsteps, we sent jesus son of mary, fulfilling the torah that preceded him; and we gave him the gospel, rafika rabba farah, puji sumarsono, & sukarma englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 145 27. then we sent in their wake our messengers, and followed up with jesus son of mary, and we gave him the gospel, 4.3.1.4. muhammad muhammad is the least frequent prophet literally mentioned in the english translated text. his mentions are related to his being a messenger of allah and he is the last prophet of all. it is emphasized that muhammad is only a prophet, no more. this emphasize is directed towards the ones who predicted to transgress the rule of the religion. also, the word muhammad is associated to the revelation sent down to him. words in context prophecy 144. muhammad is no more than a messenger. (ali ‗imran: 144) 40. muhammad is not the father of any of your men; but he is the messenger of allah, and the seal of the prophets. allah is cognizant of everything scripture 2. while those who believe, and work righteousness, and believe in what was sent down 4.4. people 4.4.1. children of israel children of israel are found as the most frequent people mentioned in the english translated quran. as it is analyzed, the frequency occurs on the major themes of their numbers of blessing that allah given such as their request on food sent down from the heaven; others are about their being misguided, it is detailed that they had turned away from the many blessings given; also, their names emerged together with moses and his scripture; another, the names are also related to the story of pharaoh that he was the one who put them in severe life. lastly, the children of israel also mentioned together with jesus and there are some warnings given in their life. words in context blessing 40. o children of israel! remember my blessings which i bestowed upon you, and fulfil your pledge to me, and i will fulfil my pledge to you, and fear me. (al-baqarah: 40) 80. o children of israel! we have delivered you from your enemy, and promised you by the right side of the mount, and sent down to you manna and quails. misguided 246. have you not considered the notables of the children of israel after moses? when they said to a prophet of theirs, ―appoint a king for us, and we will fight in the cause of allah.‖ he said, ―is it possible that, if fighting was ordained for you, you would not fight?‖ they said, ―why would we prophets and people of the semitic religion in english translated quran: corpus….. 146 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 not fight in the cause of allah, when we were driven out of our homes, along with our children?‖ but when fighting was ordained for them, they turned away, except for a few of them. but allah is aware of the wrongdoers. 70. we made a covenant with the children of israel, and we sent to them messengers. whenever a messenger came to them with what their souls did not desire, some of them they accused of lying, and others they put to death. scripture 2. and we gave moses the scripture, and made it a guide for the children of israel: take none for protector other than me. 23. we gave moses the book; so do not be in doubt regarding his encounter; and we made it a guidance for the children of israel pharaoh 17. let the children of israel go with us.'― 22. is that the favor you taunt me with, although you have enslaved the children of israel? jesus 6. and when jesus son of mary said, ―o children of israel, i am allah‘s messenger to you, confirming what preceded me of the torah, and announcing good news of a messenger who will come after me, whose name is ahmad.‖ but when he showed them the miracles, they said, ―this is obvious sorcery.‖ 14. o you who believe! be supporters of allah, as jesus son of mary said to the disciples, ―who are my supporters towards allah?‖ the disciples said, ―we are allah's supporters.‖ so a group of the children of israel believed, while another group disbelieved. we supported those who believed against their foe, so they became dominant. warning 72. they disbelieve those who say, ―allah is the messiah the son of mary.‖ but the messiah himself said, ―o children of israel, worship allah, my lord and your lord. whoever associates others with allah, allah has forbidden him paradise, and his dwelling is the fire. the wrongdoers have no saviors.‖ 104. after him, we said to the children of israel, ―inhabit the land, and when the promise of the hereafter arrives, we will bring you all together.‖ 4.4.2. jews the word jews has the same meaning to children of israel, but it has different mention in the quran. jews refer more into the one tribe of israel, while israel means prophet ya‘qub, thus children of israel is the children or grandchildren of prophet ya‘qub. specifically, the word jews is mentioned in the quran in relation to their being astray from the religion; yet they read a scripture, the torah. rafika rabba farah, puji sumarsono, & sukarma englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 147 words in context misguided 46. among the jews are some who take words out of context, and say, ―we hear and we disobey‖, and ―hear without listening‖, and ―observe us,‖ twisting with their tongues and slandering the religion. had they said, ―we hear and we obey‖, and ―listen‖, and ―give us your attention,‖ it would have been better for them, and more upright. but allah has cursed them for their disbelief; they do not believe except a little. 160. due to wrongdoing on the part of the jews, we forbade them good things that used to be lawful for them; and for deterring many from allah‘s path. scripture 113. the jews say, ―the christians are not based on anything;‖ and the christians say, ―the jews are not based on anything.‖ yet they both read the scripture. similarly, the ignorant said the same thing. allah will judge between them on the day of resurrection regarding their differences. (albaqarah: 113) 44. we have revealed the torah, wherein is guidance and light. the submissive prophets ruled the jews according to it, so did the rabbis and the scholars, as they were required to protect allah‘s book, and were witnesses to it. so do not fear people, but fear me. and do not sell my revelations for a cheap price. those who do not rule according to what allah revealed are the unbelievers. 4.4.3. christians likewise, christians narration in the quran is also detailing their being misguided as they neglected some of the reminders and transgressed the religion by saying that they are the children of allah and his beloved; also, the mentions is related to the existence of heaven and judgment day. words in context misguided 14. and from those who say, ―we are christians,‖ we received their pledge, but they neglected some of what they were reminded of. so we provoked enmity and hatred among them until the day of resurrection; allah will then inform them of what they used to craft. 18. the jews and the christians say, ―we are the children of allah, and his beloved.‖ say, ―why then does he punish you for your sins?‖ in fact, you are humans from among those he created. he forgives whom he wills, and he punishes whom he wills. to allah belongs the dominion of the heavens and the earth and what lies between them, and to him is the return. hereafter 111. and they say, ―none will enter heaven unless he is a jew or a christian.‖ these are their wishes. say, ―produce your proof, if you are truthful.‖ prophets and people of the semitic religion in english translated quran: corpus….. 148 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 17. those who believe, and those who are jewish, and the sabeans, and the christians, and the zoroastrians, and the polytheists—allah will judge between them on the day of resurrection. allah is witness to all things. monotheism 67. abraham was neither a jew nor a christian, but he was a monotheist, a muslim. and he was not of the polytheists. 69. those who believe, and the jews, and the sabians, and the christians—whoever believes in allah and the last day, and does what is right—they have nothing to fear, nor shall they grieve. 4.4.4. muslim in line with the word muhammad previously, the word muslims is literally identified as the least category mentioned in the quran. the reference of this word is related to submit their will to allah, being monotheist, and the practice of worship. words in context submission 81. nor can you guide the blind out of their straying. you can make no one listen, except those who believe in our verses; for they are muslims. (al-qasas: 81) 53. when it is recited to them, they say, ―we have believed in it; it is the truth from our lord; we were muslims prior to it.‖ monotheism 67. abraham was neither a jew nor a christian, but he was a monotheist, a muslim. and he was not of the polytheists. 102. o you who believe! revere allah with due reverence, and do not die except as muslims worship 78. and strive for allah, with the striving due to him. he has chosen you, and has not burdened you in religion—the faith of your father abraham. it is he who named you muslims before, and in this. so that the messenger may be a witness over you, and you may be witnesses over the people. so pray regularly, and give regular charity, and cleave to allah. he is your protector. what an excellent protector, and what an excellent helper 35. muslim men and muslim women, believing men and believing women, obedient men and obedient women, truthful men and truthful women, patient men and patient women, humble men and humble women, charitable men and charitable women, fasting men and fasting women, men who guard their chastity and women who guard, men who remember allah frequently and women who remember—allah has prepared for them a pardon, and an immense reward. comparison 35. shall we treat the muslims like the villains? rafika rabba farah, puji sumarsono, & sukarma englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 149 4.5. the 50 most frequent words mentioned in the english translated quran figure 11. 50 words frequently mentioned in the quran table 3. five frequent words of the word cloud words frequency allah 2815 lord 975 people 682 day 466 believe 415 5. discussion this finding presents some indications for arguments based on the cda prompted by fairlough (1992) about text, social cognition, and sociocultural context. first of all, from its text, it has been discovered that the prophets frequently mentioned in the english-translated quran was not muhammad (12 references). however, the most frequent one was moses (135 references), following him abraham (72 references) and jesus (25 references), and the first two are the prophets believed by the children of israel and the jews, whereas all of them respected fully by the christians and surely muslims. further, the second finding shows that the most frequent people mentioned in the english-translated quran was the children of israel (42 references), jews (19 references), christians (15 references), and the least one was muslim with only 10 references. second, in terms of its social cognition, the quran indicates that there is no proof for muhammad to write the quran himself. he was the one chosen by allah who back then ordered archangel gabriel (jibril) sending the greatest revelation of quran to him in the darkness of cave hira. thus, it is to emphasize that the quran is not at all the teaching coming from muhammad; yet it is solely from the almighty god (allah). if prophets and people of the semitic religion in english translated quran: corpus….. 150 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 happens muhammad is the writer of the quran, he surely will put his names more than any other prophets mentioned. as psychologically, a normal human being has a strong desire to fame. it is analyzed why the word muhammad becomes the least mention is because the language of the quran in some contents show direct conversation between allah and muhammad. therefore, in certain verses, the pronoun used is ‗you‘. also, in some other verses, it is found that quran use imperative verbs as it is direct conversation, such as in the word ‗iqra‘ (read!). the next point to argue is that quran is not a new revealed book by god instead it is complementing the previous books revealed to the former prophet such as torah to prophet moses; zabur to prophet david; and injil (bible) to prophet isa (jesus), in which all scriptures have one exactly the same teaching to quran, it is to serve one god. hence, islam is not at all a new born religion instead it completes the entire one so called the earlier-born religions. lastly, viewing on its sociocultural context, as the argument narrated, thus this present research implies that the quran is a reference worth to read by the non-muslim, the people who belong to semitic religion like israel, the jew, and the christians as this sacred scripture is not only directed for muslim. thus, it can be a main reference for all humanities. thus, this finding has resulted in a theoretical concept described in the figure 11 below: figure 12. theoretical concept resulted from this research reviewing on its power dominance, after the 9/11 tragedy, quran has been portrayed as a source to many blasphemies such as a link to jihad and terrorism (venkatraman, 2007); a call to quran burning (al-rawi, 2017); a source to killing (nelson-pallmeyer, 2005); and has long been assumed as a fertile ground for radicalization of western muslim (al-tarawneh, 2021). these all have indicated that quran was portrayed more into negative scripture than positive one that leads to the rafika rabba farah, puji sumarsono, & sukarma englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 151 prejudice of negative islam and muslim in the western world. meanwhile, it is factual from the finding that the content of the quran discuss about stories of the past events, such as prophets and their people. surprisingly that quran discuss more about prophets who are well respected by the non-muslims, also talks more frequently about children of israel and jews. further, supporter of this finding have found that quran content is scientific and congruent to modern world, such as pouya and salehi (2015) have found through content analysis, quran has the emphasis on all aspects of critical thinking. also, a finding from mehrandasht et al. (2015) reveals that the verses of quran have a complete declaration of information ethics. last but not least, one of the findings from this present research (figure 10) also has proven that the word ‗allah‘ is the most frequent word discussed in the quran. it is to say that quran content discourses about god‘s divinity, a teaching to worship god only, and god as creator. 6. conclusion the findings of this research highlight that one area of quran contents is about prophets and their people. regarded as muslim scripture, quran content is discovered to deliberate more about prophets who belong to children of israel, jews, and christians, moreover, it also reviews more about people who categorized as the nonmuslim than the muslims themselves. some specific grand themes emerged from the finding is also described in detail in the finding. in addition, the findings of this research are discussed using the lens of cda to examine how actually quran has been portrayed over the discourse of the western power dominance. references adrian, m. 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(2016). a new quranic corpus rich in morphosyntactical information. international journal of speech technology, 19(2), 339–346. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10772-016-9335-7 englisia november 2013 vol. 1 no.1, 28-48 muhammad ar state islamic university of ar-raniry banda aceh this article is “students ‘attitude toward the teachers in traditional islamic school (dayah) aceh. akhlak (moral, attitude, behavior) is one of the most importance subjects in dayah curriculum that must be taught either for the new students or the senior ones. dayah (traditional islamic institution/school) are found throughout aceh. this institution in another part of indonesia is called pesantren. in this institution, most of subjects studied are religious instruction under syafi’i school of thought. the students are adviced to study books under syafiism only. apart from syafiism are not allowed. in teaching moral values, the books used are are taysir al-akhlak, ta’lim muta’allim, and ihya ‘ulum al-deen, these books discuss much about how to behave toward teachers, and therefore the students of dayah respect their teachers excessively. the way to respect teachers are spreading salam when meeting teachers, talk softly with teachers, kissing teachers’ hand after shaking hand, and etc. in case of respecting teachers, the students follow not only what they have studied in the books but they follow what they are looking through the attitude of their teachers in the dayah everyday. therefore, the relationship between students and teachers in dayah are very close any time and anywhere. keywords: traditional islamic school, behavior introduction the range of morality in islam is so inclusive and integrated that it combines faith in god, religious rites, spiritual observances, social conduct, decision making, intellectual pursuits, habits of consumption, manners of speech, and other aspects of human life (hammudah ‘abd al-‘ati, 1998 :44). islam is one of the religions which more emphasis in implementing the best conduct. muhammad (peace be upon him) was delegated to this world for spreading the best conduct among the people. students’ attitude toward the  teachers in islamic traditional  school (dayah) in aceh  muhammad ar englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 29 therefore, akhlaq, moral, attitude, conduct, or behavior is very important in islamic teachings. it must be impelemented in muslim daily life. it is not exaggeration to say that every muslim must implement his/her good attitude everywhere and in every time in his/her life either with their parents, friends, or with their teachers. the best attitude is desired by every muslim which is suitable with the prophet’s advice. the main objective of dayah education curriculum is to produce the best conduct’s students and this has been proved among the community when they interacting with their teachers, parents and the community themselves. anyway, many researches had been done by researchers regarding about students’ attitude toward their teachers in dayah (islamic traditional school or pesantren) aceh. the students of dayah (santri) are very respectful and loyal toward their teachers (teungku) within unlimited time. they seldom underrate, oppose and put a blame on their teachers, they seldom speak roughly and shoutly in front of their teachers, and they have never done something wrong when they are with their teachers whether in dayah or outside of dayah. dayah is the traditional islamic school which provides knowledge and instruction in islamic tenet (muhammad ar, 2001:63). the institution is spread all over aceh and it was first established since islam came to aceh in the second century of hijriyya (mohammad said in muhammad ar. 2010:6). this institution is the famous one in the acehnese community which provides islamic teachings based on syafi’i’s school only to the students. anyway the teachers do not allow the students to study other books (kitab) rather than syafi’i’s. students and teachers are living together in the dayah during their study for many years. their relationship are very close and respect each other when interacting among them; the students consider that the teachers of the dayah like their own parents, and they always help each other during the years within the dayah. such situation was first practiced when students start studying in dayah and continuously implemented in their life during the years in the dayah environment. in fact, this is a hidden curriculum that is always practiced by the students without forcing them to follow. any kind of respect to teachers is wel students’ attitude toward the teachers in islamic traditional school (dayah) in aceh 30 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 come and this should be applied during their study in dayah. in other words, everything related to islamic moral values is supported to apply. dayah is a traditional islamic institution found in aceh, the same institution in java called pesantren, but in west sumatera is known as surau, while in malaysia it is called pondok (m. hasbi amiruddin, 2008:6). in soutrhern thailand (pattani) such institution is well-known with pho no (kamaruzzaman bustamam ahmad, 2011: 2). the word dayah is derived from zawiyah. this term was first used in north africa in the early days of islamic development. zawiyah means the corner of mosque used by sufism (muslim misticians) to discuss islamic teachings, to chant and pray together, and spend the night in the mosque together. actually the term of zawiyah coming from arabic term means corner of the mosque, but the acehnese called it dayah (yusny saby, 2004) moral values are something very important in the dayah’s perspective or in the dayah curriculum and this subject is taught from the beginning up to the end (the higher level) of study. books on moral such as ta’lim muta’allim, ihya ‘ulum al din and other that similar become priority in the curriculum of dayah. actually, the implementation of moral values can be seen in their daily life when interacting with their teachers and with their own friends in the dayah whether in the classroom (on bale in acehnese term), in the dining room, in mushalla (praying room), or in the bedroom. the students behave politely when talking, meeting, studying, and discussing with their teacher everywhere and every time.. they always follow the advice of the teacher and they have never opposed or quarrelled with their teachers, they often help their teachers in the field or in the garden if necessary. these atmospheres always occur in the dayah’s environment in the whole of dayah in aceh. one of the main things which must be emphasized in the dayah curriculum is to respect teachers. the way to respect is different. some students are bowing down when they meet their teachers, some are nodding their head, some are smiling at the teachers, and kissing their hand, knees, and even the teachers’ head. there are muhammad ar englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 31 many kinds of respect done by the students toward their teachers in dayah to make their teachers happy and glad. it is usually happening for the students to kiss their teacher’s hand before starting to study to get blessing (barakah) from the teacher (teungku) when accepting knowledge from the him/her/them. in addition, the students do the same thing when the class ending. in this last session of studying the teachers leaves the class earlier and then is followed by the students. such things are among the model of the students of dayah to respect their teacher everytime (tim penyususn…, 2007: 86). this kind of respect is always done by all students of dayah in aceh and this has been seldom done by the students of government schools. it should be an example for the government to create an integrated curriculum (religious values and sciences) to apply in every government school to avoid moral decadence in the future. anyway, the curriculum of 2013 has emphasized the importance of character education in every level of education in indonesia. this new curriculum is not applied yet in the schools under the ministry of religion. in aceh, most of modern islamic institutions (modern dayah/pesantren) have applied the integrated curriculum which combine the modern dayah and traditional dayah curriculum (religion and science). the curriculum of modern dayah is different from the traditional one. the modern dayah curriculum is more extensive than the traditional’s. in modern dayah, the curriculum organized under the religious affair is applied full time during the day, but during the night time the traditional curriculum takes over (muhammad ar. 2001: 88-89). within education, a broad definition of the word is adapted which embraces such aspects as awareness of non-materialistic values, of aesthetics, and of the significance of human life and life of the world (ghazali basri ed. 1991:35). any institution which applies integrated curriculum (religious instruction and sciences) will produce muslim intellectuals and muslim scientists who do not differentiate between wordly affairs and hereafter’s needs. islam advices us to work better in this world, to keep our brotherhood with other muslims, and to prepare much good deeds because we can get it back later in the day of judgement. students’ attitude toward the teachers in islamic traditional school (dayah) in aceh 32 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 in the past, dayah had achieved its successfulness in integrating public and religious instruction. dayah had produced not only ulama but the influential politician, and well-known statesman as well. it was caused by the dayah education system which did not recognize dichotomy of knowledge (yakub in sri mulyani,2010). the above opinion is supported by hasbi amiruddin and yusni sabi. they are in the opinion that the dayah and its leaders in the past became generator and motivator of struggling against the colonialism (hasbi amirudddin and yusni sabi, 2010:196). unfortunately, the dayah education system nowadays is more emphasis on islamic teachings only particularly in syafi’i’s school. the teungku syik and other dayah’s teachers do not allow their students even to read other sources rather than syafiism. on the one hand, in transferring moral values to the students/murid, dayah is very good especially in inculcating moral values to respect their teachers, their parents and the older. on the other hand, the teachers’ way to forbid and prohibit the students not to read other books from different school of thought is not really logic to practice in the islamic institution. i think the more books we read the more information we can get and the more books we read the more knowledge we can understand or posses. it is one the best ways to develop the students’ atmosphere/insights. teacher one of the important things in teaching and learning process is the existence of a teacher. the teacher is a prominent man who is responsible to educate human beings in order to produce the pious and obedient muslim generation and enable them to implement their own task, their family duties, their community and the state affair itself. historically, the teachers always respect their students success and able to sacrifice and do anything to make others happy and prosperity (muhammad zakir, 2013:68). teacher is one of the human components in teaching and learning process, playing an important role in developing the potential human resources. therefore, the teacher should actively play his role and place his position and occupation as a muhammad ar englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 33 professional expert. besides, the educators have to understand philosophical, conceptual and technical things relating to class management and teaching-learning activities. in the process of teaching and learning and class management, the teachers at least have to posses two basic patterns, that is to have an ability to design the program and to socialize the program to the students (sardiman am, 1996: 171). i think the dayah teachers are exception for the above opinion because there have not much skill and training they posses during years of course in dayah. they were provided with islamic tenets and islamic moral values. seldom do the teachers of dayah attend workshops, seminar, training and moreover in-service training like most teachers do. those who are teaching at school are called teacher. those are teaching in religious school or in the modern dayah are called ustad. but, the one who works or teaches in the university level is called lecturer. but it is different from the traditional dayah’s in aceh. those who are teaching in traditional dayah are called teungku or teungku rangkang and teungku di bale as well as teungku syik. usually, teungku is a senior student who teaches students voluntarily without having any payment from the dayah. also, some teachers of dayah graduated from the dayah itself. they teach in the dayah where they used to study as their own contribution to the muslim ummah/community, because they had been taught by other teachers /teungku for years voluntarily. afterwards, when they finish studying the whole level of dayah education sytem, they have to work for their alma mater as their voluntary service to the muslim ummah. to teach is the duty of teachers, which is why he/she has to do teaching voluntarily to seek the bounty of god /the salary from allah almighty. apart from the term teungku and teungku rangkang, there is another term found in the dayah which is called teungku syik. this term is used for the one who leads the dayah or who has a lot of knowledge particularly in islamic teachings. teungku syik usually teaches senior students only—teungku rangkang or teungku di bale. the influence of teungku syik is dominant whether within the dayah environment or outside of it. he determines the curriculum of dayah, he appoints the teach students’ attitude toward the teachers in islamic traditional school (dayah) in aceh 34 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 ers to teach and every decision is in the hand of teungku syik. he also deserves to dismiss the teacher or the students if necessary. the role of teungku syik is not only in the dayah environment, but a spiritual leader among the acehnese community. he is an influential man in the community and always invited by the government, the community, and also visited by formal leaders. nowadays, some people in aceh also call abu or syaikh for spiritual leaders (kamaruzzaman bustamam ahmad, 2011: 2). according to yusni sabi, all teungku, abu, syaikh or teungku syik, abon, waled are called ulama who stand out for their contribution in shaping the religious and cultural values of the acehnese society (yusni sabi, 2000:395). such terms are known kyai in java island or in most pesantren in indonesia, and buya in west sumatera, while in malaysia it is called tok guru (see: muhammad a. rahman, 1996). in indonesian society, they are considered influential, well-known, as well as outstanding people among the community for their involvement in managing the community’s affair. on the one hand, they lead their duty within dayah/pesantren, but on the other hand they also get involved in solving the community’s problem. they are teachers for the students in dayah, teachers for the community and teachers for the government in making decision related to religious affairs and ummah education. education is a process implanting something into the students’ mind and heart (syed muhammad naquib al-attas, 1990:35). if a muslim teacher implements his duty to transfer knowledge to students or children, his/her task is not only to teach but also to inculcate islamic teachings into the students’ heart and mind. they have inculcated theology, islamic jurisprudence, moral values, islamic education, and other kinds of beneficial knowledge to the community (muhammad ar, 2004:25). these activities have been implemented by teungku in dayah since the dayah was established in this area. it cannot be denied that the teungku’s role in educating muslim ummah whether in the past or nowadays. the teachers should always bear in mind the needs of students, very kind to the students who attend their class/lectures or who live with them. the teachers muhammad ar englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 35 should follow the example of the prophet and seek for no remuneration for teaching students. the only reward that they hope for is the pleasure of god (mansoor a. quraishi, 1970: 70-71). similarly, teungku always teaches students (murid) in dayah day and night without hoping paymernt from the dayah and from the parents of student. kamaruzzaman bustamam ahmad also adds that teungku who works under teungku syik is called teungku di bale. academicly the role of teungku is the same as ustad in the modern dayah. teungku di bale teaches senior students and it is the same as at senior high school students. usually, when teungku syik is absent or cannot attend the invitation, teungku di bale replaces teungku syik’s position to attend and fulfill the community’s invitation. then, teungku rangkang who teaches junior students—the same as the junior high school students. teungku rangkang is the teaching assistant of teungku di bale. he is selected by teungku di bale among the brilliant students and of course with the best conduct (kamaruzzaman bustamam ahmad, 3). the teachers are those who have capability in knowledge, have loyalty, love and responsible to religion. teachers can function as da’i (preacher), national educator, theology propagator, and disseminator the best conduct to the young generation (muhammad ali al-hasyimi, 2001: 234). therefore, to behave politely toward teachers are part of islamic teachings. they (teachers) have done much to make the students’ behavior good, to transfer knowledge and islamic moral values to the young generation. they have done and struggled in producing national cadres and national leaders both in the past and in recent times (muhammad ar., 2010:318). teungku rangkang, teungku di bale and teungku syik in the traditional dayah of aceh have done a lot in transfering religious instruction and moral values especially to both the students and acehnese community. they work sincerely to teach students day and night in dayah without complaining anything during the years in dayah. sometimes, they live in the same room with the students, they cook at the same place, they study at the same place and the same teachers, they work for dayah hand in hand with other students within the long period of time. sometimes, students’ attitude toward the teachers in islamic traditional school (dayah) in aceh 36 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 they live within the same rooms (bilik) between the teachers and students, they help each other. teachers of dayah/pesantren in indonesia are really still respected and are always remembered by muslim ummah for their contribution in educating students with islamic teachings, giving knowledge to others, and also they themselves apply the knowledge based on their capacity / based on the knowledge they possess. because they have helped their students voluntarily, automatically others will help them and respect them and always remember their aids, in other words, we help others sincerely and then suddenly allah almighty will help us (ahmad tafsir in muhammad ar., 171). probably, living together for a long time in one place (in the dayah ‘s dormitories) will make people closer, love one another, work together and respect each other. furhtermore, the teachers and students are living together in islamic boarding school like dayah for a long time, of course, they are feeling to live within one family/like living in one house. moreover, the students consider that the teachers of dayah like their second parents for teaching them religion. some students say that they (teachers) are our parent in religion. it means they are the ones who teach religious instruction. this term is often heard in the dayah environment when the writer did research four years before. teachers teaching in dayah have never been paid; it had been done for a long time continuously up to now. they work sincerely for the sake of allah. because they work or teach sincerely, allah will help them and give them happy and far from miserable life both in this world and hereafter (muhammad ar., 2010:169). most of the earlier teachers of dayah had experienced how to teach for a long time and how to work sincerely, even how to behave politely and happily toward teachers who had taught them. the function of dayah teachers is not only to teach on bale but anywhere and anytime outside of it as well. most of teachers in dayah do not have strong background from formal education, they have never sat in university and they have never followed different kinds muhammad ar englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 37 of specific training for teachers as well as professional workshop related to learning and teaching. the only knowledge and experience they posses are something coming from the dayah itself. they have no specific certificate for teaching except oral reconition or recommendation from the teungku di bale and teungku syik. such recognition and recommendation are gained from the teungku syik based on their long dedication, loyalty, experience, patient, and obedience to their teachers during their study in the dayah. teachers and students always meet together and live together in dormitories; of course, they can advice their students everytime if necessary. we are at the same boat here, we eat together in the public kitchen of dayah, we also attend the invitation of the villagers and we go together, if we get some food we share with the students, if we get some alm from the villagers or the donators we share it with the students. the teachers also never feel tired to teach and to help the students either day or night on bale, in musalla and in the bed room. we never show reluctant to teach and to help our students if they need help (muhammad ar., 2010:157). all of these aspects given by the teachers to their students will make them remember and obedient to the teachers. furthermore, the students must behave properly and politely to their teachers anytime. in fact, it is not an easy task to be a dayah teacher before having much experience and understanding of the books taught in the dayah. they have to show and make sure their teungku di bale and teungku syik whether they are enough knowledge to teach, are having loyalty to dayah, are having the best conduct among the students, community as well as to their own teachers or not. there are many things to be fulfilled for becoming dayah teachers either in the past or in recent times. anyway, the main requirement that should be prepared for becoming dayah teachers is moral requirement. the best conduct’s teachers will produce the best conduct’s students in the future, and this objective is always implemented in the dayah’s life. students’ attitude toward the teachers in islamic traditional school (dayah) in aceh 38 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 student in indonesia, the students who are studying in pesantren are called santri. this term is called murid or ureung meudagang in acehnese dayah. anyway, such terms are now changed little by little in dayah’s community, they are influenced by indonesian term—santri. this term is sometimes used and heard in acehnese dayah. anyway, the writer does not use that term—absolutely (murid and ureung meudagang) in this paper except the student. murid or student is one of the components in islamic education system. formally, a student is the one who is in physically and psychologically growing and developing. in this phase, the student needs guidance and advice from teachers (ramayulis, 2005:77). those who are still studying in dayah both new and senior students are considerd murid and they have to be guided by teachers, they have to be prepared for becoming formal and spiritual leaders in the future. the role of teachers is really important to provide the students with knowledge, experience, skill, braveness, honesty, frankness, and the best akhlak. the students of dayah consist of those who graduate from junior and senior high schools. they come to dayah for many kinds of different reasons. some of them study in dayah for economic motives, some others come to study in dayah to fulfill the parent’ desires, a few of them to study in dayah for the sake of seeking religious instruction and to become ulama. in reality, most of students in dayah come from small scale family, the dayah education system is very cheap all over indonesia. no registration and adminsitartion fee for new students, no dayah fee every month rather than electric bill, no other payment that must be paid in dayah. therefore, many students who are studying in dayah are not coming from the high scale family. most of the rich send their children to modern dayahs although the cost is very expensive. the modern dayah curriculum is used integrated one—does not focus or emphasize in religious instruction only, but science as well. this modern dayah also uses foreign languages in the process of teaching learning such as arabic and english etc. this is the result of the parents to send their children to study in the modern dayah. in other muhammad ar englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 39 words, studying in modern dayah will produce muslim intellectual and open minded man in the future. anyway, the modern dayah curriculum does not put aside moral education for it is an important subject to be taught for the students. the students live in dormitories during the course (muhammad ar.,:2001:78). there is no entrance test in dayah; the students’ recruitment is not very strict; there is no administration and dayah fee for students; they are free to register whenever they want to. muhammad ar adds that the system of dayah education is set up in five levels: first, tajhiziyah (preparatory school) lasting one year. in this level, the newly enrolled students are expected to excel academically within the the year. they are taught basic arabic grammar, quranic readings and basic islamic jurisprudence (ushul fiqh), morality (akhlaq), and other basic islamic principles. second, ibtidaiyah (primary school), this level last 3 (three) years. third, tsanawiyah (junior high school). lasting also 3 (three) years. fourth, ‘aliyah (senior high school). for another 3 (three), students are taught more advances in islamic tenets principles. fifth, takhassus (specialization). at this level, students are required to study for three years under the tutelage of a teungku syik. this class is considered equivalent toa university or college level. the subjects offered here are more critical and comprehensive in nature, such as philosophy, manthiq (logic), comparative study of the islamic schools of thought, tasawwuf, and comparative religion (muhammad ar., :2001:79). the students of dayah are very discipline and obedient to the rules applied within dayah, for example, when hearing the sound of azan (call to prayer) they are in hurry to the mosque or mushalla to pray congregation, when meeting their teachers they convey salam (greeting) and kiss teacher’s hand, when teachers explaining the lesson they are listening carefully, paying good attention, they follow the teachers’ opinion and seldom oppose their teachers. marwan ibrahim al-kaysi is in the opinion that a muslim should convey salam to other muslim when you meet, if you meet ulama and your parents, you convey salam and then kiss their hand, that is the way to respect them marwan ib students’ attitude toward the teachers in islamic traditional school (dayah) in aceh 40 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 rahim al-kasyi, :164). these steps are followed by the teachers and the students in dayah. in the book ta’lim mut’allim ali says that “if anyone teaches us one word, we deserve to be his slave”. this opinion is always followed either by the teachers or by the students in dayah especially in respecting teachers. that book (kitab) is a very important moral book which must be studied by the dayah students in the beginning of their study. the students are forbidden to quarrel with teachers, are forbidden to blame and take revenge toward their teachers, and to get angry with the teachers. the students have never interrupted and opposed the teachers in a rough manner, nor shouted. no talking without permission from teachers, no asking question without opening discussion session, no walking and talking in front of teachers, no washing hand before the teachers do when eating together and the like (muhammad ar. 2010:172). these are things always done and implemented by the students in dayah. actually, such things have never been written in the curriculum of dayah, but this happens unceasingly up to now. all of the students both new and senior students automatically follow such tradition to respect teacher in the dayah complex. unfortunately, we have never experienced and felt such a thing in the public school throughout indonesia in case of respecting teachers even we have taught them for many years. mutual respect is an islamic teaching. although we are not asking to do or we have never been taught about how to respect people, we have to do it to respect our teachers and our friends to follow islamic teachings. we, in dayah, have been taught how to respect our friends, our parents, our teachers since we were in the first year, we found this in the class of moral education. in the beginning we try to respect our friends and we love and care each other then we step by step descend and move to our own teachers. it is impossible not to love and to respect our teachers teaching us for years in moral education, theology, islamic education, islamic jurisprudence, arabic grammar and other kinds of knowledge. in term of religion, our parent is teachers because they have implanted and taught us religious instruction muhammad ar englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 41 for many years in dayah. truly speaking, we have never known anything especially in religion, but after studying for many years in dayah we have gained much knowledge from the teachers. we did not know anything about moral education, islamic brotherhood and islamic values before, but after spending a lot of time in the dayah insya allah (if god willing) we have possessed a little bit knowledge in our heart and mind (muhammad ar, 2010: 174). the above opinion describes deeply about the way to get knowledge and then they elaborate how to respect those who have poured those knowledge into their heart and mind. it is sometimes exaggeration to convey semething or to praise the teachers in dayah. by doing like that it is not impossible the students idolize and praise their teachers of the dayah excessively. ther writer has noticed the dayah students in respecting their teachers excessively, for example, when the students kissing the knees of teachers while the teachers are sitting. i think this kind of respecting is not really prioritized and supported to do within islamic teachings, there are many other things we can do how to respect teachers. our prophet says in one of his hadits which means that “if someone was ever helped by someone else, you should help him/her, if you think you cannot help him/her, you should help his/her families”. we should remember the kindness, good deeds, aids and sacrifice done by someone to help us, and one day we oblige to do the same or more to help him/her. similarly, the dayah students of aceh and the students of pondok in malaysia are the same in case of respecting tok guru and teungku syik and other teachers in dayah. the relationship between students and teachers are not only take and give knowledge, but the result of it can produce close brotherhood and love each other. consequently, the the feeling of loving each other and mutual caring as well as obedience coming up between them. it seems that the relation between students and teachers are very different from secular system of education. in the secular education, the objective of seeking knowledge or learning is to achieve the worldly goal— to fulfill the worldly pleasure. in this institution the teachers’ task just to teach and the students are exclusively studying (abd. halim el-muhammady,ed. 1994: 166-167). students’ attitude toward the teachers in islamic traditional school (dayah) in aceh 42 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 this problem is the same as the students and teachers of government schools whether under the ministry of education or under the ministry of religion republic indonesia. our curriculum does not emphasize and apply moral education and moral values for the students. in addition, the way to recruit teachers is not properly suitable with the professional ways. nepotism, corruption and collution are always haunted in recruiting new teachers/ new officers of indonesia. in ihya’ ‘ulum al;-deen, al-ghazali mentions that knowledge is a medicine that cures our heart from blindness (not possess knowledge), to cure our eyes from looking bad things (sinful), and to cure our body from weaknesses. by doing such things a man can be respected and honourable among the people. in fact, knowledge is more valuable and glorious than other things in this world. therefore, those who spend the time to seek knowledge and then to share, teach or distribute to others is beneficial (al-ghazali:1997:26). according to ghazali, there are several ways to respect teachers, they are: 1. if you visit your teacher, you have to convey salam before coming into their house/places. 2. please do not be talkative in front of teachers. 3. please do not talk without permission. 4. please do not ask question without having permission earlier. 5. please do not sit in front of teachers by looking around, but please sit down politely and quietly. 6. if a teacher stands up, the student does too. then greet him/her. 7. please avoid being arrogant and proud of knowledge possessed and not to do something wrong to teachers (al-ghazali: 33). all of the above opinions are always practiced by the students of dayah in respecting teachers. it seems those oipinions were studied before by their teachers and later they inherited to the newly coming students from generation to generation. all of ghazali’s opinion had been being implemented in the life of dayah. suffice it to say, the way to respect teachers, how to respect friends, parents, the older, is re muhammad ar englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 43 ferred to al-ghazali’s book ihya’ ‘ulum al deen, and ta’lim al-muta’allim written by syaikh al-zarnuji. these two books become a guide book of akhlak that must be referred to. according syaikh al-zarnuji (2009: 29-30), there several ways to respect teachers, they are: 1. a student should not walk in front of teachers. 2. not to sit in the teachers’ place. 3. not to start talking except to have been allowed by teachers. 4. not to be talkative in front of teachers. 5. not to ask question when teachers are not in good mood. 6. choose the suitable time to visit teachers. 7. be patient for not to knock the teacher’s door, please wait until they go out. 8. always consider the teachers’ desire and not to hurt their heart. 9. obey to teachers’ command except in doing bad things. 10. to respect the teachers’ children and all their families. zarnuji’s opinion and al-ghazali’s are not far different in respecting the teachers, the books are discussing specificly about moral. their opinion about respecting teachers are suitable with the modern times. i believe that the students of dayah have never quarrled with their teachers, never launched demonstration against teungku rangkang, teungku di bale and teungku syik regarding their leadership or their way to lead the dayah. but, we always read in the newspaper, watch television about fighting and quarelling among the students between two schools, and launching demonstration against their teachers or headmasters. the problems of the government schools are very complex and sometimes the police have to get involved to handle the problems. such condition and activities have never been happened in the traditional dayah of aceh. students’ attitude toward the teachers in islamic traditional school (dayah) in aceh 44 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 model of respecting teachers in dayah generally, there are some books in the dayah curriculum texplaining about moral education.the books recommended or suggested to be learned are—ta’lim muta’allim, taysir al-akhlaq, and ihya ‘ulum al-deen, these three books are also used more by the sufism in respecting their mursyid (spiritusl leaders) in implementing thariqat (spiritual trainings). it seems that these three books included under the subject tashawwuf. no matter what books they are, the most importance thing is the moral values spread all over dayah in aceh. nevertheless, the efforts to respect teachers are very much supported and desired in the dayah environment. in my opinion, this is a hidden curriculum which have been practiced for a long time before and still continuously implemented nowadays. we follow something found in the books. anyway, we are more influenced by the attitude and the techers’ attitude in their daily life in dayah, for example they always teach us and never ask us money, salary and something else. they always advice us either personally or group, they always punctual whether to pray five times a day or to teach us on bale. therefore, it is proper for us to make our relation closer with teachers, to respect them, to honor them, to visit them in holidays, to give them gifts, to help their families, to pray them if they died (muhammad ar., 2010: 207). after reading books—ta’lim muta’allim, taysir al-akhlaq, and ihya ‘ulum aldeen, our spirit or feeling raise and then suggest to respect and love our teachers as those who give us knowledge. this is found in the books. consequently, all the students develop their closely relationship with teachers sincerely without having forced by anyone else (muhammad ar. 252). it means that the students automatically follow the examples found in the books and then they apply in their life in dayah environment. first, they practice how to behave with teachers, second, how to interact with their classmate or friends at the same dayah, and the third, how to thank and honor their parents and so forth. based on the result of research done by (muhammad zakir, 2012:118-119) “kemandirian dayah dalam pembinaan ta’zim kepada teungku in dayah nurul muhammad ar englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 45 yaqin, labuhan haji timur, kabupaten aceh selatan”, it seems that the students are expected not to stare at the teachers’ eyes either in talking to teungku or in listening to teungku’s talking or speaking. but the students are adviced to bow down or nod their head when meeting and walking in front of teungku, that’s the way to respect teachers. i was informed by one of my friends, a student kissed the knee of teachers while the teacher sitting, some students massage teachers’ body after studying session ended, some students cook rice for teachers, and some of them escorting the teachers to go somewhere etc. to some extent, the students would like to help teachers in the field, in the gardens, in their house if they live within their own houses, and help them finish their work. they talk sofly and slowly with teachers, implement their command as long as it is suitable with religious command, convey salam when meeting on the way, kiss their hand after shaking hand, and always smile at them (muhammad zakir, 119). all zarnuji’s and al-ghazali’s opinion above related to akhlak towards the teachers have been practiced by the students in dayah of aceh. although it is not mentioned clearly in the curriculum of dayah about moral education, but in reality the implementation of moral values always occurs. the implementation of moral/akhlak in dayah is hidden curriculum because the students are familiar to follow something they look at their teachers’ way in their daily life. anyway, the students’ obedience toward teachers are caused by the teachers themselves. for examples, most of the dayah teachers do based on their knowledge, they always fast every monday and thursday, they always do midnight prayer, they get dressed very simple, they always talk softly with the students, they always pray congregation parayer together with the students, and so forth. their daily activities will be followed by the students. these are the best examples which should be followed by the students because our teachers follow the example from the prophet mentioned in hadits and even in al-qur’an (muslim holy book). we end this session by quoting the opinion of arthur glyn leonard in mardzelah makhsin (2003:98) “to understand muhammad (peace be upon him) or the students’ attitude toward the teachers in islamic traditional school (dayah) in aceh 46 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 soul of islam completely, we have to recognize that muhammad was not a common wanderer who spend his time in vain, but he was the most loyalties, the most honest man from time to time. muhammad ar englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 47 references abd. halim el-muhammady, ed. pendidikan islam: peranannya dalam pembangunan ummah, bandar baru bangi, persatuan bekas mahasiswa islam timur tengah, 1994 al-ghazali, mutiara ihya ulumuddin, terjemahan irwan kurniawan, bandung: mizan, 1997. ahmad tafsir dalam muhammad ar. , akulturasi nilai-nilai persaudaraan islam model dayah aceh, kementerian agama republik indonesia badan litbang dan diklat puslitang lektur keagamaan, jakarta: 2010. arthur glyn leonard in mardzelah makhsin, pendidikan islam, pahang, darul makmur: pts publibations and distributors, 2003. hammudah ‘abd al‘ati, islam in focus, 3rd revised edition, beltsville, maryland, amana publication,1998. ghazali basri ed. an integrated education system in a multi-faith and multi-cultural country, kuala lumpur: muslim youth movement of malaysia, 1991. hasbi amiruddin and yusni sabi in eka srimulyani, ”pendidikan dayah, identitas dan tantangan modernitas (studi kasus dayah darussalam aceh selatan”, progresif, journal of multiperspective education, vol. 1, number 2, january 2010. kamaruzzaman bustamam ahmad,” dari teungku ke ustad: potret pendidikan islam di aceh”, kajian islam, vol. 6, nomor 1, 2011. mansoor a. quraishi, some aspect of muslim education, lahore: universal book, 1970. marwan ibrahim al-kaysi in muhammad ar., akulturasi nilai-nilai persaudaraan islam model dayah, muhammad ar, “the curriculum of islamic studies in traditional and modern dayahs in aceh: a comparative study”, al-jami’ah, volume 39, number 1 januaryjune 2001. —————. “menurunnya nilai-nilai akhlak di kalangan mahasiswa aceh, “ bidayah, studi ilmu-ilmu keislaman, volume 1, number 3, september 2010. —————, “pendidikan agama: kewajiban rumah tangga pada tingkat awal”, jurnal penddikan didaktika, vol. 5. no. 1, maret 2004. students’ attitude toward the teachers in islamic traditional school (dayah) in aceh 48 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 —————, akulturasi nilai-nilai persaudaraan islam model dayah aceh, kementerian agama republik indonesia badan litbang dan diklat puslitang lektur keagamaan, jakarta: 2010. muhammad ali al-hasyimi, menjadi muslim ideal, yogyakarta: mitra pusaka, 2001. muhammad zakir, ”kemandirian dayah dalam pembinaan ta’zim kepada teungku ( suatu penelitian dayah nurul yaqin labuhan haji timur kabupaten aceh selatan)”, thesis master, pasca sarjana iain ar-raniry, darussalam-banda aceh, 2013. m. hasbi amiruddin, menatap masa depan dayah di aceh, banda aceh: yayasan pena, 2008. ramayulis, metodologi pendidikan agama islam, cet. 4, jakarta: kalam mulia, 2005. sardiman am., interaksi dan motovasi belajar mengajar, jakarta: raja grafindo persada, 1996. see muhammad a. rahman, “the curriculum of islamic studies in traditional and modern dayahs: a comparative study”, unpublished master thesis, department of education, international islamic university, malaysia, 1996. syakh al-zarnuji, ta’lim muta’allim, terjemahan abdul kadir al-jufri, surabaya: mutiara ilmu, 2009. syed muhammad naquib al-attas, konsep pendidikan dalam islam, bandung: mizan, 1990. tim penyusun, pengembangan dayah dalam perspektif ulama dayah, banda aceh: ar-raniry press, 2007. yakub in eka srimulyani, ”pendidikan dayah, identitas dan tantangan modernitas (studi kasus dayah darussalam aceh selatan”, progresif, journal of multiperspective education, vol. 1, number 2, january 2010. yusny saby, “opini publik terhadap dayah,“ paper presented in muktamar ke-7 dayah inshafuddin, banda aceh, maret 2004. —————, “the role of the ulama in combating colonial experience: the the case of aceh, sumatra,” dalam islamic studies in asean: presentation of an inte rnational seminar , ed. isma=ae alee, et al. (pattani: college of islamic studies, prince songkla university, 2000), 395. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2023. vol.10, no.2, 1-19 the impacts of school on english learners’ motivation in indonesian islamic schools ahmad farid*1, reza anggriyashati adara2, salim ashar3 1universitas pesantren tinggi darul ulum, indonesia 2universitas islam 45 bekasi, indonesia 3institut agama islam (iai) bani fattah jombang, indonesia manuscript received august 4, 2022, revised march 23, 2023, accepted april 8, 2023, and published online may 7, 2023. recommended apa citation farid. a., adara, r. a., & ashar, s. (2023). the impacts of school on english learners’ motivation in indonesian islamic schools. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(2), 1-19. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.14656 abstract among the teaching practitioners in indonesia, there is a general belief that some learners of english in some indonesian pesantren (islamic boarding schools) have a negative view on english, which consequently affects their motivation. however, it remains unclear what has affected the trend. the current study investigates this issue in three pesantren schools in indonesia affiliated with different islamic groups. using the l2 motivational self system (l2mss) model proposed by dörnyei (2009) as an analytical lens, a survey instrument was designed to describe and compare students’ motivation to learn english (n = 376). a multivariate analysis of variance (manova) was run to describe and compare the students’ motivation, and a stepwise multiple regression analysis was performed to discover which motivational factors made the most significant contribution to motivation by predicting reported learning effort in english. in addition, a thorough document analysis was performed to obtain background information regarding the teaching of english in the three institutions. it was found that institutional factors do play a role in influencing the learners’ motivation, in that in the most religiously conservative context, the school policy does shape the learners’ ideal l2 self. as the learners’ ideal l2 self was weak, it leads to weak motivational power as well. the paper concludes by emphasizing the crucial role of educational contexts in shaping students’ ideal selves and in providing favourable learning experience, which are key elements in motivating learners to learn english. *corresponding author: ahmad farid universitas pesantren tinggi darul ulum jln kh as'ad umar no.1 kampus unipdu, kabupaten jombang, jawa timur 61481, indonesia email: achmadfarid@fbs.unipdu.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.1 the impacts of school on english learners’ motivation in indonesian islamic schools 2 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 keywords: l2 motivation; l2 motivational self system; institutional impact; pesantren 1. introduction there is a general belief among some english teachers that students are classified into two different categories in terms of their willingness to learn – motivated and unmotivated learners. these teachers hold that a motivated learner would make an effort to learn a foreign language, and an unmotivated learner would not. this categorisation might sound plausible, but stereotyping learners would possibly result in a serious problem, assuming that learners’ effort to learn a foreign language is determined by the levels of their internal motivation only. furthermore, this categorisation somehow disregards the importance of the role of external factors such as school support, class atmosphere, and teachers’ role in motivating learners (lamb, 2007). that is, with motivated and unmotivated labeling, a pleasant or unpleasant learning environment in class has no effect on learners' levels of motivation. in fact, favourable learning experience would encourage students to learn a foreign language independently (henry & thorsen 2020; lamb & wedell, 2014). pintrich and schunk (2007) have suggested that learners’ motivation can be hugely affected by external factors like institutional context, such as: learning facilities, peers’ interactions, and classroom atmospheres. according to the dominant l2 motivation theory – the l2 motivational self system (l2mss) (dӧrnyei, 2005, 2009) – the institutional impacts are more associated with the third facet of the model, the ‘l2 learning experience’. nevertheless, the construct of the ‘l2 learning experience’ is significantly correlated with the first aspect of the model – the ‘ideal l2 self’, which indicates that institutional factors might also help direct learners’ future aspirations, which further impact their motivation for learning a foreign language (taguchi et al., 2009). previous studies conducted in indonesia as well as in other global contexts suggest that socio-economic factors also do play a role in shaping learners’ motivation. for instance, there were significant differences in english learning motivation between learners from schools in urban areas and those from schools in rural areas (lamb, 2012; muslim et al., 2020). lamb’s (2012) study suggests that students in rural areas who typically are from lower social backgrounds tend to find it more difficult to envision themselves as future users of english, which further affects their effort to learn the language. another study conducted by farid and lamb (2020), also suggests that some students related their motivation to their religious self, using english for proselytizing their religious belief. the current study is situated in three indonesian pesantren schools. pesantren is an islamic boarding school, where islamic teachings are more intensively inculcated. many pesantren schools allocate more hours to religious subjects at the cost of secular subjects such as mathematics, english and sciences, though the pupils are still expected to study those subjects. the pesantren institutions’ policy on prioritising religious subjects may become a source of influence for the learners on how they envision themselves in ahmad farid, reza anggriyashati adara, & salim ashar englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 3 the future, which further affects their willingness to learn or not to learn something at the moment. as lamb (2013) argues, ‘[c]ultural norms and values infuse institutions, social activity and individuals’ beliefs and behaviour’ (p.17). the current study investigates the role that pesantren play in shaping their pupils’ ideal selves and in providing language learning experience for the students, and the implications that these factors might have on their motivation to learn english. specifically, the research questions are formulated as follows: 1. in general, how motivated are pesantren students to learn english? 2. how do l2 motivational factors vary among students from different pesantrens? 3. how, if at all, do pesantren as religious institutions affect learners’ l2 motivation? 2. literature review 2.1. l2 motivation theory development l2 motivation has been viewed differently by different l2 researchers, and these different perspectives on l2 motivation can be divided into three different phases: the ‘social psychological’ period, the ‘cognitive period’, and the ‘l2 motivational self system’ model. the social psychological period was marked primarily by the work on the l2 motivation theories proposed by gardner and his colleagues from the late 50s onwards (e.g. gardner & lambert, 1959; gardner, 1979; gardner, 1985). their context of study was in the bilingual social context of canada, in which there are two language users – anglophone and francophone groups. the main element of the theory is the notion of integrativeness, that is, a second language is viewed as facilitating instruments between different ethnolinguistic groups. integrating with the target community, which is referred to as an ‘integrative motive’, is seen as the key factor that motivates an l2 learner to learn a second language. however, in spite of its huge influence on l2 motivation research, the integrative motivation theory explanatory power started to wane as many arguments against it emerged from the cognitive-situated studies. the cognitive-situated period was marked by the work of crooks and schmidt (1991), which suggests that the integrative motivation is not suitable with the educational context. lamb (2004) argues that the integrative model is not compatible with the current age of globalization as ‘english is no longer associated just with anglophone countries’ (p.14). in addition to their criticism of socialpsychological models, crooks and schmidt (1991) also proposed a new perspective on defining motivation as well as the pedagogical implications that motivation may pose. the key factor of motivation is no longer the willingness to integrate with a certain community, but the outcomes. therefore, the cognitive theory of motivation also takes classroom factors into account. this model holds that language teachers, classroom activities and teaching methods, as well as learning materials have an important role in determining learners l2 motivation. after a long continuous debate in the past decades, a new model for l2 learning motivation was introduced by zoltán dӧrnyei, called ‘the l2 motivational self-system’ the impacts of school on english learners’ motivation in indonesian islamic schools 4 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 (dӧrnyei, 2005, 2009). dӧrnyei’s model is a re-conceptualisation of the existing theory with regard to the concept of self and identity. this theory is elaborated in the following section. 2.2. the l2 motivational self system dörnyei’s (2005) l2 motivational self system is currently a major theoretical framework employed by l2 motivation researchers and has now been used in more than 40 l2 motivation studies. this model has been utilised in various contexts involving participants from diverse social backgrounds (e.g. csizér & kormos, 2009; ryan, 2009; lamb, 2012), is compatible with the contemporary conceptualisation of identity (chowdhury, 2022; dörnyei & ushioda 2021;; farid & lamb, 2020; islam et al., 2013, lamb, 2009: yashima, 2009), and accords with the widely recognised frameworks in general motivational psychology, especially higgins’ (1987) theory of self-discrepancy and markus and nurius’ (1986) possible selves concept. in this study, the l2 motivational self system is considered as an appropriate theoretical foundation because it has been recognised as an effective tool to examine many l2 motivations in different contexts in many parts of the world, and it provides a well-established methodological instrument to collect data from a large population. the l2 motivational self system consists of three elementsː ‘the ideal l2 self’, ‘the ought-to l2 self’, and ‘the l2 learning experience’. the ideal l2 self is defined as ‘the l2-specific facet of one’s ‘ideal self’’ (p.105). it is a representation of an l2 speaker that a learner would like to become in the future. the ought-to l2 self represents a more externalised source of motivation, that is, motivation triggered by an outer source, such as the demands of parents and teachers. the third element of the l2 motivational self system is ‘the l2 learning experience’, which explains immediate learning constituents in the classroom such as teacher, teaching strategies, teaching materials, and other factors that can affect learners’ motivation. this aspect is the causal dimension of the l2 motivational self system which is concerned with ‘situation-specific motives related to the immediate learning environment and experience’ (dörnyei, 2005, p.106). 2.3. contextual differences a wide range of studies have been conducted in different contexts to assess the usefulness of dornyei’s l2 motivation self system for studying l2 learners’ motivation, such as the ones in indonesia (lamb, 2007, 2009, 2012), pakistan (islam et al., 2013), chile (kormos et al., 2011), japan (ryan, 2009; taguchi et al., 2009), and hungary (csizér & kormos, 2009; dӧrnyei et. al., 2006). in general, the findings in those studies provide support for the l2 motivational self system as the three components seem to have an impact on learners’ motivation and envisage their motivated learning behaviour, although the findings from different studies show variance of the effect of each component on learners’ motivation. dӧrnyei et al. (2006) investigated the appraisal of five target languages in hungary by involving over 13.000 year 8 students, and they found ahmad farid, reza anggriyashati adara, & salim ashar englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 5 that the ideal l2 self becomes the most crucial component of the l2 motivational self system. this was confirmed in a later study in the same country by csizér and kormos (2009), who involved secondary and university student participants. they found that the ideal l2 self and l2 learning experiences result in the participants’ intended learning effort. this is also the case in asian contexts, such as in pakistan, japan, and saudi (see islam et. al. 2013; taguchi, magid, & papi, 2009; ryan, 2009; al-shehri, 2009). in the indonesia context, lamb (2012) also used the l2 motivational self system to investigate junior high school students’ motivation to learn english. he found that l2 learning experience is the dominant factor, and the ideal l2 self does not play a significant role in motivating the learners to learn english. lamb suggests that the status of english as a compulsory subject with a predetermined schedule explains this finding as the pupils’ motivation in learning english is more likely linked with immediate english language learning setting than with their future language selves. in addition, because lamb’s participants were young teenagers (12–14 years of age), they seemed to have unrealistic ideal selves. another lamb’s (2007) research in indonesia also provides valuable insight into indonesian l2 learners’ motivation in relation to dӧrnyei’s l2 motivational self-system. lamb reported that learners’ motivation during the first 20 months period was maintained, although their attitude toward classroom learning was likely to decline. lamb’s findings support dӧrnyei’s differentiation of l2 motivation inspired by l2 future self and motivation generated by l2 learning involvement in the classroom setting, but he also suggests that further research needs to be conducted to examine the validity of the distinction. regarding the ought-to l2 self, a number of studies have shown that it only has little or no importance in motivating learners (e.g. dornyei, 2019; dӧrnyei et. al., 2006; taguchi et al., 2009; lamb, 2012; dӧrnyei & chan, 2013). in csizér and kormos’ (2009) study, involving 202 secondary school pupils, it was found that the ought-to l2 self has very little importance in enhancing learners’ investment in l2 learning, and with the sample of college student participants the correlation was even extremely weak. with regard to learners’ language anxiety, it was found that the ought-to l2 self significantly makes language learners anxious about language learning, while the ideal l2-self was found to be reducing language anxiety (hiver & papi, 2020; papi, 2010). to summarize, it becomes a consensus among the current l2 motivation researchers that dӧrnyei’s (2005, 2009) conceptualisation of l2 motivation – the l2 motivational self system – has been very useful to be employed to understand l2 learners’ motivation. however, it is worth noting that the three components of the model do not always have a similar impact on motivation as previous studies employing the model in different contexts obtained different results. hence, it seems that the context inevitably determines the significance of the correlation between the components and language learning motivation. ushioda (2012) argued that ‘people engaged in language learning are not only uniquely individual, but are also necessarily located in particular temporal, situational, and social contexts that contribute to shaping their motivation and the impacts of school on english learners’ motivation in indonesian islamic schools 6 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 their developing self-system’ (p. 65-6). therefore, the reciprocal interaction between self and context changes over time, and this affects learners’ learning motivation. 3. method in this study, a mixed methods approach was adopted, combining qualitative and quantitative methods to make the most of both methods and avoid the weakness of each one. by combining the quantitative and qualitative methods, the researcher aims at investigating phenomena both at wide social levels and at individual levels. as dörnyei (2007) puts it, ‘in most cases a mixed methods approach can offer additional benefits for the understanding of the phenomenon in question’ (p. 47). 3.1. sampling for the study the quantitative part of this research involved 376 participants (16-18 years old) from three institutions. the first school was in pesantren 1 in east java, which is noticeably affiliated with the nahdlatul ulama (nu), recognised as the most moderate islamic group in indonesia. the second school was in the pesantren 2 in central java; this pesantren is affiliated with muhammadiyah group, which is religiously more conservative than those of nu, but still relatively very moderate. the third one was in pesantren 3 in east java. pesantren 3 is affiliated with salafism, known as the most legal conservative islamic group in indonesia. considering that in these institutions male and female classes are segregated, and involving female participants from a conservative muslim group could raise ethical issues as well (e.g. restricted interaction between a male researcher and female participants), only male participants were recruited. also, this would avoid variability of the results as previous studies have shown different performance and motivation between male and female students (dӧrnyei et al., 2006). in this study, the nature of participants' selection is both ‘purposive’ and ‘random’. the sampling is purposive in that three pesantren schools were purposefully selected because ‘are likely to produce the most valuable data’ (denscombe, 2007, p. 17) based on their religious affiliations. in selecting which groups/classes of students at each institution, random sampling was carried out, that is, randomly choosing three groups of students at each pesantren school, considering that they are ‘likely to provide a representative cross-section of the whole’ population (denscombe, 2007, p. 17, original italic). ideally, i would have chosen 1 group of students from each level (year 10, 11, and 12), but year 12 students were not available during the data collection period because they were occupied with the preparation of the school final examinations. therefore, only year 10 and 11 students were able to participate in the research. 3.2. instrument a survey instrument was designed to collect quantitative data. bahasa indonesia was used in the questionnaire as this would make the participants easier to complete it. there are six constructs containing 29 statements. the students were asked to express ahmad farid, reza anggriyashati adara, & salim ashar englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 7 their thoughts on a four-point likert-type scale ranging from strongly disagree (1), disagree (2), agree (3), and strongly agree (4). the statements in the questionnaire were mainly adapted from previous studies that use l2 motivational self system as the theoretical framework (i.e. dornyei et al., 2006; ryan, 2009; and lamb, 2012). the constructs and their items can be seen in the appendix. 3.3. procedures for data collection and analysis to see how the questionnaire works, an initial pilot study was conducted, distributing the questionnaire to 32 students in pesantren 1. the internal consistency of all scales was measured by running cronbach’s alpha (cronbach, 1951), and it was found that most of the sub-scales had not met the acceptable alpha value according to the commonly accepted standards of social science (0.60, as suggested by pallant, 2007). several changes were made to improve the questionnaire in order to increase its reliability. for example, some items that were already available in the indonesian language were used (those of lamb, 2017). the indonesian version of the questionnaire was then proofread by an indonesian bilingual educationalist, which resulted in the rewording of some items, e.g. changing the phrase dinilai baik ‘to gain the approval’ into dinilai cakap (b6, b13, d6, d12), changing the word menikmati ‘enjoy’ into menyukai (b7, b24, d7, d21) and so on. more items were also added into the scale ‘intended learning effort’ that previously had a low cronbach’s alpha level. after those changes were made, the questionnaire was administered to 86 participants in pesantren 1. eighty two participants’ responses were eligible for analysis as four participants were eliminated due to their incomplete responses. the reliability analysis indicates that all of the scales met the minimum cronbach’s alpha value, including the newly created scales. this implies that the questionnaire is ready to be used to collect data from a wider population. after the data were collected from 376 participants, they were inputted into spss version 20 for windows. the internal consistency of all scales was again measured to make sure that the questionnaire really measured what it was supposed to measure. descriptive statistics and comparative analysis of motivational factors were presented to show how motivational factors vary among participants from different institutions. finally, the regression models based on the intended learning efforts as the criterion measure were presented. qualitative data in the form of the school documents (both printed and electronic) from the three institutions were also collected. bowen (2009) noted that ‘documents can provide data on the context within which research participants operate’ (p.29). therefore, the documents collected containing general school information, teacher information, curriculum, lesson schedules, and extra-curricular activities schedules were very important in order to understand the contexts being studied. a thorough document analysis was performed to obtain background information regarding the teaching of english in the three institutions. the impacts of school on english learners’ motivation in indonesian islamic schools 8 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 4. findings and discussion 4.1. reliability analysis and descriptive statistics before participants’ responses were inputted into spss, they were carefully examined for missing, incomplete and inappropriate responses. it was found that 365 participants’ responses were eligible for analysis as they were able to provide meaningful responses, while 11 participants were eliminated due to their invalid responses. these were the participants who simply answered in a zig-zag or straight line across the page, and those who reflected no meaningful effort at all by providing random answer patterns. the internal consistency of all scales was measured by running cronbach’s alpha (cronbach, 1951). the reliability analysis indicates that all of the scales for english motivation obtained high alpha values (see table 1). three scales (attitude towards english, millieu, and intended learning effort) have an alpha value of above .60. the scales of l2 learning experience and the ought-to l2 self have a higher alpha value of above .70. the highest alpha value was obtained for the scale ideal l2 self, which is over .80. the mean inter-item correlations were also computed with spss, and the results indicated that the values of all of the mean inter-item correlations of the scales ranged from .20 to .40, except for the ideal l2 self. this implies that each scale contains items that are similar, but they comprise adequately distinctive variance. therefore, the items in the same scale are not similar to each other, but they are aimed to measure the same thing. regarding the mean inter-item correlation of the scale of ‘the ideal l2 self’, the alpha value of above .50 may indicate that the items in the scale only reflect a small bandwidth of the construct captured (piedmont, 2014). however, given that the alpha value of the scale is very high, it is reasonable to use it in the analysis. table 1 reliability and comparative analysis of motivational scales. no. scales number of items cronbach's alpha value mean inter-item correlation mean std. deviation 1 ideal l2 self 5 0.85 0.54 3.03 0.65 2 ought-to l2 self 5 0.77 0.40 2.64 0.61 3 l2 learning experience 4 0.72 0.40 2.60 0.60 4 attitude towards english 5 0.68 0.35 2.66 0.62 5 milieu 4 0.63 0.30 2.60 0.55 ahmad farid, reza anggriyashati adara, & salim ashar englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 9 6 intended learning effort 6 0.69 0.27 2.69 0.48 4.2. students motivation for learning english: mean values and differences at the institutional levels in order to identify how motivational dimensions vary among participants from the three different types of pesantren, the multivariate analysis of variance (manova) was conducted. bonferroni adjusted alpha levels (field, 2005: 373) was used to correct the α-level for multiple comparisons, setting the level of significance at p < .008. the result shows that there was a significant effect of pesantren categories on the means of motivational aspects, wilks’ lambda = 0.53, f (16, 710) = 16.716, p= .000. it was found that in pesantren 3, where more conservative islamic values are more heavily inculcated, students showed significantly lower motivation to learn english compared to that of pesantren 1 and 2. it is found that students in pesantren 1 and 2 tend to have more positive attitudes to english, dedicate more effort to learn english, have stronger ideal l2 self and ought to l2 self, experience more positive learning, and have more supportive learning environment. the above results suggest that in pesantren 3, where more conservative islamic values are more heavily inculcated, students showed significantly lower motivation to learn english compared to that of pesantren 1 and 2. in addition, it is found that students in pesantren 1 and 2 tend to have more positive attitudes to english, dedicate more effort to learn english, have stronger ideal l2 self and ought to l2 self, experience more positive learning, and have more supportive learning environment. it can be said that students from moderate learning pesantrens tend to show higher level of motivation than the conservative pesantren. to explain the low scores in all motivational factors in pesantren 3, the next paragraph provides a further analysis on factors causing the low motivation in the most conservative context. despite the fact that participants from pesantren 3 scored significantly lower than those from pesantren 1 and 2, it is interesting that the effect size values measured with partial eta-squared (ηp2) are relatively small for all of the english motivational scales. cohen (1992) suggested that .10 be considered a small effect size, .30 a medium effect size, and .50 a large effect size. in table 2, it can be seen that the effect size values for the scales of the ideal l2 self, l2 learning experience, attitudes towards english, milieu, intended learning effort only range from 0 to 0.2. those small effect sizes indicate that only 50% to 58% (see coe, 2002 for interpretations of effect sizes) in the variability in the participants’ mean scores of motivational factors are accounted for by group membership, in this case the institutions to which the participants belong. meanwhile, a higher effect size of 0.3 was obtained for the ought to l2 self, indicating that 62% of the variability in the participants’ external motivation to learn english is accounted for by group membership. in this case, participants that belong to pesantren 2 the impacts of school on english learners’ motivation in indonesian islamic schools 10 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 tend to have a stronger ought to l2 self, and on the contrary participants belonging to pesantren 3 tend to have a weaker ought to l2 self. in this context, one possible explanation for the low motivation of pesantren 3 students seems to be the inequality of schooling system between the educational contexts of pesantren 3 and pesantren 1 and 2. the aforementioned point is deduced from the observation conducted by the researchers during data collection. in this regard, the role of educational context in motivation is prominent. gardner (2007) highlighted some of the components of an educational context that may influence learners’ motivation; they are i.e. ‘the system, the quality of the program, the interest, enthusiasm, and skills of the teacher, the adequacy of the materials, the curriculum, [and] the class atmosphere’ (p.14). he argued that these are crucial elements, which can affect learners’ motivation. by looking at the school curriculum, pesantren 3 allocates a much more limited amount of time for english subjects, as the pesantren’s curriculum has been encumbered with elaborate religious subjects, english is taught only once a week in the afternoon for ideally 60 minutes. however, in practice, it was noticed that english classes only lasted for less than 60 minutes. as english is taught for a very limited amount of time, it may have consequently made students in pesantren 3 not put a great deal of effort into learning english. therefore, it comes as no surprise for them to score low for the construct of intended learning effort. mcintyre et al. (2009) pointed out that ‘language learning is integrated with all of the other activities in which a learner occupies his or her time’ (p.52). hence, it is the low exposure to english that has caused low learning effort, which further results in low motivation. the results of document analysis suggest why pesantren 3 students reported less favourable learning experience. the latter point can be inferred from document analysis on the educational background of one of the english teachers in pesantren 3. as an english teacher, mr. pramono (pseudonym), is underqualified. he does not hold any english language teaching qualification. therefore, it was reasonable that his english was very limited. the lesson plans suggest mr. pramono’s classes were mostly teachercentered with virtually no teacher-student or students-student communicative language use. negative learning experience can be one of the factors that causes students’ low motivation. as lamb (2007) reported in his study with indonesian pupils, some learners’ motivation declined because they were not happy with their learning experience with their teacher in the formal setting. even though lamb’s study was a longitudinal one, observing the same subjects for a longer period, it suggests the important role that learning experience plays in shaping the pupils’ l2 motivation, especially in the indonesian context. lamb’s finding is echoed in that of muslim et al. (2020). they found that the student cohort they investigated did have integrative and instrumental motivation for learning english, but they did not put sufficient effort to learn in the class, and their english performance is poor. muslim and his colleagues argue that this problem is a result of low teachers’ prefesionalism. the problem with the teacher in pesantren 3 is in agreement with parker and raihani (2011), who postulated that ‘one of the key issues that ahmad farid, reza anggriyashati adara, & salim ashar englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 11 islamic schools face is the number and quality of teaching staff, including teacher shortages, low teacher qualifications and teacher mismatch’. of course, the condition in pesantren 3 is very different from that in pesantren 1 and 2. the two pesantrens, adopting the curriculum from the ministry of education and culture, oblige english to be taught for 90 minutes per week (45 minutes x 2) in both pesantren schools. in addition, pesantren 1 and 2 have their own policies in terms of additional english lessons. in both pesantren schools, they added another 45 minutes x 2 english lesson. in pesantren 2, the focus of the additional class is on reading and conversation materials, while in pesantren school a the materials are similar to the ones from the government. moreover, every morning prior to regular classes, pesantren school 2 students spend 30 minutes attending a language enriching programme called ‘lughoh morning’ (lughoh means language in arabic), which focuses on either english or arabic. meanwhile, in pesantren school 1, every morning the students are obliged to memorise a list of vocabularies of three languages – english, arabic, and indonesian. pesantren school 1 also offers an optional english extracurricular lesson along with other lessons once a week in the afternoon, so students can choose whether they want to join the english lesson or other extracurricular lesson such as arabic language, geography, economics, football, basketball, volleyball, calligraphy art, arabic music, and so on. of course these are not offered in pesantren 3. it seems that the differences in the educational context between pesantren school 3 and pesantren school 1 and 2 have affected the students’ attitude towards english, which further affected their effort in learning english. pesantren school 1 and 2 have undoubtedly supported the teaching of english, while pesantren school 3 seemed to put very little attention to english language teaching. table 2 comparison of the english motivational scales for the three pesantren institutions (pesantren 1, 2, and 3). variables pesantren sample means sd f sequence effec t size ideal l2 self a b c 3.22 3.32 2.64 0.52 0.57 0.60 54.08* c<b,a 0.23 ought to l2 self a b c 2.78 2.98 2.25 0.48 0.58 0.52 64.98* c<b,a 0.26 l2 learning experience a b c 2.93 2.57 2.37 0.47 0.59 0.58 32.25* a<c,b 0.15 the impacts of school on english learners’ motivation in indonesian islamic schools 12 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 attitude towards english a b c 2.84 2.87 2.33 0.46 0.66 0.55 38.47* c<b,a 0.18 milieu a b c 2.76 2.82 2.29 0.50 0.54 0.43 45.72* c<b, a intended learning effort a b c 2.82 2.83 2.45 0.37 0.47 0.46 31.04* c<b,a 0.15 ‘<’ indicates significant difference, ‘,’ indicates non-significant difference. * the mean difference is significant at the .008 level. 4.3. the regression model based on the intended learning efforts as the criterion measure for english learning motivation in the three institutions the model summary presented in table 3 reveals that out of five scales there was only one scale that significantly contributed to pesantren 1 students’ effort in learning english by predicting the criterion measure, namely the l2 learning experience. the correlation is significant at p < 0.008. the r2 value was 0.45, which implies that the model explains 45 percent of the variation in the intended learning effort. similarly, in pesantren 2, there was also only one scale that contributed significantly to the students’ effort in learning english, namely the ought to l2 self, significant at p < 0.008. the r2 value is 0.58, implying that the model explains 58 percent of the variation in the intended learning effort. the finding in pesantren 3 is similar to that in pesantren 1, in that the l2 learning experience becomes the only significant predictor of the criterion measure. the r2 value was 0.67, which implies that the model explains 67 percent of the variation in the intended learning effort. it is quite surprising, however, to find that only one component of the l2 motivational self system appears as a significant predictor of intended learning effort in the regression model (p > 0.008) in each pesantren school. while in pesantren 1 the construct of l2 learning experience explained 24 percent of the variation in the intended learning effort, in pesantren 3 it explained a much higher percentage of 48 percent of the variation in the criterion measure. meanwhile, the ought-to l2 self explained 41 percent in the criterion measure in pesantren 2. the l2 learning experience was not strong enough to predict the criterion measure in pesantren 2, explaining only 11 percent of the variation in the intended learning effort. the ideal l2 self, which is one of the main components in the l2 motivational self system, did not significantly predict the intended learning effort in the three institutions, while the ought-to l2 self had only a little contribution to pesantren 3 students’ motivation, explaining 10 percent of the variation in the criterion measure. the ahmad farid, reza anggriyashati adara, & salim ashar englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 13 other scales with the p value of > 0.01, which implies that they do not predict the criterion measure in the three pesantren, can be seen in table 4. 3. it is interesting to see the ought-to l2 self so prominent in predicting reported learning effort in pesantren 2, indicating that the most important factor that motivates the learners’ motivation to learn english is the status of english as a compulsory subject in school. therefore they need to gain approval of their teachers and people around them and also pass english periodical examinations. meanwhile, the l2 learning experience becomes the second most influential factor to motivation to learn english in pesantren 2, followed by the ideal l2 self. in pesantren 3 the regression analysis revealed that there is one scale that significantly contributed to pesantren 3 students’ effort in learning english by predicting their reported learning effort, namely the l2 learning experience with the r2 value of 32.31. the predictors explain 32.31 percent of the variation in the intended learning effort. the first three predictors of the criterion measure in pesantren 3 are the main components of the l2 motivational self system. similar to the finding in pesantren 1, the strongest predictor of the criterion measure in pesantren 3 is the l2 learning experience, which is followed by the ought to l2 self. the ideal l2 self becomes the third predictor of the criterion measure, and this result resembles the finding in pesantren 2. table 3 regression model for the three pesantren students’ motivation to learn english based on intended learning efforts as the criterion measure. model summary scales b se b β t sig. pesantren 1 l2 learning experience 0.23 0.07 0.29 3.39 0.00* ideal l2 self 0.17 0.07 0.25 2.33 0.02 attitude towards english 0.17 0.08 0.21 2.08 0.04 milieu -.03 .06 -.04 -.41 0.69 ought to l2 self .02 .07 .03 0.28 0.78 r2 0.45 f for change in r2 12.00 pesantren 2 ought to l2 self 0.24 0.07 0.30 3.37 0.00* l2 learning experience 0.17 0.06 0.21 2.71 0.01 ideal l2 self 0.18 0.08 0.22 2.30 0.02 the impacts of school on english learners’ motivation in indonesian islamic schools 14 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 attitude towards english 0.11 0.06 0.15 1.69 0.10 milieu 0.03 0.06 0.04 0.53 0.60 r2 0.58 f for change in r2 21.51 pesantren 3 l2 learning experience 0.27 0.06 0.34 4.74 0.00* ought to l2 self 0.15 0.06 0.17 2.40 0.02 ideal l2 self 0.13 0.06 0.17 2.05 0.04 attitude towards english 0.14 0.07 0.17 2.04 0.04 milieu 0.13 0.06 0.12 2.01 0.05 r2 0.67 f for change in r2 32.31 *p < 0.01. to interpret the finding, apart from the differences in the motivation level, it is interesting to find that it is the learning experience that plays the most important role in motivating learners in the three pesantrens, especially in pesantren 1 and pesantren 3. that is to say that it is learning enjoyment, the teacher’s teaching methods and strategies, and the class favourable learning atmosphere that make them more likely to put effort in learning english. this finding is similar to the findings in some asian contexts. lamb’s (2012) study with indonesian lower secondary school pupils in the three different contexts – an indonesian metropolitan city, a provincial town, and a rural district – found that it is the causal dimension – the l2 learning experience – that contributes to learners’ reported learning effort. similarly, in their comparative study in china, japan and iran, taguhi et al. (2009) reported that it is attitude to l2 learning that contributes most to intended learning effort in japan and iran, but not in china. in china, the ought-to l2 self became the dominant factor that contributes to motivation. the finding in the study of taguchi et al. (2009) is mirrored in the current study in pesantren 2. in terms of the factor that contributes most to intended learning effort, pesantren 2 students are slightly different from their two counterparts. the ought-to l2 self is the most powerful factor that affects learners’ english language learning motivation in pesantren 2, explaining 41% of the variance in the criterion measure. the finding in pesantren 2 is, again, similar to that in china in chen et al’s (2005) study. they postulated that chinese learners tend to have the notion of obliged motivation, which undermines the role of learning experience in the classroom. this finding suggests that although dörnyei et al. (2006) did not find ought-to self as a major motivational factor in their hungarian study, nor did kormos and csizér (2008) with older learners of in the same country, it does not necessarily mean that the construct is not important in other ahmad farid, reza anggriyashati adara, & salim ashar englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 15 contexts. pesantren 2 does not only emphasise english learning at school, but also in the student dormitories (pondok). apart from the english subject minimum passing grade of 80.00 at school (higher than that of ministry of education standard), pesantren 2 students are obliged to attend various english and arabic language enrichment programme at their dormitories, such as muhadharah (public speaking), muhadathah (conversation), and tazwid al-mufradat (vocabulary enrichment) programmes both in english and arabic. perhaps, the enforced nature of english subjects both at school and dormitory has made the pesantren 2 students feel the need to gain the approval of their teachers and people around them. the discrepancy of findings in the three pesantren is interesting in itself; for even though the study was conducted in the same country, different results were obtained. this study partly supports kormos et al.’s (2011) proposal that the ought-to l2 self may have some importance in the asian context. we would say partly because findings in pesantren 1 and 3 suggest that it is attitude to learning experience that matters, as it does in lamb’s (2012) study in indonesia, islam’s (2013) study in pakistan, and taguchi et al.’s (2009) in iran and japan. therefore, the researcher argues that it is the individual context that inevitably determines students’ motivation for learning english, and further determines the motivational factor that best contributes to the learners’ motivation. in this study, it is argued that support provided by each institution to english learning, the teachers’ teaching skills, the learning environment, and many contextual factors are crucial elements that help shape students’ attitudes to language being learned, and these factors are also crucial in shaping their ideal l2 selves. 5. conclusion the present study aimed to analyze the impacts of schools on students’ motivation. the present study analyzed three pesantren schools in indonesia in order to compare students’ motivation as well as their motivational factors. the present study applied a mixed method approach. based on the research questions outlined in section 2.3, this study has shown that pesantren students’ motivation are varied according to institutions they belong to. the variations can be ascribed to the educational contexts as they provided different support to english learning. it can be argued that this different support to english learning leads students to have different learning experiences and ideal l2 self. in pesantren 1 and 2, where support is provided, the students enjoyed learning english and had a positive learning experience. in pesantren 2 where students were demanded to gain approval of their teachers both at school and dormitory, the ought-to l2 self becomes the most significant contributor to learning effort. hence, in both institutions it is easier for the students to find the motives why they should learn english, which further affects their motivation. meanwhile, in pesantren 3, due to the lack of support for english learning, it was difficult for the students to have a positive learning experience. the impacts of school on english learners’ motivation in indonesian islamic schools 16 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 it was also difficult for them to envision themselves as a future user of english, which consequently makes their motivation low. therefore, we argue that it is the individual educational context that plays an essential role in shaping students’ motivation. however, the researcher does not claim that the institutions being studied here are representing their affiliations. more schools with the same affiliations need to be involved in the study. a different result could be obtained from a salafi pesantren school that provides better support to english learning. finally, the findings in this study offers pedagogical implications that students cannot be merely labelled motivated or unmotivated to learn english because students’ motivation in learning fluctuates depending on how positive their learning experience is and how much they can imagine themselves as future users of the language. if the school can facilitate a favourable learning experience and awaken students’ vision as future english speakers, this would certainly boost their learning effort. this research also offers an insight into further research, that is, researching the influence of students’ religious identity on their motivation to learn a foreign language. this can be done, for example, by including constructs related to their religious identity, such as a construct measuring how they perceive english as a threat to their religious identity or a construct measuring how they view english as a medium of da’wah (islamic propagation). references anderman, e. m., & maehr, m. l. 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(2009). international posture and the ideal l2 self in the japanese efl context. in dörnyei z. and ushioda e. eds. motivation, language identity and the l2 self. bristol: multilingual matters, 144-163. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2021. vol. 9, no. 1, 145-164 scrutinizing efl students' plagiarism practice safrul muluk * universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia safrul.muluk@ar-raniry.ac.id fani rahma yanis universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia 160203116@ar-raniry.ac.id syarifah dahliana universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia syarifah.dahliana@ar-raniry.ac.id amiruddin amiruddin universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia amiruddin@ar-raniry.ac.id manuscript received j u l y 3 1 , 2021, revised august 28, 2021, first published november 1, 2021, and available online november 7, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i1.10492 recommended apa citation muluk, s., yanis, f. r., dahliana, s., & amiruddin, a. (2021). scrutinizing efl students' plagiarism practice. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(1), 145-164. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i1.10492 abstract the current study was designed to investigate the types of plagiarism that appear in efl students’ theses at ar-raniry state islamic university, indonesia. it sought to examine the plagiarism level, and investigate the triggering factors encouraging these efl students of the 2019 batch to plagiarize. this study used a qualitative method with a case study approach. the participants in this study were ten efl students of the 2019 batch and their theses. the participants were randomly selected. the data collection was carried out using two research instruments, namely document analysis and interviews. the researcher analyzed the student's thesis using plagiarism checker x. the results of the document analysis showed that there were two types of plagiarism detected in the student's thesis, namely word for word and mosaic plagiarism. second, the researcher found that the plagiarism level of the 2019 batch english students' thesis of uin arraniry was at the low-level plagiarism category, which can be observed from the result of the similarity index. the level of plagiarism found in these theses was less than 30%, still at an acceptable level as stipulated by the university regulations. meanwhile, the * corresponding author mailto:160203116@ar-raniry.ac.id mailto:syarifah.dahliana@ar-raniry.ac.id scrutinizing efl students' plagiarism practice 146 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 interview results revealed that all participants are aware of plagiarism and believe it to be a negative behavior. several factors influence efl english students' plagiarism, such as poor time management, laziness, poor paraphrasing skills, affordable internet access, and running out of ideas. keywords: efl students; plagiarism practice; plagiarism checker 1. introduction the academic world is always associated with scientific research, papers, and research reports commonly called scientific work. however, researchers have shown increasing trends in students' dishonesty in academic contexts. one form of academic dishonesty is plagiarism. when an author uses the written work of other people and claims it as his own, especially when the author did not quote the sentence properly, it is called plagiarism, which is indicated as an act of deception accompanied by theft and lies (patra, 2017). similarly, ellis, zucker, and randall (2018) explain that plagiarism is the practice of "presenting someone else's words or ideas as your own without appropriate attribution" (p. 1). plagiarism is a crime in the world of education, an act that deserves heavy sanctions for the perpetrators. plagiarism remains a pernicious problem at many universities (zhang & jia, 2012). some faculty members want their students to make a product like a thesis that is entirely new and that is their work. students commit plagiarism in writing a thesis, such as quoting words, sentences, or data without mentioning the source, and these problems cause student creativity to decline and cause research results that should benefit others to have none because of plagiarism. intellectual crime is another name for plagiarism that often occurs in educational institutions. several factors trigger students to plagiarize. one of which is the product of technological advances. although the purpose of technology is to help social work, sometimes, technology is often misused (cheak, sze, ai, min, & ming, 2013). the stage of plagiarism is also exacerbated via communication technologies and web 2.0 that make it easier to cut/copy/paste. everyone should be careful in compiling scientific papers or theses before quoting someone's work. plagiarism often occurs among students because the thesis preparation process is carried out independently without any assistance, so the possibility of plagiarism is substantial. given the widespread availability of text on the internet in portable form, the cut/copy/paste behavior makes it easier to engage in this forbidden behavior (dee & jacob, 2012). so, universities should pay attention to this plagiarism. owing to this fact, the researchers are interested in examining the practice of plagiarism carried out by efl students of ar-raniry state islamic university, by examining the types of plagiarism that appear in efl students' thesis, analyzing the level of plagiarism by using plagiarism checker x software, and scrutinizing the factors triggering efl students to plagiarize. safrul muluk, fani rahma yanis, syarifah dahliana, & amiruddin amiruddin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 147 2. literature review 2.1. plagiarism plagiarism is defined in various ways. the term plagiarism is defined as stealing other people's ideas as his own or utilizing another person's work without recognizing the source. plagiarism is a form of cheating performed intentionally or unintentionally by someone, failing to recognize the source of origin's rights and authority (randhawa, gupta, arora, nishant, & gupta, 2015). pecorari and petric (2014) confirm that plagiarism is the appropriation of others' work without acknowledgment. not only someone's work but also presenting the vocabulary or thoughts of someone else as your own without proper attribution is also categorized as plagiarism (ellis et al., 2018). based on the definition above, it can be concluded that plagiarism is a form of cheating committed by a writer, such as stealing other people's work, vocabulary, or thoughts without mentioning the source, then acknowledging it as their own. 2.2. types of plagiarism plagiarism has a broad scope, not just plagiarism in definition, but also form, type, and kinds. it is important to understand the meaning of plagiarism thoroughly to avoid committing plagiarism. with regard to motive, there are two types of plagiarism, intentional plagiarism and unintentional plagiarism. intentional plagiarism occurs when the writer intentionally commits plagiarism. . it occurs when someone does deliberate copying or rewording from different sources without reference, for the most part, because of issues such as, for example, time limitations, ease of access to reproducible content, competitive pressure, minimum punishments if detected, or lack of dialect aptitudes (amiri & razmjoo, 2015). in contrast to intentional plagiarism, unintentional plagiarism denotes unpremeditated acts of plagiarism, marked by the incident. when the writer hears or reads another person's word, phrase, or idea and then forgets the source. then, the author thinks that what he has written is his original idea. . other types of plagiarism are self-plagiarism, mosaic plagiarism, word for word plagiarism, idea plagiarism, deliberate/intentional plagiarism, and accidental/unintentional plagiarism (randhawa, et al., 2015). self-plagiarism occurs when a person uses data, facts, or figures from previously written papers and does not mention their source. mosaic plagiarism takes place when the sentence or paragraph structure is almost similar to the source, and also the author does not acknowledge the original author and references are not appropriately cited. this type is a more common form of plagiarism. the word "plagiarism" denotes the act of copying every word from the original text without making any changes without specifying the source. this type is the same as copy-paste, the most common plagiarism (debnath, 2016). idea plagiarism is the type of plagiarism that is difficult to verify. this is because the ideas are abstract and may have something in common with other people's opinions. deliberate or intentional plagiarism occurs when someone is aware of copying material or buying material from other sources, and he does not give credit to the source, then the act is included in the category of deliberate plagiarism. on the other hand, accidental or unintentional plagiarism happens because sometimes, students are naive and aware of the rules and guidelines to avoid plagiarism. but they are not scrutinizing efl students' plagiarism practice 148 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 familiar with the proper way to cite material and are always hesitant when referencing material. in general, plagiarism is divided into two, namely intentional plagiarism and unintentional plagiarism. the types of plagiarism categorized as intentional plagiarism include self-plagiarism, deliberate plagiarism, and direct plagiarism (plagiarism of text). meanwhile, the types of plagiarism that are included in unintentional plagiarism are mosaic plagiarism, idea plagiarism, and accidental plagiarism. 2.3. the factors triggering plagiarism research on this particular issue has indicated several factors influencing a writer to commit acts of plagiarism, even though he/she realizes that his/her actions are incorrect and not academically permissible. sometimes someone does plagiarism only once, but some people do it repeatedly so that it becomes a habit. in general, two factors can trigger students to commit plagiarism, namely, major and minor factors (amiri & razmjoo, 2015). major factors include individual, academic, cultural, and technological aspects. the individual aspect denotes the situation when students underestimate plagiarism and consider summarizing without citation as an ordinary course of action in completing their task. the academic aspect relates to students' poor writing skills and lack of quoting abilities. the cultural aspect occurs because the western education system emphasizes originality and precise quotations, whereas non-westerners frequently emphasize less on plagiarism. technological aspect relates to the ease that technology and the internet provide, allowing students to get access to abundant online materials anytime and anywhere, worsening the severity of plagiarism conducted among students. with regard to minor aspects, a curricular demand is one of the most common factors triggering students to plagiarize. this factor occurs because of excessive workload and time constraints, pushing students to finish their academic tasks, even if they have to commit plagiarism. parental issues relate to the pressure from students’ parents to get good grades or graduate quickly. this situation often drives students to take a shortcut by plagiarizing their work to please their parents. personal characteristics refer to students’ traits or characters, which often influence their behavior. students with a strong desire to get good marks but who do not put hard work into their studies will likely cheat and plagiarize to get a good result. more often than not, they commit plagiarism. greenberger, hollbeck, and dyer (2016) observed that there are two leading causes of students' plagiarism; poor paraphrasing and incorrect citation. furthermore, debnath (2016) summarizes at least eight reasons for plagiarism, such as: 1. information that is readily available, especially with the internet. 2. there is publication pressure from academic demands, both for lecturers and students who will pursue academic targets. safrul muluk, fani rahma yanis, syarifah dahliana, & amiruddin amiruddin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 149 3. lack of confidence and writing skills often occurs in beginner writers. 4. write articles in a rush and under pressure. 5. lack of understanding and awareness of plagiarism. 6. lack of awareness that even if other people provide the original text, they are still not allowed to make a copying effort without mentioning the source. 7. some writers argue that using the concept/data/text they have (self-plagiarism) and publishing it beforehand without citing itself is normal and not wrong, as long as you don't copy other people's works. 8. habitual plagiarists, habitual plagiarists made easy by the existence of computers and the internet. 2.4. plagiarism detection software detecting plagiarism can be done either manually or by using an application to detect the level of plagiarism in scientific work. plagiarism can be seen by editors, reviewers, members of the editorial board, publishers, or anyone involved in the publication process (gomez, lakshminarayan, & bk, 2014). according to marjanovic tomsevic, and zivcovic (2015), there are several plagiarism detection tools, including approbo, image stamper, doccop, plagiarism checker, wcopyfind, jplag, ithenticate, turnitin, plagiarism detect, docoloc, eve2, andscriptum. in this study, the researchers used plagiarism checker x to examine students’ theses. it is online-based software with the domain address http://www.plagiarismcheckerx.com. plagiarism checker x is a plagiarism detection tool intended for students, teachers, writers, and researchers to protect their writing from plagiarism. it works by detecting patterns of similarity in sentences, words, and paragraphs in the form of accuracy, as outlined in percentage. based on the information available at its website (plagiarismcheckerx, 2020), the features available in the plagiarism checker x software include the following: 1. online plagiarism. this feature will detect content that is plagiarized through several search engines such as google and yahoo! the document will be scanned through sixteen billion web pages that have been indexed by plagiarism checker x. 2. side by side comparison. in the side by side comparison feature, we can compare the level of similarity between one document and another. we can find out the percentage similarity of documents and can find words, sentences, and paragraphs that have similarities. 3. bulk search. in the bulk search service, we can compare one document with many other documents. the result of this comparison is only the percentage level of document similarity. 4. accurate and instantaneous results. this feature provides the speed of accuracy in the detection of plagiarism with sophisticated algorithms that cross-check up to 20,000 words in one second, so users get instant results in one detection. scrutinizing efl students' plagiarism practice 150 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 5. 100% user privacy guaranteed. this security feature guarantees 100% user privacy is always safe. the results of the detection will not be copied, stored, or sold by the software developer. 6. enhanced compatibility. this software supports all popular text-based formats such as pdf, docx, doc, rtf, and html and is compatible with all versions of windows. 2.5. plagiarism tolerance limit within the context of indonesian higher education, based on the decree of the director-general of islamic education number 7142 of 2017 concerning plagiarism prevention, the tolerance limit for application-based plagiarism or plagiarism detection software is set at 25% for scientific papers or theses. this is the requirement for graduation at the d-4 or bachelor level. for a thesis and dissertation as a graduation requirement at the magister and doctoral program levels, the maximum plagiarism is 20%. 3. method 3.1. research design this research used the qualitative method. according to creswell and creswell (2018), qualitative research is investigating and understanding the significance of an individual or group that is considered a social or human problem. in a similar vein, bryman (2012) stated that in qualitative research, a researcher depends on respondents' experiences and analyzes information in the structure of words or text from participants as a substitute than quantification in data collection and analysis. the qualitative method allows us to build a solid understanding of a topic, uncovering the meaning that people perceive concerning their lives, activities, situations, circumstances, people, and objects (leavy, 2017). this study used a qualitative method with a case study approach. a case study is a part of qualitative research where the researcher examines in detail a program, event, activity, procedure, or one or more people (creswell & creswell 2018). besides, according to yin (2018), a case study is an empirical method of investigating phenomena in-depth, particularly when the boundaries between phenomena and settings may not be correct. case studies have several important things, one of which is examining something in the context of real-life (griffe, 2012). the unique strength of case studies is their ability to relate fully to various evidence types, whether documents, tools, interviews, and observations. 3.2. population and sample the population of this research was students of the english language education department (eled) of uin ar-raniry who graduated in 2019, along with their thesis. based on data from the university website, 124 eled students graduated in 2019. their theses are available at the library repository website in the form of pdf files, which can be accessed in full text. the sample is a part of the population that is used by the researchers to generalize the population (creswell, 2012). out of 124 english students safrul muluk, fani rahma yanis, syarifah dahliana, & amiruddin amiruddin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 151 who graduated in 2019, 10 students were randomly selected, and they agreed to be interviewed. 3.3. data collection and analysis in this study, the researchers used interviews and documentation as data collection procedures. the interview was needed to excavate deep information about the triggering factors that drive students to plagiarize. interviews provide researchers with a valuable way to learn about the world of others, even though sometimes the proper understanding can be challenging to understand (qu & dumay, 2011). the type of interview used in this study is a semi-structured interview. in the semi-structured interview, the interviewer has prepared a list of questions, but the interviewer can ask further questions in response to the participants' answers that are considered significant (bryman, 2012). in short, questions that are not included in the guide can be asked during the interview. the students whose theses were analyzed for plagiarism agreed to participate in the interview, conducted by telephone due to social distancing imposed by the university. the researchers also utilized the document analysis technique as a data collection method. in this study, the researcher randomly downloaded 10 efl students' thesis from the year 2019 graduation to analyze. the researcher used the 2019 batch students' thesis because it is the newest thesis and can be obtained from the website repository.ar-raniry.ac.id. after collecting the students' thesis, the researchers analyzed them by using the plagiarism checker x software. to find out the types of plagiarism, the researcher compared the students' theses with the original sources. because students tended to commit plagiarism in these chapters, the analysis was limited to chapters i and ii. meanwhile, to find out the plagiarism level of the students' theses, the researcher analyzed the whole thesis, from chapter i to chapter v. then plagiarism checker x displayed the percentage of the thesis similarity index. 4. findings to examine the types of plagiarism appearing in students' theses, the researchers conducted document analysis on the students' theses. plagiarism checker x software was used to detect and analyze the types of plagiarism. based on the results of document analysis using the plagiarism checker x software, the researcher found two types of plagiarism committed by the students, namely word for word plagiarism and mosaic plagiarism. 4.1. the word for word plagiarism the word for word plagiarism is the act of copying every word from the original text, without making any changes without specifying the source. this type is the same as copy-paste. the examples of this plagiarism can be seen in the following table. scrutinizing efl students' plagiarism practice 152 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 table 1 word for word plagiarism. student plagiarized work original text source b “besides containing information on source culture, target culture, and international target culture, efl materials also contain four elements of culture: products, persons, practices and perspectives. in the efl materials, products are indicated by some form like pictures, illustration or realia which show tangible cultural objects like foods, movies, songs, news or fashion”. “besides containing information on source culture, target culture, and international target culture, efl materials also contain four elements of culture i.e. products, persons, practices and perspectives. in the efl materials, products are indicated by some form like pictures, illustration or realia which show tangible cultural objects like foods, movies, songs, news or fashion”. (copied from a journal by arnis silvia, 2015). http://rep ository.u injkt.ac.i d/dspace /bitstrea m/12345 6789/31 285/1/ar nis%20s ilvia.pdf d “by such motivation people are stimulated to successfully complete an assignment, achieving a goal or a degree of qualification in their professionals”. “by such motivation people are stimulated to successfully complete an assignment, achieving a goal or a degree of qualification in their profession”. https://fil es.eric.e d.gov/ful ltext/ed 582378. pdf d “motivation is a driving force which affects the choice of alternatives in the behavior of people”. “motivation is a driving force which affects the choice of alternatives in the behavior of people”. https://b usinessja rgons.co m/page/ 13 e “speaking is the mode in which children acquire language, it constitutes the bulk of most people's daily engagement with linguistic activity, and it is the prime motor of language change”. “speaking is the first mode in which children acquire language, it constitutes the bulk of most people’s daily engagement with linguistic activity, and it is the prime motor of language change”. (copied from hughes,2006) https://w ww.rese archgate. net/profi le/mar_ hakim/p ublicatio n/28334 8458_ex perience d_efl_t eachers %27_ch allenges _and_str ategies_i n_teach ing_spe aking_fo r_introv ert_stud http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/31285/1/arnis%20silvia.pdf http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/31285/1/arnis%20silvia.pdf http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/31285/1/arnis%20silvia.pdf http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/31285/1/arnis%20silvia.pdf http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/31285/1/arnis%20silvia.pdf http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/31285/1/arnis%20silvia.pdf http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/31285/1/arnis%20silvia.pdf http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/31285/1/arnis%20silvia.pdf http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/31285/1/arnis%20silvia.pdf 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https://www.researchgate.net/profile/mar_hakim/publication/283348458_experienced_efl_teachers%27_challenges_and_strategies_in_teaching_speaking_for_introvert_students/links/5adff9f70f7e9b285945e917/experienced-efl-teachers-challenges-and-strategies-in-teaching-speaking-for-introvert-students.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/mar_hakim/publication/283348458_experienced_efl_teachers%27_challenges_and_strategies_in_teaching_speaking_for_introvert_students/links/5adff9f70f7e9b285945e917/experienced-efl-teachers-challenges-and-strategies-in-teaching-speaking-for-introvert-students.pdf safrul muluk, fani rahma yanis, syarifah dahliana, & amiruddin amiruddin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 153 ents/link s/5adff9f 70f7e9b 285945e 917/exp erienced -eflteachers challeng es-andstrategie s-inteachin gspeakin g-forintrovert students .pdf e “the grammar of a language is the description of the ways in which words can change their forms and can be combined into sentences in that language”. “the grammar of a language is the description of the ways in which words can change their forms and can be combined into sentences in that language”. (harmer,2006). http://sas tra.um.a c.id/wpcontent/ uploads/ 2017/11/ 83-87indahpuspitas ariagungbudikurniaw anedited_l ayout ed.doc. pdf e “thus, we need to vary our approaches and offer as much opportunity as possible to make the whole class find a little something to hold on to, expand and grow”. “thus, we need to vary our approaches and offer as much opportunity as possible to make the whole class find a little something to hold on to, expand and grow”. 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http://iteslj.org/techniques/klancar-speakingskills.html https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed536729.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed536729.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed536729.pdf scrutinizing efl students' plagiarism practice 154 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 bottom of the screen”. bottom of the screen”. (copied from antar solhy abdellah, 2008) ltext/ed 536729. pdf h “religion as the impact of missions and the nature and function of a postcolonial sacred are becoming increasingly prevalent in what some refer to as a post-secular age”. religion, the impact of missions and the nature and function of a 'postcolonial sacred' are becoming increasingly prevalent in what some refer to as a 'post-secular age'. (copied from a book by bill ashcroft, gareth griffiths, helen tiffin, 2007) http://sta ff.uny.ac .id/sites/ default/fi les/pendi dikan/els e-lilianissmhum/ postcolo nialstudi esthekey concepts routledg ekeyguid es.pdf i “it can be inferred that speaking is expressing opinion, ideas or feelings to others by using words or sounds of articulation to inform, persuade, and entertain that can be learned by using some teaching – learning methodologies”. “it can be inferred that speaking is expressing ideas, opinion, or feelings to others by using words or sounds of articulation to inform, persuade, and entertain that can be learned by using some teaching – learning methodologies”. http://rep ository.u injkt.ac.i d/dspace /bitstrea m/12345 6789/18 390/1/a yu%20 diyah %20ha rni%20 susan ti-fitk j “as learners develop greater fluency and expression in english, it is significant for them to acquire more productive vocabulary knowledge and to develop their own personal vocabulary learning strategies”. “as learners develop greater fluency and expression in english, it is significant for them to acquire more productive vocabulary knowledge and to develop their own personal vocabulary learning strategies”. (copied from a journal by ibrahim mohamed alfaki, 2015) https://ci teseerx.i st.psu.ed u/viewd oc/down load?doi =10.1.1. 1068.64 40&rep= rep1&ty pe=pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed536729.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed536729.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed536729.pdf http://staff.uny.ac.id/sites/default/files/pendidikan/else-liliani-ssmhum/postcolonialstudiesthekeyconceptsroutledgekeyguides.pdf http://staff.uny.ac.id/sites/default/files/pendidikan/else-liliani-ssmhum/postcolonialstudiesthekeyconceptsroutledgekeyguides.pdf http://staff.uny.ac.id/sites/default/files/pendidikan/else-liliani-ssmhum/postcolonialstudiesthekeyconceptsroutledgekeyguides.pdf http://staff.uny.ac.id/sites/default/files/pendidikan/else-liliani-ssmhum/postcolonialstudiesthekeyconceptsroutledgekeyguides.pdf http://staff.uny.ac.id/sites/default/files/pendidikan/else-liliani-ssmhum/postcolonialstudiesthekeyconceptsroutledgekeyguides.pdf http://staff.uny.ac.id/sites/default/files/pendidikan/else-liliani-ssmhum/postcolonialstudiesthekeyconceptsroutledgekeyguides.pdf http://staff.uny.ac.id/sites/default/files/pendidikan/else-liliani-ssmhum/postcolonialstudiesthekeyconceptsroutledgekeyguides.pdf http://staff.uny.ac.id/sites/default/files/pendidikan/else-liliani-ssmhum/postcolonialstudiesthekeyconceptsroutledgekeyguides.pdf http://staff.uny.ac.id/sites/default/files/pendidikan/else-liliani-ssmhum/postcolonialstudiesthekeyconceptsroutledgekeyguides.pdf http://staff.uny.ac.id/sites/default/files/pendidikan/else-liliani-ssmhum/postcolonialstudiesthekeyconceptsroutledgekeyguides.pdf http://staff.uny.ac.id/sites/default/files/pendidikan/else-liliani-ssmhum/postcolonialstudiesthekeyconceptsroutledgekeyguides.pdf http://staff.uny.ac.id/sites/default/files/pendidikan/else-liliani-ssmhum/postcolonialstudiesthekeyconceptsroutledgekeyguides.pdf http://staff.uny.ac.id/sites/default/files/pendidikan/else-liliani-ssmhum/postcolonialstudiesthekeyconceptsroutledgekeyguides.pdf http://staff.uny.ac.id/sites/default/files/pendidikan/else-liliani-ssmhum/postcolonialstudiesthekeyconceptsroutledgekeyguides.pdf http://staff.uny.ac.id/sites/default/files/pendidikan/else-liliani-ssmhum/postcolonialstudiesthekeyconceptsroutledgekeyguides.pdf http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/18390/1/ayu%20diyah%20harni%20susanti-fitk http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/18390/1/ayu%20diyah%20harni%20susanti-fitk http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/18390/1/ayu%20diyah%20harni%20susanti-fitk http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/18390/1/ayu%20diyah%20harni%20susanti-fitk http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/18390/1/ayu%20diyah%20harni%20susanti-fitk http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/18390/1/ayu%20diyah%20harni%20susanti-fitk http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/18390/1/ayu%20diyah%20harni%20susanti-fitk http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/18390/1/ayu%20diyah%20harni%20susanti-fitk http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/18390/1/ayu%20diyah%20harni%20susanti-fitk http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/18390/1/ayu%20diyah%20harni%20susanti-fitk http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/18390/1/ayu%20diyah%20harni%20susanti-fitk http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/18390/1/ayu%20diyah%20harni%20susanti-fitk http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/18390/1/ayu%20diyah%20harni%20susanti-fitk http://repository.uinjkt.ac.id/dspace/bitstream/123456789/18390/1/ayu%20diyah%20harni%20susanti-fitk https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1068.6440&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1068.6440&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1068.6440&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1068.6440&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1068.6440&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1068.6440&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1068.6440&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1068.6440&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1068.6440&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1068.6440&rep=rep1&type=pdf https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.1068.6440&rep=rep1&type=pdf safrul muluk, fani rahma yanis, syarifah dahliana, & amiruddin amiruddin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 155 4.2. mosaic plagiarism according to randhawa et al. (2015), this type is a more common form of plagiarism. the sentence or paragraph structure is almost similar to the source, and the author does not acknowledge the original author, and references are not appropriately cited. we can see the examples of mosaic plagiarism in table 2. table 2 mosaic plagiarism. student plagiarized work original text source a “myth provides a fictional explanation for natural phenomena. many cultures use myths to explain the world and its mysteries by handing them down from generation to the next”. “the usual purpose of a myth is to provide an explanation for the origins of phenomena (thunder, day and night, winter) by telling the story of how they came to be. most cultures used myths, handed down orally from generation to generation from an anonymous source, to explain the world and its mysteries”. https://s toswald sschool. com/wp content/ uploads /2020/0 6/myths -texttypefeature s-1.pdf a “fairytale is a fiction story that aims to entertain the reader and to amuse or convey cultural information that influences behavior, such as where it is safe to travel and where it dangerous to go”. “fairy tales were passed down orally to amuse and to convey cultural information that influences behaviour, such as where it is safe to travel and where it is dangerous to go. https://i d.scribd .com/do cument/ 370106 469/leg endsmyth-aguideto-texttypes a the complication is pushed along by a serious of events during which we usually expect some sort of complication or problem to arise. complication : the story is pushed along by a series of events, during which we usually expect some sort of problem to arise”. (copied from a journal by anderson and anderson, 2003) http://re pository .ummat. ac.id/11 06/1/co ver%20 %20ba b%20ii i.pdf%2 0bner https://stoswaldsschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/myths-text-type-features-1.pdf https://stoswaldsschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/myths-text-type-features-1.pdf https://stoswaldsschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/myths-text-type-features-1.pdf https://stoswaldsschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/myths-text-type-features-1.pdf https://stoswaldsschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/myths-text-type-features-1.pdf https://stoswaldsschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/myths-text-type-features-1.pdf https://stoswaldsschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/myths-text-type-features-1.pdf https://stoswaldsschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/myths-text-type-features-1.pdf https://stoswaldsschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/myths-text-type-features-1.pdf https://stoswaldsschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/myths-text-type-features-1.pdf https://stoswaldsschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/myths-text-type-features-1.pdf https://stoswaldsschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/myths-text-type-features-1.pdf https://stoswaldsschool.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/myths-text-type-features-1.pdf https://id.scribd.com/document/370106469/legends-myth-a-guide-to-text-types https://id.scribd.com/document/370106469/legends-myth-a-guide-to-text-types https://id.scribd.com/document/370106469/legends-myth-a-guide-to-text-types https://id.scribd.com/document/370106469/legends-myth-a-guide-to-text-types https://id.scribd.com/document/370106469/legends-myth-a-guide-to-text-types https://id.scribd.com/document/370106469/legends-myth-a-guide-to-text-types https://id.scribd.com/document/370106469/legends-myth-a-guide-to-text-types https://id.scribd.com/document/370106469/legends-myth-a-guide-to-text-types https://id.scribd.com/document/370106469/legends-myth-a-guide-to-text-types https://id.scribd.com/document/370106469/legends-myth-a-guide-to-text-types https://id.scribd.com/document/370106469/legends-myth-a-guide-to-text-types http://repository.ummat.ac.id/1106/1/cover%20-%20bab%20iii.pdf%20bner%20banget.pdf http://repository.ummat.ac.id/1106/1/cover%20-%20bab%20iii.pdf%20bner%20banget.pdf http://repository.ummat.ac.id/1106/1/cover%20-%20bab%20iii.pdf%20bner%20banget.pdf http://repository.ummat.ac.id/1106/1/cover%20-%20bab%20iii.pdf%20bner%20banget.pdf http://repository.ummat.ac.id/1106/1/cover%20-%20bab%20iii.pdf%20bner%20banget.pdf http://repository.ummat.ac.id/1106/1/cover%20-%20bab%20iii.pdf%20bner%20banget.pdf http://repository.ummat.ac.id/1106/1/cover%20-%20bab%20iii.pdf%20bner%20banget.pdf http://repository.ummat.ac.id/1106/1/cover%20-%20bab%20iii.pdf%20bner%20banget.pdf http://repository.ummat.ac.id/1106/1/cover%20-%20bab%20iii.pdf%20bner%20banget.pdf http://repository.ummat.ac.id/1106/1/cover%20-%20bab%20iii.pdf%20bner%20banget.pdf http://repository.ummat.ac.id/1106/1/cover%20-%20bab%20iii.pdf%20bner%20banget.pdf scrutinizing efl students' plagiarism practice 156 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 %20ba nget. pdf d “learning in this study can be defined as the process of gaining knowledge, mastering skills and character, as well as forming attitudes and beliefs in students.” “learning can be defined as the process of acquiring information and knowledge, mastering skills and habits as well as forming attitudes and beliefs”. (copied from a journal by pazliana & hasliza, 2018) https://j urnal.ko nselingi ndonesi a.com/i ndex.ph p/jkp/ar ticle/vie w/284/2 34 d “instrumental motivation is the desire to learn a language because it is useful for certain 'instrumental' purposes such as getting a job, reading a newspaper, or passing a test”. “instrumental motivation: desire to learn a language because it would fulfill certain utilitarian goals, such as getting a job, passing an examination, etc”. https://f iles.eric .ed.gov/ fulltext/ ed4969 70.pdf f “it gives readers advantages are being able to predict the purpose of the passage, the main topic, and possibly some of developing or supporting details”. “skimming gives readers the advantage of being able to predict the purpose of the passage, the main topic, or message, and possibly some of developing or supporting ideas”. https://b rainfold er.word press.co m/2013/ 01/06/st rategies -forreadingcompre hension / g “subtitle has two potential benefits. firstly, subtitles might have potential values in helping the language acquisition process by providing the learners with the key to massive quantities of authentic and comprehensible input. secondly, subtitles might help to develop language proficiency through enabling learners to be “vanderplank (1988) gives two potential benefits of subtitles. one is that subtitles might have potential value in helping the language acquisition process by providing the learners with the key to massive quantities of authentic and comprehensible input. the second merit is that subtitles might help to develop language proficiency through enabling learners to be http://re lp.khuis f.ac.ir/a rticle_5 33637_ d34566 4f9c7cf 785014 6578bd c90ea39 .pdf http://repository.ummat.ac.id/1106/1/cover%20-%20bab%20iii.pdf%20bner%20banget.pdf http://repository.ummat.ac.id/1106/1/cover%20-%20bab%20iii.pdf%20bner%20banget.pdf http://repository.ummat.ac.id/1106/1/cover%20-%20bab%20iii.pdf%20bner%20banget.pdf https://jurnal.konselingindonesia.com/index.php/jkp/article/view/284/234 https://jurnal.konselingindonesia.com/index.php/jkp/article/view/284/234 https://jurnal.konselingindonesia.com/index.php/jkp/article/view/284/234 https://jurnal.konselingindonesia.com/index.php/jkp/article/view/284/234 https://jurnal.konselingindonesia.com/index.php/jkp/article/view/284/234 https://jurnal.konselingindonesia.com/index.php/jkp/article/view/284/234 https://jurnal.konselingindonesia.com/index.php/jkp/article/view/284/234 https://jurnal.konselingindonesia.com/index.php/jkp/article/view/284/234 https://jurnal.konselingindonesia.com/index.php/jkp/article/view/284/234 https://jurnal.konselingindonesia.com/index.php/jkp/article/view/284/234 https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed496970.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed496970.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed496970.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed496970.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed496970.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed496970.pdf https://brainfolder.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/strategies-for-reading-comprehension/ https://brainfolder.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/strategies-for-reading-comprehension/ https://brainfolder.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/strategies-for-reading-comprehension/ https://brainfolder.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/strategies-for-reading-comprehension/ https://brainfolder.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/strategies-for-reading-comprehension/ https://brainfolder.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/strategies-for-reading-comprehension/ https://brainfolder.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/strategies-for-reading-comprehension/ https://brainfolder.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/strategies-for-reading-comprehension/ https://brainfolder.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/strategies-for-reading-comprehension/ https://brainfolder.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/strategies-for-reading-comprehension/ https://brainfolder.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/strategies-for-reading-comprehension/ https://brainfolder.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/strategies-for-reading-comprehension/ http://relp.khuisf.ac.ir/article_533637_d345664f9c7cf7850146578bdc90ea39.pdf http://relp.khuisf.ac.ir/article_533637_d345664f9c7cf7850146578bdc90ea39.pdf http://relp.khuisf.ac.ir/article_533637_d345664f9c7cf7850146578bdc90ea39.pdf http://relp.khuisf.ac.ir/article_533637_d345664f9c7cf7850146578bdc90ea39.pdf http://relp.khuisf.ac.ir/article_533637_d345664f9c7cf7850146578bdc90ea39.pdf http://relp.khuisf.ac.ir/article_533637_d345664f9c7cf7850146578bdc90ea39.pdf http://relp.khuisf.ac.ir/article_533637_d345664f9c7cf7850146578bdc90ea39.pdf http://relp.khuisf.ac.ir/article_533637_d345664f9c7cf7850146578bdc90ea39.pdf http://relp.khuisf.ac.ir/article_533637_d345664f9c7cf7850146578bdc90ea39.pdf http://relp.khuisf.ac.ir/article_533637_d345664f9c7cf7850146578bdc90ea39.pdf http://relp.khuisf.ac.ir/article_533637_d345664f9c7cf7850146578bdc90ea39.pdf safrul muluk, fani rahma yanis, syarifah dahliana, & amiruddin amiruddin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 157 conscious of new and unfamiliar language that might otherwise be lost in the stream of speech. while students are watching the movie, directly they get some experiences from the movie and it can influence their understanding, thinking, and moral value”. conscious of new and unfamiliar language that might otherwise be lost in the stream of speech”. i “performance variable such as hesitations, pauses, backtracking and corrections is one of the advantages of spoken languange where the process of thingking and speaking occur at the same time”. “one of the advantages of spoken language is that the process of thinking as you speak allows you to manifest a certain number of performances hesitations, pauses, backtracking and correction”. https://d onggoa gus.wor dpress.c om/201 3/10/01/ awaludi nsthesis2/ from these data, it can be concluded that some participants committed mosaic plagiarism, namely participants a, d, f, g, and i. as previously mentioned, this plagiarism occurs when a writer writes a sentence that is almost the same as the original author's sentence or paragraph structure, and the writer adds his/her own words to the sentence. 4.3. the plagiarism level of students to examine the level of students' plagiarism level, the researchers run a complete check of their theses to look for the similarity index of student theses with data sources from the internet using the plagiarism checker x software. the result can be seen in the following table: table 3 the level of similarity with sources on the internet. no. thesis code similarity index 1 ta 19% 2 tb 12% 3 tc 9% 4 td 22% 5 te 24% 6 tf 20% 7 tg 24% 8 th 17% 9 ti 18% 10 tj 15% source: results of data analysis https://donggoagus.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/awaludins-thesis-2/ https://donggoagus.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/awaludins-thesis-2/ https://donggoagus.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/awaludins-thesis-2/ https://donggoagus.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/awaludins-thesis-2/ https://donggoagus.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/awaludins-thesis-2/ https://donggoagus.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/awaludins-thesis-2/ https://donggoagus.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/awaludins-thesis-2/ https://donggoagus.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/awaludins-thesis-2/ https://donggoagus.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/awaludins-thesis-2/ https://donggoagus.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/awaludins-thesis-2/ scrutinizing efl students' plagiarism practice 158 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 the ranges used to examine the similarity index of students theses are 0-19% (indicating a low level of plagiarism), 20-39% (indicating a medium level of plagiarism, and up to 40% (indicating a high level of plagiarism (https://plagiarismcheckerx.com, 2020). 4.4. plagiarism triggering factors after conducting interviews with participants, the researchers found several factors that triggered english students to commit plagiarism in writing a thesis. those factors are: 4.4.1. poor time management some students admitted to plagiarizing because of limited time and deadlines. as participant e said: one of the reasons why i plagiarize is because of limited time. as you know my supervisor gave me a deadline for submitting thesis revisions. sometimes, i only have two days to revise, so i take an idea from an article or journal and make it a sentence and without a source. and because of the deadline, i immediately copied and pasted a sentence and put it in my thesis. in a similar vein, participant i said “another reason that makes me plagiarism is deadlines. sometimes my supervisor sets deadlines for revision and sometimes i have my target deadlines for myself so that i can do my thesis exam quickly”. in addition, participant f argued “i have limited time to make the task you know, so i don't have much time to paraphrase and give credit so that is why i commit plagiarism”. the excerpts showed that some students admitted to plagiarism because of limited time and deadlines. some students want to finish their thesis quickly. so their supervisor sets a deadline for revision. so this triggers them to commit plagiarism. 4.4.2. laziness from the results of the interview, participants agreed that laziness is one of the factors that influence them to plagiarize. when a strong desire for receiving good marks and laziness starts to arise in a person, then, he/she can commit plagiarism (amiri & razmjoo, 2015). one of the participants, j revealed: “i did intentional plagiarism because of the deadline and laziness to read a lot of journals, so i only read two articles or journals and i combined them without putting a source”. participant a also stated: “sometimes i'm lazy to paraphrase a text, so i do plagiarism by copy-paste the text and add a few of my words and put them in my thesis”. the researcher found that laziness makes students take the easiest way to complete their thesis using plagiarism. they take sentences in a journal or article and combine them with their own words. then they form a sentence and claim it as their sentence. safrul muluk, fani rahma yanis, syarifah dahliana, & amiruddin amiruddin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 159 4.4.3. poor paraphrasing skills paraphrasing skill is very important to avoid plagiarism. when the student has a problem with paraphrasing skills, accidental plagiarism can occur. poor student paraphrase can be caused by a lack of academic vocabulary (gomez et al., 2016). when interviewing, most of the participants mentioned that their paraphrase skills were still low. as participant a stated: absolutely yes. because paraphrasing skill is important, we have to look for synonyms of the words in the sentence. when i paraphrase a sentence, i think i paraphrased it well, but the plagiarism is still detected. that means my paraphrase ability is still low. participant c also stated: yes, of course. knowledge about paraphrase is important and we certainly have learned about it in class. and it can prevent plagiarism. but, due to a lack of vocabulary knowledge, we only change the words a little from a sentence. i think that can make us do plagiarism. moreover, participant j provided a similar answer, she stated “i think yes, if it is difficult to paraphrase a sentence, so they will choose to copy and paste the sentence immediately, because it is more practical. as a result it could trigger plagiarism i think”. based on the excerpts above, some participants agreed that poor paraphrasing skills can cause them to plagiarize. some students stated that they thought they had paraphrased correctly, but plagiarism is still detected. it means that some students' paraphrase ability is still lacking. 4.4.4. internet access several participants said that technological development such as ease of accessing the internet is the factor that influences the occurrence of plagiarism. one of the reasons someone commits plagiarism is because of the available information, especially with the internet (debnath, 2016). as we know, nowadays, everyone is using a smartphone and laptop because it is easier to find information, especially for students in completing assignments or theses. and also because of the copy-paste system that makes students practice in completing the assignment and thesis. as participant d stated: i think internet access is also a factor that makes it easy for people to plagiarize. it is very easy for us to copy and paste from the internet. you know the internet provides a lot of information, a lot of journals on it, so people don't have to read the journals, they just copy and paste the statement and change a few words of the statement. and i have done it in my thesis. a similar perception revealed by participant c: scrutinizing efl students' plagiarism practice 160 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 plagiarism behavior is currently also supported by technological advances, one of which is the global internet network. we can access any material. and also supported by the copy-paste system. to be honest i often use the system to make it easier for me to do my assignments. participant h also stated: i think the information available on the internet is one of the causes of plagiarism. now everything is practical. in the past, we went to the library looking for books and it took a long time. but now we can just type a keyword that we want and it is immediately available on our laptop. it can be concluded that plagiarism can increase because of the internet. this happens because on the internet there are millions of information that we can access anytime and anywhere. 4.4.5. run out of ideas students admit that sometimes they run out of ideas to make a sentence, for example, like an opening sentence. so it makes them commit plagiarism. as a participant i said: i did plagiarism because i ran out of ideas in writing a thesis. for example, when writing the beginning of a paragraph from the background of the study, i am confused about how to start so i take sentences from other journals that are similar to my topic. participant d also said “i do it when i don't have the idea to make up a suitable sentence”. based on the excerpts above, we know that an idea is very important in writing a thesis. when someone loses an idea, he/she will be confused about how to arrange sentences correctly. so because of that, the students chose to plagiarize. 5. discussion the current study was designed to investigate the types of plagiarism and the level of plagiarism that appear in the 2019 batch english students' theses of uin arraniry, and the triggering factors encouraging these students to commit plagiarism. to address the question, the researchers used plagiarism checker x software to identify the types of plagiarism committed by the students in their theses. this software can detect parts of the student thesis containing plagiarized works and display the original source. based on the results of the examination using the plagiarism checker x software, the researcher found two types of plagiarism; word for word and mosaic plagiarism. the research findings showed that some participants used the word plagiarism in their thesis. the participants copy and paste sentences or paragraphs from someone's writing without giving credit. according to randhawa et al. (2015), wordfor-word plagiarism is the act of copying every word from the original text, without making any changes, without specifying the source. this type is the same as copy-paste and often occurs in the world of education. safrul muluk, fani rahma yanis, syarifah dahliana, & amiruddin amiruddin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 161 the second type of plagiarism that was committed by the students was mosaic plagiarism. the findings showed that five participants used this type of plagiarism. mosaic plagiarism occurs when a student takes a sentence from a source, and then changes or adds several words in the sentence without acknowledging the source. participant 1, for example, copied a sentence from a source and then deleted some words at the beginning of the sentence and replaced them with her wording. while participant 4, copied a sentence, and then added three words at the beginning of the sentence. both of them did not mention the source of the sentence. the findings are in line with the result of research conducted by randhawa et al. (2015) who reiterated the common practice of mosaic plagiarism widely used by students. with regard to the level of plagiarism committed by the students participating in this study, the researcher found that the plagiarism level of the 2019 batch english students' thesis of uin ar-raniry as indicated by plagiarism checker x was still in the low-level plagiarism range. students’ complete theses were analyzed by using plagiarism checker x. findings of the study indicate that six theses were detected at the low-level plagiarism range, namely ta (19%) tb (12%) tc (9%) th (17%), ti (18%), and tj (15%). while four theses were detected in the medium-level plagiarism range, namely td (22%), te (24%), tf (20%), and tg (24%). in relation to the factors triggering english education students to commit plagiarism, the researchers found five contributing factors; namely poor time management, laziness, poor paraphrasing skills, internet access, and lack of ideas. poor time management relates to students’ inability to organize their time to work on assignments given by their lecturers. as stated by several participants, they wanted to graduate as soon as possible and were willing to plagiarize to be able to register for the final examination. on this note, selemani, chawinga, and dube (2018) who investigated cases of plagiarism at mzuzu university suggested that one of the factors the students committed to deliberate plagiarism was poor time management. the second triggering factor is laziness. from the results of the interview, some participants argued that their laziness in writing a thesis encouraged them to plagiarize the works of others. they did want to research and read articles that could be used as references in their theses, so they took a short cut. they argued that some journals have sentences that are difficult to understand, so they chose to copy and paste the sentence and added a few of their own words, and claimed it as theirs. the third factor is poor paraphrasing skills. nine of ten participants agreed that poor paraphrasing skills cause them to plagiarize. the participants stated that paraphrasing skills are important and having good paraphrasing skills can prevent students from committing plagiarism. the findings of this study confirmed that lack of paraphrasing skills resulted in students’ inability to correctly paraphrase the works of others. they usually changed a few words from a sentence. as a result, when their theses were checked, by using plagiarism software, plagiarism was detected. this finding is similar to the study conducted by greenberger, et al. (2016) who explore how scrutinizing efl students' plagiarism practice 162 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 full-time online instructors perceive plagiarism due to misunderstanding and plagiarism factors. they found that two main factors cause students to commit accidental plagiarism, one of which is poor paraphrasing skills. the fourth factor is easy access to online sources. technological advances and the internet help students to access online materials anytime and anywhere, helping them to complete their assignments. unprecedented technological development has, among other things, contributed to the problem of plagiarism (bahadori, izadi, & hoseinpourfard, 2012). on this issue, habiburrahim (2015) argues that "today, learners can freely read thousands of books, articles, documents, and other significant reports online" (p. 6). one of the participants said he took other people's ideas on the internet and claimed it as his writing. another participant said technological advances such as the copy-paste system made it easy for students to plagiarize. risquez, o’dwyer, & ledwith (2011) emphasize the importance of technology enhanced learning, such as the use of the internet, to develop students’ research and writing skills to avoid plagiarism. the internet can be positive and negative, so we should be wise in using it. and the last factor encouraging students to plagiarize is running out of ideas. two out of ten participants suggested that when they ran out of ideas, they tended to look to online resources, which often resulted in plagiarism. as writing is a skill to express ideas, thoughts, and feelings in writing, having ideas is one of the important components in writing. the participant said that when she lost the idea of writing a thesis, she would feel confused and stressed. so doing plagiarism is the solution. 6 . conclusion the current study aimed at examining factors influencing students’ plagiarism practice, analyzing the types of plagiarism appeared in their theses, and determining the level of plagiarism in their theses. the result showed that there were several factors triggering students to plagiarize. poor time management, laziness, poor paraphrasing skills, east internet access, and running out of ideas were mentioned as the reasons for encouraging students to commit plagiarism. there were two types of plagiarism that appeared in the theses, namely word for word plagiarism and mosaic plagiarism. while participants of the study were detected to plagiarize some parts of their theses, the plagiarism level of the 2019 batch of english language education students' of uin ar-raniry, as indicated by plagiarism checker x, was still in the low-level plagiarism category. this can be seen from the results of the similarity index the participants’ theses. six theses were detected at low-level plagiarism (less than 20%), namely ta (19%), tb (12%), tc (9%), th (17%), ti (18%), and tj (15%). meanwhile, the other four theses were detected at the medium-level plagiarism level (between 20% and 30%), namely td (22%), te (24%), tf (20%), and tg (24%). safrul muluk, fani rahma yanis, syarifah dahliana, & amiruddin amiruddin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 163 references amiri, f., & razmjoo, s. a. 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(2012). a survey on the use of crosscheck for detecting plagiarism in journal articles. learned publishing, 25, 292–307. https://plagiarismcheckerx.com/features englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2022. vol. 10, no.1, 182-201 self-efficacy beliefs of english teachers from noneducational backgrounds towards tpack: an insight from indonesia stella noviani * , paulus kuswandono english education master's program (eemp), sanata dharma university, indonesia manuscript received march 24, 2022, revised april 18, 2022, accepted june 16, 2022, and published online november 7, 2022. recommended apa citation noviani, s., & kuswandono, p. (2022). self-efficacy beliefs of english teachers from non-educational backgrounds towards tpack: an insight from indonesia. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(1), 182-201. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.12935 abstract this research investigates how english teachers with a non-english educational background demonstrate their self-efficacy beliefs on the technological pedagogical content knowledge (tpack) toward their professional practices. the data was obtained from 18 teachers from a non-english educational background in formal and informal indonesian education settings. those teachers undertook strategies to develop the technological pedagogical content knowledge (tpack) while managing their selfefficacy beliefs. employing a mixed-method research approach, this study gathered the data using closed-ended and open-ended questionnaires, individual interviews, and indepth interviews. responses revealed that 18 participants completed a 5-item likerttype survey measuring the level of teachers‟ tpack self-efficacy. the survey measures the three major aspects of tpack mean value for teachers‟ technological knowle ge tk x an pe agogical knowle ge pk x 9 oth of which are relatively higher than the value of the content knowle ge ck x the ominant factor affecting the high percentage in those two aspects emanates from the teachers‟ persistent accounts that they need to be independent in learning while constantly updating their knowledge. this research also discusses the suggestion for future research studies for developing teachers‟ tpack self-efficacy. * corresponding author: stella noviani english education master's program (eemp) sanata dharma university jl. affandi, mrican, caturtunggal, kabupaten sleman, daerah istimewa yogyakarta 55281, indonesia email: stellanoviani88@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.12935 stella noviani & paulus kuswandono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 183 keywords: technological pedagogical content knowledge (tpack); self-efficacy; english teaching; technology integration; non-english education background 1. introduction the increasing availability of technologies has heavily impacted the majority of the teachers‟ aily routines in carrying out their professional work in ee the changes in technology have brought extensive new paradigms and alternative forms in performing the teaching and learning process. in contrast, the present condition may have serious gaps in the ideal vision of the educational system itself. the concrete examples of such gaps arise from teachers‟ pro lems in integrating technology in their teaching. teachers are required to explore the kinds of technological tools, but not comprehensively master the tools and can practically implement them into the praxis in the learning process (mishra & koehler, 2006) in other wor s teachers‟ e ucational technological practices reveal the inadequate skills to impart digital literacy. accordingly, most teachers still assess their digital literacy poorly. under this condition, in succeeding thin e implementation of educational tools in the classroom, positive selfefficacy and confidence as well as a positive attitude toward the technology are needed (zimmermann, melle, & huwer, 2021). thus, competencies, experience, and qualifications are considered the key roles in uil ing teachers‟ capacity in planning an maintaining teaching an learning activities in the classroom. as the early key proponent for tpack, shulman (1986) argues that being a teacher is considered a well-regarded job requiring an extensive repertoire of subject matter knowledge as the basis for the qualified teacher concept. moreover, teachers have to undergo the complexity in the teaching process and have to deliver various complex information in different forms in much simpler ways (mishra & koehler, 2006). facing the 21 st learning environment, teachers are expected to accelerate their skills to fulfill the higher competencies (kiray, 2016). accordingly, under mishra an koehler‟s (2006) framework, the dimension of technical knowledge has been considered an important element that teachers must preserve. in contrast, the lack of teachers‟ multimo al literacy a ility to interpret the texts construct the texts and communicate within the social context) blocked their capacity in obtaining the literacy of information and communication technology for preparing students for the 21 st -century learning environment (tan, yang, koh, & jonathan, 2016). in the indonesia context, the indonesian ministry of education (mone) has mentioned that indonesian teachers need to quickly open the possibility of integrating information and communication technology (ict) in the teaching and learning process (ministry of national education, 2007a; ministry of national education, 2007b; ministry of national education, 2009). to support the ict integration, mone has managed to provide ict infrastructure in many public schools (ministry of national education, 2010) by providing schools with computers, internet connections, and online self-efficacy beliefs of english teachers from non-educational backgrounds towards tpack: ….. 184 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 learning content. however, the regulations emerged before the pandemic struck and was not directly followed by the implementation of online classes in all indonesian schools and universities. only after the pandemic struck, all institutions and schools, especially those from high-risk areas, were obligated to implement distance or online learning (agustina, matra, & karimah, 2020). unfortunately, due to some circumstances, the growing popularity of computerbased activities is widely expected to produce more digitally literate teachers. in this present stu y the researchers foun the teachers‟ willingness in integrating the technology into teaching is related to teacher tk (technological knowledge) and selfefficacy beliefs on technology use (ertmer, & ottenbreit-leftwich, 2010; ottenbreitleftwich, glazewski, newby, & ertmer, 2010; abbitt, 2011). in particular, self-efficacy is the most powerful aspect that contri utes to teachers‟ behavior (henson, 2001; tschannen & woolfolk, 2001). teachers who have higher self-efficacy were more likely to utilize advanced instructional methods in the teaching and learning process (henson, 2001) more specifically a teacher‟s elief in tpack is a pivotal aspect since a teacher‟s elief a out their capa ility to use technology represents how they effectively and efficiently use the technology (lee & tsai, 2010). a large number of empirical studies have focused on the relationships between tpack self-efficacy and technological integration in an educational context (bakar, maat, & rosli, 2020; gilkes, 2020). these studies paid attention to the significant influence of tpack on teachers‟ self-efficacy and their purpose to use technology. it is critical to examine how teachers‟ self-efficacy elief towar tpack can raise teachers‟ interests, confidence, and competence in technology use. however, in indonesia, there are a lot of cases where english teachers may not have an english education background, especially those who work in private schools and institutions. such cases were investigated by nagauleng (2018) focusing on the english teachers‟ or lecturers‟ competence in teaching the english language with non-english educational backgrounds. this study demonstrated that english lecturers from non-educational ackgroun s were a le to improve stu ents‟ english proficiency as the lecturer inclu es the competencies in pedagogical, personal, social, and professional capabilities. since most studies only discussed english teachers with english education backgrounds, this phenomenon is worth studying. based on law no. 14 the year 2005 on teachers and lecturers stated that professional teachers should have academic qualifications, competence, and a teaching certificate, be physically and mentally healthy, and have the ability to achieve national education goals. to achieve the certification as a teacher as stipulated in government regulation (pp) no. 74 of 2008, the certification can be done through teacher professional education program or often known as the ppg program. moreover, this policy not only helps education graduates to use as a stepping-stone but also a wide door of opportunity for non-education graduates who are interested in teaching. stella noviani & paulus kuswandono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 185 the purpose of this study is to identify the factors that influence the intention in using technology including tpack and teacher self-efficacy, for english teachers with non-english education backgrounds who need to be able to integrate the knowledge of teaching, content, and technology into the latest indonesian educational context. additionally, this current study implies that developing and improving tpack plays an important job in supporting english teachers to utilize and integrate technology in the educational context effectively and efficiently. therefore, the research questions that lead the research are as follows: (1) what is the tpack self-efficacy level of the english teacher from noneducational department? (2) what are the influencing factors of each level? 2. literature review 2.1. technological pedagogical content knowledge (tpack) the concept of pedagogical content knowledge (pck) was first introduced by shulman in (1986) which is escri e as a concept of teachers‟ matter su ject knowle ge with their pe agogical knowle ge within shulman‟s perspective in teacher e ucation that changes the measurement of teachers‟ qualities it is an o ligation that teachers have to master not only content and pedagogical knowledge but also the combination of both. as technology has changed rapidly and become an integral part of people‟s lives mishra an koehler 00 supporte shulman‟s frame an state that technology cannot be separated from pedagogical content knowledge (pck). in response to this, technological pedagogical content knowledge (tpack) is a framework that is designed on how teachers demonstrate their ability in collaborating the educational technologies and pck to produce effective teaching with technology bostancıoğlu & han ley 0 8 . shulman has mentione that the teacher‟s knowle ge an a ility to teach the materials are critical factors in stu ents‟ learning however the three major knowledge that teachers have learned in teacher education since 1987 are (a) subject matter content knowledge, (b) pedagogical content knowledge, and (c) curricular knowledge. the subject matter knowledge includes the body of the knowledge that is expected to be taught by teachers. pedagogical content knowledge is the knowledge of transferring the specific subject knowledge more easily or difficultly to understand. then curricular knowledge is designed for the subject and pedagogical matter (shulman, 1986; mishra & koehler, 2006) as described in the following figure. self-efficacy beliefs of english teachers from non-educational backgrounds towards tpack: ….. 186 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 figure 1. early graphical representation of shulman‟s pe agogical content knowle ge framework these three combinations make the learning possible for creating valuable learning experiences and lessons that are relevant to the students and that align with the placement and implementation of those lessons within the overall structure of the curriculum. shulman (1986) elieve that teachers‟ action within this pe agogical content knowledge is aimed at maximizing the learning experiences. however, as shulman‟s foun ation offers a soli foun ation for comprehen ing the pe agogicalcontent knowledge in the past, elaborations in instructional technology need to be added to reconceptualize the previous framework. this need resulted in a revised framework that includes the new digital resources in instruction design and its function in building an effective learning environment (cherner & smith, 2016). buil ing from shulman‟s (1986) framework for pedagogical content knowledge, mishra and koehler (2006) added a new dimension of technological knowledge and demonstrates types of teacher knowledge that can be obtained from the integration of technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge. the seven integrated forms of teacher knowledge from kiray (2016), are pedagogical content knowledge (pck), technological content knowledge (tck), technological pedagogical knowledge (tpk), and technological pedagogical content knowledge (tpack). according to kiray (2016), together with technological knowledge (tk), pedagogical knowledge (pk), and content knowledge (ck), these seven kinds of knowledge build up the tpack framework as follows: 1. technological knowle ge tk : this stan s for teachers‟ general knowle ge of technology that also incorporates the ability to utilize the various technologies, technological tools, and related resources. 2. pedagogical knowle ge pk : this stan s for teachers‟ general knowle ge of delivering the materials in the learning environment. in addition, this knowledge includes teaching strategies, approaches, and methods that can accommodate stu ents‟ learning experiences an assess their understanding. 3. content knowledge (ck): within this knowledge, the teacher is required to have sufficient knowledge of the subject that is being taught. therefore, teachers need to understand the basic concept and the nature of the knowledge. stella noviani & paulus kuswandono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 187 4. pedagogical content knowledge (pck): this knowledge should be mastered as it represents the knowledge of teaching a particular subject with certain pedagogical strategies. 5. technological content knowledge (tck): teachers need to possess the ability to integrate subject matter with technical knowledge. 6. technological pedagogical knowledge (tpk): this knowledge is associated with utilizing technology effectively to succeed in the teaching performance and enhance stu ents‟ learning experience 7. technological pedagogical content knowledge (tpack): this knowledge is a great combination of technological, content, and pedagogical knowledge. it is related to pck, tpk, and tck. within this theoretical model of tpack, it is believed that the knowledge of ck, pk, and tk is inseparable and acts interactively, not independently of each other (mishra & koehler, 2008). in the light of tpack, a teacher is required to select the most desirable technological tools that can be used in teaching the subject matter, un erstan how the etermine technologies can give impact stu ents‟ learning process and have knowledge on how and when integrating the technology into a learning process by taking into consi eration of stu ents‟ prior knowle ge stu ents‟ upcoming pro lems an stu ents‟ misconceptions that they ring baran & can azoğlu-bilici, 2015) however these frameworks have implications for three main aspects of teachers‟ knowledge that builds up into seven integrated aspects of knowledge to develop an effective and efficient learning environment there y investigating teachers‟ level of knowledge of those seven aspects is a way to ensure their understanding of each of the aspects. 2.2. technology and teacher efficacy self-efficacy is essential to help someone in making decisions and also to allow someone to present a certain attitude in the teaching arena. bandura (1997) stated that self-efficacy is a belief to adopt and manage certain acts in attaining certain tasks. it may influence how people think, feel, motivate themselves and act (bandura, 1999). there is an assumption that the higher self-efficacy is, the more positive encouragement is. it is also believed that having low self-efficacy might affect the decision-making process. the use of different levels of technology integration in the classroom ultimately depends on the teacher (jimoyiannis & komis, 2006) given teachers‟ self-efficacy in integrating technology, the teachers need to have the capacity in performing teaching with effective technology (wang, ertmer, & newby, 2004). it is also considered to be the teachers‟ self-efficacy belief in using educational technology in the teaching and learning process (lee, lee, & bong, 2014) this elief contri utes to the teacher‟s performance during the class since it highly focuses on the confidence and belief to self-efficacy beliefs of english teachers from non-educational backgrounds towards tpack: ….. 188 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 integrate the technology rather than the a ility to integrate the technology the teachers‟ self-efficacy belief most pro a ly uses e ucational technology to activate stu ents‟ participation even among unmotivated students, during which the learning process can gain the desired results (tschannen & woolfolk, 2001). the important point concerns the behavior shown by the teachers namely acceptance in rejection of technology. those who accept technology tend to prepare for the use of technology well and conversely those who reject it tend to avoid the technology (lailiyah & cahyono, 2017). however, the reflections on self-efficacy on technological tools may happen during the class session. teachers with strong self-efficacy beliefs are required to have different teaching techniques by adopting a student-centered. on the contrary, teachers with low self-efficacy have a more teacher-centered style during the learning and teaching process (henson, 2001; milner & hoy, 2003; perkmen & pamuk, 2011). therefore, technology integration self-efficacy beliefs are considered to be the prerequisite of the effective learning process. in this context, it is necessary for to teachers have competencies in making meaning of these technologies and consequently, the learning plan should integrate educational technology çoklar kılıçer & o a aşı 2007). the goal of this current study is to investigate the self-efficacy beliefs on technological tools of english teachers with non-english education department ackgroun s the teachers‟ self-efficacy beliefs also represent some factors in the three levels of tpack, namely pedagogical knowledge (pk), content knowledge (ck), and technological knowle ge tk within these framework levels the teachers‟ selfefficacy belief is counted as the main point supporting their level of tpack. 3. method 3.1. research context and design this research employed a mixed-method design to help the researchers to gain deeper information on the topic area being discussed (hoover & krishnamurti, 2010). this method helped to explore the findings and to provide sufficient evidence by covering the shortcomings of using a single approach (albert et al., 2009; bryman, 2004; caruth, 2013; creswell & plano, 2011; tashakkori & creswell, 2008). this study undertook a sequential explanatory design in which the data were collected for two consecutive phases. the mixed-method sequential explanatory design consists of two distinct phases, namely quantitative followed by qualitative (creswell, 2003). in this design, the researchers first collected and analyzed the quantitative (numeric) data. the qualitative (text) data were collected and analyzed in the second phase as it helps to explain the quantitative results obtained in the first phase. the second phase, in qualitative data, is built based on the first phase and those two phases are connected in the intermediate stage of the study. the rationale of this approach is that the quantitative data and the following analysis provide a general understanding of the research question. the qualitative data and their analysis clarify and elaborate the statistical stella noviani & paulus kuswandono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 189 results y viewing participants‟ perspectives in more epth (creswell, 2003; rossman & wilson, 1985; tashakkori & teddlie, 1998). 3.2. data collection and analysis 3.2.1. quantitative phase the goal of the quantitative phase was to identify the potential dimension in tpack self-efficacy in the english teachers from the non-educational department background. the researchers collected the quantitative data via google form, using an adapted questionnaire from can azoğlu bilici et al (2013). the core survey items formed five-point likert scales and followed a mixed variable representing the tpack major components (technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge) and the selfefficacy aspect of tpack the teacher‟s technological knowle ge evelopment involves whether the teacher can prepare ideal learning models and learning activities in the english language by utilizing technology or not. the pedagogical and content knowledge is about whether the teachers have good knowledge and ability in classroom management and can integrate the four basic language skills interactively. the researchers identified the highest, average, and lowest scores of the dimensions in the tpack self-efficacy. next, the researchers did the reliability of the survey scale items using frequency factor analysis. the purposive sampling procedure based on specific criteria was used to select the participants. the criteria for selecting the participants for the quantitative phase included the followings factors: (1) coming from a non-educational background; (2) having at least two years of teaching experience in an informal and a formal institution; (3) experiencing the transition the offline to the online teaching environment. the typical participants were 25 and 27 years of age, all of them coincidently are women, employed full-time, 4 of them works for formal education in primary and secondary private school and 3 of them works for informal language course institutions, mostly from yogyakarta, and around jakarta. the ethical protocols of the research were addressed by communicating the explanatory statements and consent form of the research to the prospective participants. when they agreed to join the research voluntarily, the researcher invited them to participate through whatsapp messages. eighteen english teachers responded to fill in the questionnaire and eight of them followed the in-depth interviews. the in-depth interviews were done as the researcher wante to get etaile information a out the participants‟ exten e thoughts a out tpack efficacy beliefs. 3.2.2 qualitative phase for this phase, the researchers purposefully selected seven participants from those who have completed the survey. the seven participants participated voluntarily when they saw that the research timing fitted their teaching schedule and personal agenda. to give the richness and depth of the data description (creswell, 2013; stake, self-efficacy beliefs of english teachers from non-educational backgrounds towards tpack: ….. 190 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 2010), the researchers used some sources for collecting the data: (1) in-depth semistructured interview using whatsapp call with seven participants; (2) follow-up interview using whatsapp messages and voice notes with each participant to secure additional information; (3) the responses of open-ended and close-ended questions on the survey. next, the researchers audiotaped and did a non-verbatim transcript of the seven interviews. in analyzing the results, a two-stage coding model (miles & huberman, 1984; miles, 2014) was applied. in the first cycle of coding, the researcher coded the interview results independently and in the second cycle, the initial codes were organized and built into some categories. finally, the labels of those coding were categorized based on the three big themes in the tpack (content, technology, and pedagogical knowledge). the three main big themes were selected intentionally following the results of the quantitative data. 4. findings a reliability test is done for measuring the error in the questionnaire. reliability is the consistency of measurement results if the testing procedure is carried out repeatedly on a population of individuals or groups (supratiknya, 2014). then the data from items that have been scored were calculated and analyzed using cronbach's alpha coefficient (supratiknya, 2014). the reliability coefficient ranges from 0 to 1 (azwar, 2009). the closer the score to 1, the better the reliability of the measuring instrument. according to hair, black, babin, and anderson (2010), the reliability testing is considered reliable if the value of cronbach alpha > 0.4. below is the reliability per dimension: table 1 reliability statistics. no aspects cronbach's alpha n of items 1 pedagogical knowledge ,590 5 2 content knowledge ,640 2 3 technological knowledge ,896 6 based on the table 1 above, the reliability of the pedagogical knowledge dimension has an alpha coefficient of 0,590. meanwhile, for content knowledge dimension has an alpha coefficient of 0,640 and the technological knowledge dimension stella noviani & paulus kuswandono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 191 has an alpha coefficient of 0,896. it can be concluded that the three dimensions above are reliable because they have a score above 0.40. table 2 mean of the data. the table 2 above demonstrates the descriptive statistics for the three main components in tpack showing mean scores, standard deviations, and the minimummaximum values. the mean scores show differences in each component. the mean scores of the technological knowledge and pedagogical knowledge aspect are the highest mean among the three, that is tk (m=23.55) and pk (m=19.55). this indicates that the participants regard technological knowledge (tk) and pedagogical knowledge (pk) as more important than content knowledge (ck). as indicated above, the mean score of ck is 8,16, which is the lowest mean compared to the others. this implies that teachers‟ technological knowle ge an pe agogical knowle ge are higher than the content knowledge for teaching english. the standard deviation for the three elements was varied starting from below 1 and varied between 0.85 to 2.74, which indicates that the data points are all relatively consistent. next the ata presentation emonstrates the level of the english teachers‟ tpack self-efficacy in the three areas. table 3 pedagogical knowledge aspect. no range frequency percentage category 1 5-12 0 0% low 2 13-20 14 77,7 % medium 3 21-25 4 22,3 % high * the rating information is adapted from score interpretation criteria the researchers divided table 3 into three major criteria in pedagogical aspects: low, medium, and high. based on the table above, the researchers found that there are aspects n minimum maximum sum mean std. deviation pedagogical knowledge x_total 18 16.00 23.00 352.00 19.5556 2.17532 content knowledge y_total 18 6.00 10.00 147.00 8.1667 .85749 technological knowledge z_total 18 18.00 30.00 424.00 23.5556 2.74874 self-efficacy beliefs of english teachers from non-educational backgrounds towards tpack: ….. 192 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 no teachers who have low pedagogical knowledge (n=0). a total of 77% of the teachers have an average or medium pedagogical knowledge. on the other hand, the percentage of teachers with high pedagogical abilities is 22.3% (n=4). the quantitative results obtained from the tpack scale, on the aspect of showing the teacher's pedagogical ability from moderate to high. 4.1. the urge of renewing the teaching approach referring to the level of pedagogical knowledge in table 3, some teachers share some factors related to their high and average levels of pedagogical knowledge. the main factors that contri ute to a huge change in teachers‟ pe agogical knowle gea ility are y learning from their previous teaching experience a opting senior teachers‟ teaching knowledge and approaches, and doing a teaching reflection. since all of the participants come from english literature department, they did not have a chance to get the basic knowledge of teaching from their undergraduate degree study. most of the participants agreed that the best way to survive from teaching at an early stage is to do the trial-error and adapt some methods introduced by the seniors (teacher 8, i-eq). the other teacher also added that the factor influencing her level of teaching ability is about willingness on being creative in delivering the material to students by recognizing stu ents‟ a ility of processing materials since my previous learning experience from school is different from my stu ents‟ con ition right now i have to un erstan more a out how they think and process information. i also often ask my students whether the material that i made is clear enough. this helps me to reflect and evaluate my teaching performances … besi es that i never o a textbook approach, i always do my way to present the material. (teacher 5, i-eq) from the statements above, the researchers found that the development of their teaching ability comes from their initiative to create a better learning environment for students. thus, the teachers can be innovative and creative even though their educational background did not provide enough experience in teaching. 4.2. equal opportunities and treatment from institutions since they have equal treatment and opportunities, they can show the same qualities in teaching. most teachers agree that the teachers with english education backgrounds are accustomed to some academic documents for teaching (e.g., lesson plans, records of work, and progress records) while the non-english education teachers do not. however, the institution gives the same amount of opportunities in terms of teaching at any level provided in their institution. the aim of this policy is for familiarizing them with the teaching environment and for giving them the freedom to develop their teaching skills. as one of the teachers mentioned, before teaching the stella noviani & paulus kuswandono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 193 particular classes, she always gets training from the institution where she works at. another point to mention is that the previous educational background does not affect the teaching performance, in terms of knowledge in english and teaching performance, between the non-english education department and the english education graduates are equally the same (teacher 10, i-eq). however, a similar condition is found by teacher 6. she confirmed that the non-english department teachers are entrusted to teach at a higher level an have the capa ility in capturing stu ents‟ nee s uring learning i think we get the same opportunities in terms of teaching some grades at the elementary level. i think that sometimes, i give a better explanation to my students compared to those teachers from the education department. when explaining the sentence pattern, they tend to only ask the students to follow the example only. but for me, i usually explain it in detail. i provide the example and give them an understanding of how to put the noun, verb, and adjective, in the right place. even in my school, most teachers come from an english literature background and usually, they teach upper levels. take an example, one of my friends is a cambridge english assessor and she teaches in grade 6. meanwhile, the teachers from the education department are mostly placed in lower grade level. (teacher 6, i-q) from these teachers‟ statements a ove it can e conclu e that the opportunities from the institutions help them to develop their teaching skills. besides, those teachers believe that the non-english education department can learn pedagogical praxis on condition that they are provided equal opportunities to develop their teaching competencies in comparison to those graduating from english education department. hence, from their experience, any teacher from any background can develop a teaching skill if he/she wants to. table 4 content knowledge aspect. range frequency percentage category 2-6 1 5,5 % low 7-10 17 94,4 % high from the table 4 above, the researchers found that there is only one teacher (n=1) that has low content knowledge meanwhile the other teachers have a high percentage in this aspect. a total of 94,4% of teachers have high content knowledge. moreover, the only teacher that has low content knowledge holds a 5,5% percentage. through this aspect that is obtained with the tpack scale, the content knowledge is ranging from low to high. self-efficacy beliefs of english teachers from non-educational backgrounds towards tpack: ….. 194 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 4.3. strong basic skills some teachers commented that to teach and to take the job as a passion, a teacher needs to master the material first and be comfortable with the material that they teach. if a teacher is confident enough with the knowledge they have, they will perform the teaching well. the two teachers stated that the valuable learning experience during undergraduate degree helps them to know the material by heart and become their unique strength in constructing particular material (e.g. creating parody script for online performance) (teacher 10, i-q; teacher 6, i-q). besides the basic knowledge, the current policy announced by the government should be understood when teaching in formal education. this is reflecte in the following quotation “to cope with that i equip myself with the latest materials given by the ministry of education and culture with some mo ification that suits my stu ents‟ nee s ” teacher i-q). through the teachers‟ statements teachers‟ interest willingness to up ate the materials, and previous educational experience create a strong english skill for teaching. table 5 technological knowledge aspect. range frequency percentage category 6-15 0 0 % low 16-25 16 88,8 % medium 26-30 2 11,1% high from the technological aspect, the table above shows that there are no teachers who have low technological knowledge (n=0). in addition, the researchers found that a total of 88.8% of the teachers have moderate technological knowledge. hence, the percentage of teachers with high technological knowledge is 11,1% (n=2). the quantitative result here shows teachers‟ technological knowle ge from mo erate to high. nevertheless, the scope of this research does not specify the factors influencing each tpack knowledge level. 4.4. becoming an innovative teacher: adapting with technology from the seven interviews, it is highly suggested that to be a teacher, someone is willing to be a lifelong learner. in becoming the one, someone has to have the desire to understand and explore the knowledge that helps them grow and develop. in this case, to provide an innovative learning environment for students, teachers need to be aware of learning styles, supportive educational tools, and skills that make them innovative educators. almost all of the teachers agree that a teacher needs to be updated with the technology. besides, following teaching training also helps the teachers to recognize the stella noviani & paulus kuswandono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 195 various kinds of learning platforms better so that they can choose the most accessible platform that suits the students and for supporting the learning material (teacher 6, ieq). another teacher also added that choosing a teaching career requires them to continuously do extra research, especially on the latest educational tools. otherwise, they will block their career path. i also think that in terms of mastering technological tools, between the teachers with english education background is the same with the nonenglish education background. i believe if a person is technology literate, he might be able to find a way to keep updated with the latest educational tools for teaching. but english education graduates also can have higher technical knowledge if they still read some journals related with technological tools. (teacher 8, i-eq) i used to have a friend from (primary school teacher education) pgsd background but now she has already resigned. maybe it is because of her age, she cannot deal with modern technology and she gave up on her job. (teacher 6, i-q) the statements above prove that teaching requires them to adapt their practices and to be creative as it can engage students and stimulate their active participation during learning. 5. discussion the main purpose of this study is to describe the levels of self-efficacy on three main aspects in tpack (pedagogical, technological, and content knowledge) of english teachers with non-english department backgrounds and also factors that contribute to each level on three main aspects. the following is the discussion of the result, as well as the implications, of this study. first, the finding is in accordance with the theory by shulman (1986) that selfefficacy will give an impact on teachers‟ pe agogical content knowle ge this theory is in line with the study conducted by milner and hoy (2003) that is about how selfefficacy affects teachers‟ tpack interestingly the participants in this stu y elieve that they have a high rate of self-efficacy almost in all three major domains of tpack. it is informed that (technological knowledge) tk and (pedagogical knowledge) pk as of the two highest scores obtained by teachers with mean value ( ̅ ) and ( ̅ ), followed by (content knowledge) ck for ( ̅ ). the result of this study gives a new dimension in comparison to the result of several studies conducted in the past in the context of pre-service and in-service teachers (e.g., gonzales, 2018; sojanah et al., 2021; yulianti et al., 2021). however, as far as this study is concerned, it is one of the first known studies to attentively explain the factors that investigate the levels of three main domains in tpack (pk, ck, and tk) self-efficacy of english teachers with a non-english education background. most other studies focus on self-efficacy beliefs of english teachers from non-educational backgrounds towards tpack: ….. 196 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 measuring the tpack self-efficacy in general and the factors that build up the preservice and in-service teachers‟ tpack self-efficacy from non-english language subjects. comparatively, this research offers a new dimension of the english teachers with non-english education backgrounds having a relatively high level of tpack selfefficacy and the factors that build up their tpack self-efficacy. the data presented in table 3 show that among 18 teachers, the level of selfefficacy in pedagogical knowledge is 77,7% (n=14) at a medium level, meanwhile, the others are at a high level which is 22,3%. in line with the pedagogical knowledge aspect teachers must equip themselves with the knowle ge of stu ents‟ way of learning, classroom management skills, lesson planning, and student assessment. in other words, teachers should have the ability to select the suitable techniques or methods in the classroom, know the nature of the students, and choose the most effective evaluation form for students (koehler, mishra, & cain, 2013). despite the unique background of the participants who never got workshops and teacher education courses during their undergraduate study, they manage to survive from teaching in the early stage. most of the teachers agreed that in choosing the best teaching method, they adapted and adopted the method given by seniors and did some trial-error by learning the nature of the classroom. besides that, as bandura (1997) mentioned, the strongest antecedents of self-efficacy can result from teaching experience. this occurred to these teachers as they coped with their teaching experience for their future teaching performance. the last is the equal opportunity given by the workplace is another fortunate factor that built up their pedagogical knowledge. as they got the same proportion of classes compare to those who came from english education department, the specific pre-teaching training also helped them to become qualified teacher. furthermore, for the content knowledge, the specific data revealed that 17 participants got a high level of self-efficacy in this aspect with a percentage of 94,4%, and only 1 of the participants showed a low level of content knowledge aspect with a percentage of 5,5%. the high aspect of content knowledge happened since the teachers agreed that the subject is a part of their passion and they benefit from their previous learning experience during the undergraduate study for building a solid foundation of su ject knowle ge this statement matche with shulman‟s statement (1986) that teachers must have deeper fundamentals of subject knowledge they teach which also includes the knowledge of scientific facts, concepts, theories, scientific method, and the rules of giving evidence while reasoning. it is seen that without having a comprehensive base of content knowledge, teachers will potentially create misconceptions of the subject knowledge for students in the future. the last point presented in table 5 is for technological knowledge. it is stated that 16 out of 18 participants got a medium level of self-efficacy in technological knowledge with a percentage of 88,8%. the 2 other teachers got a high level of selfefficacy with a percentage of 11%. the reason behind this quite high percentage is that the teachers can adapt to the current technological tools for teaching. it is necessary for stella noviani & paulus kuswandono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 197 all educators at any level to understand the role of technological knowledge and selfefficacy in stu ents‟ learning experiences. because this knowledge prepares the educators to guide the students in using technology for a better experience in the global social networking in which we live (johnson, 2009; u.s. department of education, 2010). along with the times, teachers are forced to fit in the demand of the new learning experiences that make them learn more about educational tools that suit their students best. the teachers who can survive are those who do not only tend to look at the technology but the teachers who understand the assignment by appropriately incorporating technology into their teaching process (international society for technology in education, 2000; national council for accreditation of teacher education, 1997; u.s. congress, 1995; u.s. department of education and statistics, 2003; zhao & frank, 2003). to sum up, it is clear that as teachers the primary focus should be on studying technology. 6. conclusion this research has investigate two significant factors of teachers‟ self-efficacy beliefs, namely: the self-efficacy level of the english letters graduates on tpack and the influential factors perceived by those teachers in using technology for learning. the findings of the study inform significant and in-depth insights into the development of english teachers with non-english e ucational ackgroun s‟ tpack pe agogical content, and technological knowledge) and the factors that influence that support their development. both qualitative and quantitative reveal that being a teacher without an educational background brings them a lot of challenges and opportunities to learn new knowledge areas. the average percentage of technological and pedagogical knowledge is related to the challenges that they face in becoming a teacher. the level of teachers‟ technological knowledge ( ̅ ) and pedagogical knowledge ( ̅ ) from the mean values are greater than the content knowledge ( ̅ . however, some important points that can be highlighted in their development process are the external factor from the institution that supports their development in terms of teaching and their attitude of being resilient in facing challenges during teaching. the influential factors perceived by those teachers in using the technology during the learning process are the need to constantly renew the teaching approach, the given equal opportunities to grow as a non-education background english teacher, the strong basic skills, and the principle of being an innovative teacher. becoming a teacher can be a promising career for anyone as long as they are willing to invest their time in learning. those who already got the privilege of being trained as a teacher still need to update their teaching knowledge as well. thus, the english language education program should also promote more suitable teaching programs and training that can close the gap between the future english teachers, both coming from the education or non-education background. as the study was limited to self-efficacy beliefs of english teachers from non-educational backgrounds towards tpack: ….. 198 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 investigating the tpack self-efficacy levels the factors influencing teachers‟ selfefficacy belief in their tpack mastery are still worth researching, especially investigating the strategies, assessment, and improvement of their efficacy beliefs. references abbitt, j. 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(2021). developing prospective chemistry teachers‟ tpack-a comparison between students of two different universities and expertise levels regarding their tpack self-efficacy, attitude, and lesson planning competence. journal of chemical education, 98(6), 1863–1874. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c01296. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2022. vol. 9, no. 2, 165-186 integrating 21st-century skills in english material development: what do college students really need? sebastianus menggo * universitas katolik indonesia santu paulus ruteng, indonesia sebastian.pradana@gmail.com sabina ndiung universitas katolik indonesia santu paulus ruteng, indonesia punyaku79@gmail.com hendrikus midun universitas katolik indonesia santu paulus ruteng, indonesia hendrik.m2002@gmail.com manuscript received s ep t em b er 1 9 , 2021, revised november 28, 2021, first published may 1, 2022, and available online may 7, 2022. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i2.10889 recommended apa citation mengo, s., ndiung, s., & midun, h. (2022). integrating 21st-century skills in english material development: what do college students really need? englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(2), 165-186. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.10889 abstract the 21 st -century education emphasizes a number of indicators that teachers, students, parents, and other education stakeholders should completely understand. english teachers should be encouraged to be able to integrate the intended 21 st -century competency indicators into instructional materials that are preceded by a needs analysis stage. needs analysis is crucial in designing english materials as it serves as a valuable tool for practitioners to create english materials aligned with students' target and learning needs. as a consequence, needs analysis is seen as a necessary component of the teaching practice. the purposes of this study are to examine and reveal the numerous types of students' target needs and learning needs for english material development. this study examined two english lecturers and 206 students enrolled in the primary education department. the data collection instrument was a questionnaire and the data were analyzed using a software program, namely an excel chart data series. findings indicated that the students' target needs included necessities, lacks, and wants, * corresponding author https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6622 https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.10889 integrating 21st-century skills in english material development: what do college students really need? 166 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 whereas learning needs included input, procedure, setting, learner's role, and lecturer's role in the teaching-learning process. students' target and learning needs emphasized the importance of developing english materials that boosted 21 st -century education skills. english materials should be adjusted to meet the needs of students' future careers, with a particular emphasis on the eleven sub-skills of 21 st -century education. keywords: english material development; needs analysis; teaching; twenty-firstcentury skills 1. introduction needs analysis is one of the pedagogical efforts carried out by educators in the learning process. learning needs are an essential component (condition) of learning and play an essential role in teaching and learning activities. needs analysis is the first stage that must be fulfilled by teachers/educators, both in designing and developing teaching materials and implementing them in the teaching and learning process. teachers, as designers or developers of instructional materials, are expected to be able to discover all of the target needs, wants, necessities, and shortcomings of instructional material users through the use of appropriate instruments in order to provide reliable and valid needs analysis (chen, chang, & chang, 2016; ulum, 2015). the outputs of the needs analysis assist teachers and students in developing more relevant and effective teaching-learning processes (axmedovna, gapporovna, & rozmatovna, 2019; khan, 2020). by conducting an adequate needs analysis, teachers can identify the learning components that students prefer, such as teaching techniques, required linguistic components, types of activities, media, and assessments. moreover, students will be more responsive towards the learning process. several previous studies have confirmed the vital role of needs analysis in developing teaching materials that facilitate an interactive, joyful english learning process and address learners' target needs (kong, 2018; panggua, fitri, & patanduk, 2020; poedjiastutie & oliver, 2017). they claim that needs analysis is the first step and reflection space for teachers to accommodate all students' wants and needs in supporting students' english competence achievement. on this basis, instructional materials must be developed in accordance with students' wants and needs, including english language skills, language components, teaching methods, media, themes and topics, time allocation, the role of students and teachers in the teaching-learning process, assessment, and other learning components. however, these studies only focused on the urgency of needs analysis in designing english teaching materials that fulfil the learners’ needs and preferences (adam, 2018; padmadewi & artini, 2017; yahya, said, & masruddin, 2019). they have not presented valid findings related to the concept of developing english teaching materials for students majoring in primary education program, which should be integrated with a number of 21 st -century educational skills. the twenty-first-century educational skills are an urgent need for today's students (heinrichs, 2016; tindowen, sebastianus menggo, sabina ndiung, & hendrikus midun englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 167 bassig, & cagurangan, 2017). this gap is the focus of this paper's analysis. the concept of needs analysis is clearly demonstrated in this article in order to boost 21st-century education skills for students majoring in primary education program in indonesia. according to previous researches, it is essential to do a need analysis process of developing english teaching materials that are geared toward a variety of 21 st -century educational skills for college students (limbong, 2017; luciana, padmadewi, artini, & budiarta, 2020; menggo, budiarsa, & padmadewi, 2019a; rakhmawati & priyana, 2019). these researchers argue that today's students cannot rely on a single skill but must possess a wide range of skills to compete in diverse career opportunities. the intended multi-skills include effective communication abilities, critical thinking, creativity and innovation, digital literacy, self-regulation, social and intercultural interaction, and the ability to demonstrate excellent leadership and responsibility (bell, 2016; komlayut & srivatanakul, 2017; stehle & peters-burton, 2019). lecturers as learning developers are encouraged to integrate a number of skills through the creation of english teaching materials that meet the demands of future primary school teachers. the above description inspired researchers to consider the following two research questions: 1. what are the target needs of college learners for english material development in the primary education program? 2. what are the sorts of college learners' needs for english material development in the primary education program? based on these two questions, the purpose of this research is to reveal scientific findings related to college learners' target needs and learning needs toward english material design in the primary education department. 2. literature review 2.1. multi-literacy in english material development english communicative competence is a fundamental requirement for today's learners. for this argument, through the ministry of education, culture, research and technology, the government of indonesia ratified a policy of english as a mandatory course for all majors in higher education, both in diploma and undergraduate programs, including in the primary education department (kementerian riset, teknologi, dan pendidikan tinggi [kemenristekdikti], 2012). the learning outcomes of english courses in this study program have been limited to communicative competence. students are encouraged to be able to express their thoughts, both spoken and written, into various english communication functions, such as informational, expressive, representational, textual, personal, imaginative, and many more functions (halliday, 1973; menggo, suastra, budiarsa, & padmadewi, 2019b). these language functions have implications for lecturers' capacity to select acceptable linguistic components in designing teaching materials. indeed, the learning outcomes of english courses mandated by the indonesian government are still mono-skill, which has not met the current learners' needs. thereby, integrating 21st-century skills in english material development: what do college students really need? 168 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 integrating a variety of 21 st -century education skills into teaching materials development is an excellent way to guarantee for ensuring the students' achievement of multi-literacy or multi-skills of primary education department as well as enabling them to take a more active role in various fields of life at a global level. recently, the term literacy has been a great issue for many people since literacy is defined as a person's capacity to manage and comprehend something (rintaningrum, 2009). the meaning of literacy keeps evolving in accordance with mankind's development so that literacy has been adopted in various fields of science and gives sense according to the context of the area used. this understanding then implicates the creation of the terminology of multi-modals, multi-competent, multi-years, multi-skills and finally resulted in the concept of multi-literacy (giampapa, 2010). multi-literacy is synonymous with multi-skills in the context of this article. multi-literacy is a fundamental requirement for college students since it simultaneously affects their preparation as professional and competent workforce candidates and enables them to interact with people from diverse backgrounds in a larger area. multi-literacy is a practical path for college students to address today's global challenges (hong & hua, 2020; kohnen & adams, 2019; nabhan, 2019). they claim that multi-literacy is a crucial integrative skill. this ability requires the college students to present original concepts, analytical sharpness (critical-logical thinking), and apply them according to the needs of workplaces. 2.2.what do college students really need? english teaching material should be designed by a lecturer based on what college students want to learn. for non-english majors, the english specific purposes (esp) is generally referred to as an english course. the esp is an approach to language acquisition in which all decisions regarding the content of teaching materials are based on why learners learn english (hutchinson & waters, 1987). learning needs are stated by hutchinson and waters (1987) as target needs (what the learner must perform in the target outcomes) and learning needs (what the learner must do to acquire new knowledge) (p. 54). hutchinson and waters (1987) further argue that target needs include students' necessities, lacks and wants. necessities can be regarded as the learner's desire to perform adequately in the target outcome. additionally, students' lacks refer to learners' inability to meet their target needs. wants are associated with the learners' expectations following completion of the english course. additionally, learning needs are composed of seven components: language input, the procedure of completing numerous assignments, the setting of learning activities, the learner and lecturer roles during the teaching-learning process, the media used, the types of exercises performed, and the type of assessment (nunan, 2004). the purpose of this current study was to explore target needs and learning needs in order to ascertain the english materials development needs of students enrolled in the primary education department in the indonesian context. sebastianus menggo, sabina ndiung, & hendrikus midun englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 169 2.3. 21 st century education skills knowledgeable and multi-skilled people are the orientation of the 21 st -century educational paradigm. the college students' cognitive space is filled with a combination of excellent knowledge and applicable skills in awakening their enthusiasm for the competitive phenomenon of a more complicated and real world of work. 21 st -century education offers a challenging educational process for students. a challenging education requires educators to educate the college students to have critical, creative, innovative, literal and systematic thinking skills in solving various problems. additionally, challenging education places considerable emphasis on students' social literacy (collaboration, communication) and media literacy, which is believed to promote optimal self-development (howard, 2018; kim, raza, & seidman, 2019). they add that college students must fulfil these skills to help them understand ways of thinking, ways of working, media for working, and methods for living together in this world. prior studies (erol, 2021; tan, choo, kang, & liem, 2017; trilling & fadel, 2009) highlight three key skills for twenty-first-century education: career and life skills, digital literacy, and learning and innovation skills. they further develop these three major skills into the eleven sub-skills necessary for success in twenty-first-century education, including career and life skills (communication and collaboration, critical thinking and problem-solving, and creativity and innovation skills), digital literacy skills (information, media, and ict literacy), and learning and innovation skills (flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-direction, social and cross-cultural, productivity and accountability, and leadership and responsibility skills). these eleven sub-skills can be achieved by designing appropriate english teaching materials for mastery of the material, linguistic components, types of exercises, students’ roles in the teaching and learning process, media used, and assessments expected by students. the purpose of this current study is to ascertain college students' desires regarding the eleven sub-skills required. proficiency in these sub-skills ensures college students' access to global job opportunities. as a result, the development of english materials is done under the sub-skills required. 3. method the design of this study was a cross-sectional survey. it was done in april 2021 at the primary education department, universitas katolik indonesia santu paulus ruteng, indonesia. this research design was chosen since the research population was diverse in terms of age, gender, and grade level, as well as the researchers intend to examine students' needs in terms of courses, projects, and involvement in the teaching and learning process (cohen, manion, & morrison, 2007). the research population was 706 students and four english lecturers who taught at the primary education department, universitas katolik indonesia santu paulus ruteng, integrating 21st-century skills in english material development: what do college students really need? 170 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 indonesia. there were 206 students and 2 english lectures from this department were selected as a sample by using a multistage random sampling technique. a questionnaire was used to collect the data in this research. the questionnaire used was adapted from hutchinson and waters (1987) and nunan (2004) on needs analysis instruments. the questionnaire covered 15 items consisting of closed questions with four answer choices. a survey was sent out asking respondents to select one of four choices stated on the survey. before the questionnaire items were submitted to the respondents, they were examined by three experts to check and assess the relevance and non-relevance regarding the contents of the questionnaire items. due to the continued high prevalence of the covid-19 at the research locus, this questionnaire was distributed through google. the researchers distributed the questionnaire concurrently to all respondents through a google link. the respondents spent almost 30 minutes answering the survey questions using their digital devices such as pcs and smartphones. after the respondents completed the questionnaire, the data were then analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively—the quantitative analysis using excel chart software application, while qualitative data used qualitative descriptive analysis. 4. findings and discussion to address rq 1 and 2, the researchers distributed a needs analysis questionnaire regarding english courses' target needs and learning needs for two lecturers and 206 students at the primary education department, universitas katolik indonesia santu paulus ruteng. the questions in the questionnaire were fifteen numbers and were semiclosed. each question had four answer options and the fifth option was given the opportunity for respondents to write directly an alternative offer that supported the achievement of the college students' target needs and learning needs. 4.1. target needs target needs are the types of knowledge and skills needed by students to be actively involved in learning (english) following their learning outcomes targets. the results of the target needs can be classified into three components, namely needs, lacks and wants. each of these components is described in more detail below. 4.1.1. necessities the necessity is a wide target of college students to program english courses, as illustrated in table 1 below. table 1 students’ necessities to program english courses. statement answer options n f % sebastianus menggo, sabina ndiung, & hendrikus midun englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 171 1. my goal in programming english courses is... a. meet the requirements for taking other courses 208 26 12.5 b. assists me in communicating effectively in english with foreigners 208 125 60.10 c. obtain a respectable grade 208 37 17.79 d. contribute to my continuous learning 208 20 9.61 e. others 208 2. the form of exercise i'm interested in is... a. exercise for each language skill 208 140 67.30 b. integrated exercise of all language skills 208 33 15.87 c. exercises that focus on language components 208 27 12.98 d. integrated exercises between language skills and language components 208 8 3.85 e. others 208 3. at the end of each exercise, i would be pleased if i could demonstrate a greater understanding of... a. pronunciation accuracy 208 71 34.13 b. text content 208 100 48.07 c. grammar 208 25 12.04 d. writing 208 12 5.76 e. others 208 note: n = the number of respondents f = the number of scores according to statement number 1, 60.10% of respondents answered that their purpose for enrolling in english courses was to improve their ability to communicate in english with foreigners. the second choice of 17.79% was to obtain better marks, 12.5% was to fulfil prerequisite requirements for taking other courses, and 9.61% was to support their ongoing studies in the study program. moreover, 67.30% wanted exercises for each of the four skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) during the teaching-learning process. meanwhile, 15.87% required integrated language skills exercises. respondents who wanted language components exercises was 12.98%, whereas 3.85 % desired integrated exercises between language skills and language components. another component needed by students at the end of each exercise was an understanding of course content (48.07%), pronunciation accuracy in speaking english (34.13%), grammar (12.04%), and proficiency in english writing (5.76%). 4.1.2. lacks lacks are gaps between what the college students already know and what they do not know about their linguistic and non-linguistic competencies. to understand the gap intended, the researchers could compare the students' level of language mastery at the beginning when following an english course to their target level of language mastery at the end of the course. the results can be presented in table 2 below. integrating 21st-century skills in english material development: what do college students really need? 172 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 table 2 the college students’ lacks. statement answer options n f % 4. my current level of english proficiency is... a. novice 208 52 25 b. intermediate 208 127 61.07 c. advance 208 20 9.61 d. superior 208 9 4.32 e. others 208 5. my challenge in achieving the requirements of this course is... a. vocabulary and grammar 208 37 17.79 b. speaking 208 97 46.63 c. reading comprehension 208 52 25 d. writing 208 22 10.58 e. others 208 table 2 showed that 61.07% of students' ability for english courses at the beginning of their study was at the intermediate level, followed by 25% at the novice level. meanwhile, 9.61% of respondents reported having an advanced level, while 4.32% reported to have a superior level. the difficulty of the college students in meeting the demands of the learning outcomes of this course was micro-linguistics, such as english speaking (46.63%) reading comprehension (25%), vocabulary and grammar (17.79%) and writing (10.58%). 4.1.3. wants wants is the expectation of the college students after taking this english course. the results are summarized in table 3. table 3 the college students’ wants. statement answer options n f % 6. my desired learning outcome after completi ng this course is... a. capable of communicating accurately, clearly, and exactly, as well as collaborating with classmates 208 88 42.31 b. capable of solving a variety of issues in english 208 40 19.23 c. capable of utilizing appropriate digital applications to aid in the improvement of english communication competence 208 52 25 d. capable of working efficiently in a variety of diverse communities 208 28 13.46 e. others 208 the diversity in students' expectations for english courses is illustrated in table 3. students' highest expectation (42.31%) after completing this course was being able to sebastianus menggo, sabina ndiung, & hendrikus midun englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 173 communicate and collaborate. the second expectation of the college students referred to digital literacy, 25%. they wanted that after taking this course, they were able to create or use relevant information technology applications to support the achievement of their english communication competence. the third expectation, 19.23%, was that the college students were allowed to provide unique solutions to various themes/topics during the teaching-learning process. furthermore, 13.46% of students expected to work and interact in diverse communities through the use of their english communication skills. 4.2. learning needs the term "learning needs" refers to what college students require and do to complete english courses successfully. by understanding what students require and how to meet those needs, lecturers can foster an interactive, attractive, harmonious, and meaningful learning atmosphere. the learning needs in this course are grouped into five categories: input, procedure, setting, learner role, and lecturer role. each of these components is discussed in greater detail in the following sections. 4.2.1. input the term "input" refers to the type of data that college students use during the teaching-learning process. the data obtained in this course are types of digital applications in learning, types of texts, types of writing, and various topics. the four types of data can be presented in table 4 below. table 4 learning input. statement answer options n f % 7. my preferred learning application while attending courses in the covid-19 era is... a. youtube channel 208 26 12.5 b. moodle, webex, and canvas 208 20 9.62 c. google meet 208 41 19.71 d. zoom 208 113 54.32 e. others 208 8 3.85 8. the type of text i'm looking for is... a. descriptive 208 27 12.98 b. narrative 208 37 17.79 c. argumentative 208 52 25 d. persuasive 208 92 44.23 e. others 208 9. the type of writing i want is… a. descriptive 208 28 13.45 b. narrative 208 50 24.1 c. argumentative 208 41 19.70 d. persuasive 208 89 42.75 e. others 208 10. i am pleased if the range of a. global awareness of inter208 71 34.14 integrating 21st-century skills in english material development: what do college students really need? 174 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 themes covered in text and writing is based on a global demand or development, such as... religious tolerance and lifestyle b. financial literacy and entrepreneurship 208 50 24.1 c. digital and health literacy 208 48 23 d. environment and citizenship 208 39 18.76 e. others 208 table 4 indicates that the most preferred digital application media by students was zoom (54.32%). meanwhile, google meet was 19.71%; youtube channel was 12.5%; moodle, webex, and canvas were 9.62%, and other applications, such as google classroom, edmodo, whatsapp, and busuu, were 3.85%. the data in statement number eight showed that the type of text desired by the college students was persuasive at 44.23%, argumentative at 25%, narrative at 17.79%, and descriptive at 2.98%. meanwhile, the writing genres wanted by the college students were persuasive at 42.75%, argumentative at 19.70%, narrative at 24.1%, and descriptive at 13.45%. additionally, the diversity of topics included in the learning process demanded by college students was based on global demands and advances. issues dealing with global awareness, such as religious tolerance, adolescent lifestyles, marriage in other cultures, or religions were 34.14 %. cases dealing with the theme of financial literacy, economics, business and entrepreneurship (personal financial management, entrepreneurship productivity, product propaganda, and business plans) were 24.1%. topics covered digital literacy and health (online shopping, internet exploitation of children's lives, health service, healthy diet, and many more) were 23%. and at last, topics dealing with the theme of environmental and citizenship (flood, water and air pollution, good citizenship, and good governance) were at 18.76%. 4.2.2. procedure procedures are guidelines for lecturers to ensure the types of activities carried out in the teaching-learning process are based on students input. the data obtained in this course were the types of activities and assessments listed in table 5 below. table 5 learning procedure. statement answer options n f % 11. the type of learning activity that i expect is… a. small group discussion 208 57 27.40 b. role-play 208 82 39.43 c. peer-tutoring 208 42 20.19 d. lecturing 208 27 12.98 e. other 208 12. the type of assessment i prefer during the learning a. individual performancebased 208 88 43.30 sebastianus menggo, sabina ndiung, & hendrikus midun englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 175 process is... b. peer assessment 208 40 19.24 c. portfolio assessment 208 35 16.83 d. rubric-based 208 45 21.63 e. others 208 table 5 indicates that the types of activities wished by the college students in improving their english communication skills were role-playing at 39.43%, small group discussion at 27.40%, peer-tutoring at 20.19%, and lecturing at 12.98%. meanwhile, respondents coveted the types of assessment: individual performance-based at 43.30%, rubric-based assessment at 21.63%, peer-based assessment at 19.24%, and portfoliobased assessment at 16.83%. 4.2.3. setting the setting is a classroom arrangement that accommodates students' preferences for completing the course's numerous exercises and assignments. the following table summarizes the many activities and tasks that students seek to achieve. table 6 the college students’ learning setting. statement answer options n f % 13. what i like best is when several exercises and tasks are completed in… a. small group 208 100 48.1 b. individual 208 50 24 c. pairs 208 45 21.6 5 d. all classmates 208 13 6.25 e. others 208 table 6 summarizes that the exercises and tasks accomplished in a small group (48.11%), individually (24%), in pairs (21.65%), and as a whole class (6.25%). 4.2.4. learner’s role recognizing students' roles enables lecturers to encourage students to participate actively and responsibly in the teaching-learning process. this idea is essential for creating a comfortable and exciting learning atmosphere. table 7 below summarizes the roles preferred by students. table 7 the college students’ role. statement answer options n f % 14. my favourite role in the learning process is… a. english speaker 208 107 51.45 b. problem-solver 208 50 24 c. active-thinker 208 41 19.73 d. language learning sources 208 10 4.83 integrating 21st-century skills in english material development: what do college students really need? 176 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 e. others 208 table 7 shows that the most preferred roles by college students during the teaching-learning process were as an english speaker at 51.45%, problem-solver at 24%, active-thinker at 19.73%, and english learning resource at 4.83%. 4.2.5. lecturer’s role the lecturer's role is defined in this study as the students' expectations about the lecturer's manner of teaching. the role of lecturers desired by students in english courses can be presented in table 8 below. table 8 lecturer’s role. statement answer options n f % 15. the lecturer's role that i like is... a. facilitator 208 40 19.23 b. evaluator 208 32 15.38 c. model 208 97 46.64 d. motivator 208 39 18.75 e. others 208 table 8 shows that lecturers favored by students in the teaching-learning process were a model of pronunciation accuracy at 46.64%, facilitator in guiding students at 19.23%, motivator at 18.75% and an evaluator of the college students' communication ability at 15.38%. the data in table 1-8 above indicated that the target needs and learning needs are inter-dependence. target needs include three components: needs, lacks and wants (hutchinson & waters, 1987, p.55-58), and learning needs covered five components: input, procedure, setting, learner’s role and lecturer’s role (nunan, 2004). the results showed that the college students' target needs and learning needs of english course for the primary education department, universitas katolik indonesia santu paulus ruteng, not only focus on encouraging students to be able to communicate and collaborate but also to be able to think and solve various problems, develop or utilize digital technology, and are capable of working efficiently based on their command of the english language. the target needs (statements one and six) and learning needs (statements seven, ten, twelve, and fourteen) are stated in accordance with the orientation of twenty-firstcentury education, which emphasizes knowledge and varied skills as key drivers in solving life's challenges. indeed, the students are required to have original knowledge and a number of skills as their foundation in meeting the desired demands. referring to the analysis of a number of questions in the questionnaires revealed that the learning components, such as the content of teaching materials for each language skill, themes and topics in learning activities, methods, media, learner roles, digital media, and the sebastianus menggo, sabina ndiung, & hendrikus midun englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 177 type of assessment needed by the respondents were in line with the orientation of 21 st century education. there are three major skills in the twenty-first-century education (van laar, van deursen, van dijk, & de haan, 2017; van laar, van deursen, van dijk, & de haan, 2020; trilling & fadel, 2009). the researchers integrate eleven sub-skills from three essential 21st-century education skills which must be integrated into the development of teaching materials, as outlined below. 4.3. learning and innovation skills 4.3.1. communication and collaboration skills these skills are required in today's work environment. therefore, instructional materials are designed to persuade and train college students to act responsibly. each unit or sub-unit of the intended teaching materials provides an exercise space that encourages college students to explore and share their experiences, thoughts, and solutions to issues related to english learning. by providing these spaces in the material designed, the students' communication and critical thinking skills are gradually improved (aliyu, 2017; janssen & wubbels, 2018; rao, 2019). 4.3.2. critical thinking and problem solving lecturers, as developers of teaching materials, must provide an exercises space in which college students can acquire these skills. numerous tasks from each unit or subunit of the teaching materials explicitly exemplify these skills, both language skills and language components. for instance, reading comprehension exercises/tasks necessitate students to identify critical discourse spaces within a text. the same strategy can be done for various exercises or assignments on other language skills or language components. the practice space is intended to have a valuable impact in stimulating critical thinking awareness for college students. excellent critical thinking enables college students to enhance their problem-solving skills in learning english (gandimathi & zarei, 2018; tuzlukova, al busaidi, & burns, 2017; yamin, setiawan, anam, & kurnia, 2020). further, these researchers highlight that critical thinking and problem-solving skills are needed by college students today. therefore, teaching materials as one of the learning components must provide space to achieve the skills needed. 4.3.3. creativity and innovation creativity is defined as a person's capacity to create something original, distinct, uncommon, and capable of developing creative but logical solutions to a variety of problems encountered (widyaningrum, hasanudin, fitrianingsih, novianti, saddhono, & supratmi, 2020). numerous exercises and assignments from english teaching materials are designed to allow college students to demonstrate distinctive or original abilities through their performance, both in language skills and language components exercises. additionally, college students are given the opportunity to criticize and integrating 21st-century skills in english material development: what do college students really need? 178 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 propose unique but logical alternative solutions to a variety of learning components, such as the content of the teaching materials, the teacher's methods, the relevance of completing the exercises to the theme or topic of learning, media, how to complete assignments or exercises, and the type of assessment. designing creative english teaching materials means accommodating ways of completing various assignments according to the uniqueness of each college student (hana & hacèn, 2017; pardede, 2020). 4.4. digital literacy skills 4.4.1. information literacy this information literacy is defined as the capacity to access and utilize information in daily life (mulla, 2014). several assignments in teaching materials are designed to encourage students to access, evaluate and use this information as a reference in completing the assigned tasks (gu, 2020; gündüzalp, 2021; yan-xia, 2017). information literacy educates college students to act as information reviewers in the appropriate context, avoiding the proliferation of invalid information sources. strong information literacy skills for college students also serve as a preventative strategy against hoaxes occurrence found in everyday life lately. 4.4.2. media literacy this media literacy is defined as the capacity to discover and utilize electronic or print media in daily life (menggo, midun, & pandor, 2021; omar, 2018; suryani, 2016). media literacy is described in this research as the capacity to comprehend the primary functions of hardware components and software programs, such as the ability to utilize microsoft word, microsoft excel, and microsoft powerpoint, as well as video editing, web design, and anti-virus scanning tools in completing coursework given. numerous assignments in the english course materials are designed to bolster students' abilities to operate various hardware components and software programs as stated. 4.4.3. ict literacy ict is defined as the ability to create or use specific applications within studying english. numerous assignments and exercises in the teaching materials are oriented toward assisting students in utilizing a variety of relevant applications during the learning process, including youtube, speech recognition software, corpus linguistics software, moodle, podcasts, file sharing sites, google classroom, google meet, edmodo, webex, canvas, whatsapp, busuu, zoom and many more (hamad, 2017; menggo, suastra, & padmadewi, 2019). these applications are incredibly engaging, provide a positive and enjoyable learning atmosphere, improve motivation to learn english, and assist students in developing into autonomous english learners through the use of the applications mentioned (liu, wu, ye, xu, & jiao, 2020; sherine, seshagiri, & sastry, 2020; zhang, 2020). sebastianus menggo, sabina ndiung, & hendrikus midun englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 179 4.5. life and career skills 4.5.1. flexibility and adaptability numerous exercises and assignments in english teaching materials are designed to encourage college students to learn and adapt. for instance, by adapting to various roles in english conversation exercises, adjusting the schedules of fellow group members when completing course assignments, and adapting to various limitations in english knowledge when performing exercises or completing course assignments. in addition, the design of teaching materials also allows students to be flexible towards input and can balance various perspectives in discussing the various assignments given. flexibility and adaptability are crucial parts of the learning process because they generate college students' adaptive attitudes in the workplace (al-seghayer, 2017; bao, 2015; kivunja, 2015). 4.5.2. initiative and self-direction numerous exercises or assignments included within teaching materials are designed to educate college students in demonstrating a strong sense of initiative when completing various tasks or exercises. for example, at the end of each unit or sub-unit in the teaching material, several reflective questions are provided, encouraging the college students to answer them. commitment and student initiative are needed in determining the time to complete various course assignments or do exercises. selfregulation skills and an initiative mindset play an important role in enhancing college students' english proficiency (buitrago, 2017; darling-hammond, flook, cook-harvey, barron, & osher, 2020; hawkins, 2018). initiative and self-direction are motivational tools for college students to discover the best solution to numerous challenges encountered when studying english. 4.5.2. social and intercultural interactions numerous exercises and projects in the instructional materials are aimed to assist students in developing their ability to interact effectively with colleagues, including understanding when to listen and talk and being receptive to varied cultural perspectives—numerous english exercises and assignments dealing with intercultural inter-religious issues. for instance, in the context of speaking, the english material designer might provide the topic of marriage in different cultures or religions and religious tolerance. the variety of topics available assists college students in developing awareness for cultural diversity, empathy, cross-cultural collaboration, and crosscultural communication skills. through cross-cultural interaction, college students can develop intercultural competencies and understanding. therefore, cross-cultural comprehension should be taught in classes (lwanga-lumu, 2020; menggo, ndiung, & pandor, 2021; róg, moros-palys, wróbel, & książek-róg, 2020). integrating 21st-century skills in english material development: what do college students really need? 180 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 4.5.3. productivity and accountability numerous exercises and assignments included in instructional materials are aimed to push college students to complete assigned tasks and present them confidently in front of the class. a number of exercises and assignments are designed to ensure that each college student actively participates and works in a solid team. personal responsibility and commitment are crucial parts of completing various english assignments successfully (albino, 2017; astuti & lammers, 2017). additionally, they reveal that when students are regarded to be handling several english assignments, they produce more english and receive intelligible inputs. 4.5.4. leadership and responsibility throughout the teaching materials, numerous activities and assignments are meant to enable college students to use their interpersonal and problem-solving skills to strengthen, guide, and accept responsibility for others in completing various english tasks. from an early age, college students are taught to be responsible leaders by designing tasks in the teaching materials. this strategy enables college students to receive feedback on problem-solving, teamwork, conflict management, cultural awareness, confidence, integrity, and willingness to work hard both within and outside the classroom to ensure academic achievement and preparing them for future employment (al-jammal, 2015; parlar, türkoğlu, & cansoy, 2017). 5. conclusion teaching material is an integral part of the learning process. teachers as designers of teaching materials are expected to recognize students' target needs and learning needs (hutchinson & waters, 1987). a needs analysis is required for teachers or teaching materials developers to guarantee that students' needs are fulfilled. by conducting a valid needs analysis, teachers might determine the appropriate target needs and orientation of learning activities that students wanted. the analysis results of the target needs and learning needs of college students demonstrate that the characteristics of the model of teaching materials for english courses reflect the fulfilment of 21 st -century educational skills. there are three key skills for the twenty-first-century education: career and life skills, digital literacy, and learning and innovation skills. these three major skills should be further elaborated into the eleven sub-skills necessary for success in twenty-first-century education. all components of instructional materials, including learning outcomes, material content, language functions used, learning media, learning strategies, themes and topics in learning activities, activity procedures, exercises, and assessment systems for english language competence can reflect a real-life 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(2020). virtual situated learning of spoken english based on computer simulation technology. international journal of emerging technologies in learning, 15(4), 206–217. https://doi.org/10.3991/ijet.v15i04.12939 englisia november 2013 vol. 1 no.1, 49-80 qudwatin nisak m.isa state islamic university of ar-raniry banda aceh to improve the quality of english education in nanggroe aceh darussalam (nad), the department of education of nad as policymaker has made some efforts, among others, sending some teachers for overseas training and also conducting in-service training in designing english teaching material. one of the results of the projects done by the department of education of nad is an english textbook entitled “english in context for sma/ma student year 1”, was distributed to some senior high schools in banda aceh in 2005. lately, the textbook hasn’t been used effectively. based on that fact, it is considered necessary to evaluate the textbook in order to know its relevant to curriculum used. the data of this study are the contents of english in context for sma/ma students year 1, consist of objectives of the textbook, themes chosen, skills presented, task designed, types of the text, language focus provided, vocabulary, and just for fun sections as well as the physical condition of textbook. after the data were put based on their classifications, they were analyzed qualitatively by finding its relevancy to cbc. the relevant elements of textbook to cbc and the deficient element of the textbook were explained descriptively. the result shows that only small portions of suggested material in cbc are provided in the textbook. the types of listening texts which are relevant to cbc are only recount and report. the genre of the reading texts which are relevant to cbc are recount, report, and news items. meanwhile, the speaking task types provided in the textbook are dialogue, talks/speeches, plays/role play, discussion, and report. the deficient elements found in the textbook are lack of clarity of the authors’ objective, repetition of the tasks designed, lack of variation in some skill’s presentation and some irrelevant materials to cbc. keywords: relevancy, english in context textbook, curriculum the relevancy of english in context  for sma/ma student year one  textbook to the curriculum used  the relevancy of english in context for sma/ma student year one textbook to the curriculum used 50 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 background to improve its education quality, indonesia has changed its curriculum several times in 1962, 1968, 1975, 1984, and 1994, 2004 called the competency-based curriculum (cbc), 2006 called ktsp. our focus in this study is cbc. cbc is aimed at preparing learners to have intellectual, emotional, spiritual and social competence. by having those competences, it is hoped that the learners can face and overcome every challenge and need in their life. in line with that, the government must meet the needs of the new curriculum in order to provide effective educational system for provinces in indonesia. based on government regulation number 25 year 2000 about the implementation of education, every region can arrange and develop curriculum in accordance with potency and condition of its region. from that regulation, the government gives autonomy to provinces, districts and schools to arrange, develop, and also modify the curriculum based on their needs in accordance with national curriculum guidelines, standard of competency, basic competency and material. since the cbc has been applied throughout indonesia, teachers have had to use appropriate materials in teaching at school. consequently, they have had to choose textbooks that suit the new curriculum. though many english textbooks are provided by commercial publishers at the bookstores, it can not be guaranteed whether or not they can fulfil the need of learners and teachers in some regions. about the important components within curriculum, nunan (1991) says that the best material fulfils an important teacher’s education function, and removes much of the burden and time involved in designing materials. material design can be difficult in foreign language contexts due to the inavailability of stimulus and authentic materials. richards & renandya (2005) state in their book that the materials provide the basis for the content of lessons, the balance of skill taught, and the kinds of qudwatin nisak m.isa englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 51 language practice students take part in. these may take the form of printed materials such as books, workbooks etc. and nonprinted sources such as self-access materials on the internet. the role and use of materials in a language program is a significant aspect of language curriculum development. indonesia, a non-english speaking country, really depends on english textbook as a primary source of information. it serves as the basis for the language inputs learners receive and the language practice that takes place in the classroom. as stated by richards & renandya (2005:66), for efl (english as a foreign language) learners, the textbook becomes the major source of contact they have with the language apart from the input provided by the teacher. for teachers, it is an important resource in assisting students to learn english. furthermore, the textbook serves as an instrument for enhancing knowledge and the attitude of learners. by using it, teachers can explain knowledge to students without spending a lot of time to write on the whiteboard as in the past. besides, by having the textbook, the students can study on their own at home, and they can do some exercises based on their motivation or finish homework given by their teachers. without a textbook, the process of teaching learning will be teacherdependent or teacher-centered where the students have to wait for the instruction and the material given by their teacher and can not study in advance at home. if they have the english textbook, they can do self-study anytime and anywhere they like outside of school time. to solve the problem mentioned above and improve the quality of english education in nangroe aceh darussalam (nad), the department of education has made some efforts; among others are sending some teachers to be trained overseas and conducting in-service training in the field of designing english teaching material, especially designing english textbooks. for this attempt, the department of education spent lots of money to fund the project of english textbook writing. the relevancy of english in context for sma/ma student year one textbook to the curriculum used 52 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 the idea of training in designing textbooks came from the need to cater to the new english curriculum, overcome the problem of lacking access to english sources and also to realize the education law, called qanun number 23 year 2002 which states that the curriculum in nad must be islamic. it is suggested that a curriculum applied in nad be modified with the culture or condition of its region in order that the material taught will be easier understood by students. but, of course they should also be taught conversational english in order to anticipate the real language outside of their school when they live in english speaking countries. one of the results of projects done by the nad department of education is a textbook for the first year of senior high school, entitled “english in context for sma/ma student year 1”, wrote and distributed to some senior high schools in banda aceh since 2005. at the time it was launched, the textbook was used by english teachers and considered as the compulsory book for students. in fact, the textbook was not widely available at school libraries and was not sold at the bookstores. after that, the textbook has been ignored by some teachers. they thought that the textbook was not really synchronized with the present curriculum. they preferred to use other english textbooks in teaching learning process. actually, english in context for sma/ma student year 1 textbook has been designed to meet the need of cbc and the local need. in response to this, the writer was encouraged to investigate the problem. it is considered necessary when a textbook is used and applied in language teaching learning at school, then, it is evaluated in order to know the quality of the textbook whether or not it is relevant to the present curriculum. moreover, as far as the writer knows there is no similar research on this issue. in line with that, the writer was interested in doing research on analyzing the textbook produced by nad department of education. qudwatin nisak m.isa englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 53 theoretical review definition of the textbook there are various definitons of textbook made, such as a textbook can be defined as a collection of writing which is made by the author systematically containing materials of certain subject by following the curriculum implemented at that time (depdiknas, 2004:6). a textbook can also be defined as “one type of text, a book for use in an educational curriculum (brown, 2001:141).” to sum up the definition of the textbook, it can be concluded that textbook is a book which consists of the materials of certain subject, english for example, used by the teacher and the students in carrying out a learning-teaching process in the classroom. and the materials which are provided in a textbook are designed based on a valid curriculum. the role of textbook in teaching-learning textbook plays an important role in supporting learning and teaching in schools. textbook should enable students learn how to make use of different ways of learning. it should also provide an appropriate amount of quality text for students to “read to learn” independently. it is also important to ensure that too much information is covered, in order to leave room for students to learn how to learn. students will then have opportunities to develop diverse skills of learning base on their interests, needs and abilities. according to martono (2005), there are some central roles of a textbook in developing students’ ability as follows. a. books play a role as information source, and teachers’ role is the agent and information seller. b. books are able to attract students’ interest and willingness to master all the information served with high motivation the relevancy of english in context for sma/ma student year one textbook to the curriculum used 54 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 c. books can be students’ learning-manager, where it provides information in various difficulties, including test and its related answers. d. books are able to fulfill curriculum demand and implement the curriculum messages or even more. e. books are able to be used as the tool of shaping student’s instinct and forming student’s attitude in dealing with the relatively quick changes of the world by this 21st century. f. books provide essential and strategic information to solve problems. g. books provide communicative, interesting and non-monotone information. the role of instructional materials within a functional/communicative methodology might be specified in the following terms: a. materials will focus on the communicative abilities of interpretation, expression, and negotiation. b. materials will focus on understandable, relevant, and interesting exchanges of information, rather than on the presentation of grammatical form. c. materials will involve different kinds of texts and different kinds of media, which the learners can use to develop their competence through a variety of different activities and tasks. in addition to the above mentioned roles’ of a textbook, mcgrath explains “the textbook is considered as a central element in teaching-learning encounters, not only in school settings but frequently also in tertiary-level service english contexts. it will tend to dictate what is taught, in what order, and to some extent, how as well as what learners learn (mcgrath, 2006:174).” garinger (2002) explains about the role of the textbook as follow: qudwatin nisak m.isa englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 55 the role of the textbook in the language classroom is a difficult one to define perfectly and exactly. using only textbooks, from cover to cover, without any supplemental material is not the most satisfactory method for meetmeeting students needs, however, both teachers and students need a framework on which to build and textbooks definitely provide this. it is important that instructor strike balance between being a slave to their texts and providing organized, objective-based instruction. in conducting an evaluation of texts, it is important to accept the reality that most language classrooms will be using coursebooks to meet many of the goals of the program...the textbook can be seen as the window through which students come to know, little by little, their chosen second language and the wider context this language is used in. textbook alone can not provide students with all the knowledge they require, but they are a major tool in enabling learners to progress. from the explanations given before, it is obvious that textbook is one of important components within the teaching learning process. through textbook the curriculum can be implemented. moreover, it can allow teachers to present different style of teaching learning activities. students can have opportunity to progress at their own rates of learning. criteria of effective textbook the textbook can be called effective if the material in it can fulfil the intended objective of the course to be achieved. moreover, to be called effective, a textbook should have some important criteria. they are likely to have the following statements: a. language is functional and must be contextualized b. language used should be realistic and authentic c. seek to include an audio visual component d. reading materials will normally need to cover a range of genres, possibly including computer literacy e. materials foster learner autonomy f. materials need to be flexible enough to cater to individual and contextual differences. (richards & renandya, 2005:84-87). the relevancy of english in context for sma/ma student year one textbook to the curriculum used 56 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 according to steffen-peter ballstaedt (1994), a good textbook usually displays a list of contents. it should have some criteria related to material substances, easy to be understood, interesting, easy to be read, the cognitive structure is obvious, the coclusion and work sheet is available. moreover, the text is structurally designed, and the font use is not really small but easy to be read (depdiknas 2004:17, 29). further explanation about criteria of a good textbook is given by brady. he states that it is important to know the commonly cited criteria for selecting content. the criteria are those of validity, significance, interest, learnability, consistency with social realities, and utilities. a. validity. content is regarded as being valid when it is authentic. moreover content is considered valid if it promotes the outcomes stated as objective. b. significance. teachers have to consider whether the content is fundamental to the subject or field in question; whether the content selected allows for breadth and depth of treatment, and whether its pursuit conveys the spirit and method of inquiry. c. interest. the interest of students is a consideration in content selection. it has to be considered, whether the content is of interest to students. d. learnability. content selected should be learnable by students and must therefore be adapted to suit the ability of the students. it is important that the content selected make some link with what students have already learned. for this reason, the content must be arranged in such a way as to be understandable learnable. e. consistency with social realities. according taba, content selected should provide the most useful orientation to the world around us-that it must be consistent with the social realities. so, consistency with social realities must be considered. we consider whether the content represents the most useful orientation to social realities. f. utility. this is the contentious criteria that may well eliminate a lot of worthwile content if rigorously applied. the criteria of utility suggests that content should be selected across our school subjects which is most useful to students in coping with their present and future (brady, 1980:101-106). qudwatin nisak m.isa englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 57 curriculum the term curriculum has a variety of definitions. one given by richards & renandya (2005) is as follows: curriculum mentions about the content, and provides the material to be taught. in its narrowest sense curriculum is synonymous with the term syllabus; in the wider sense it consist of all aspects of teaching such as planning, implementation and evaluation. it describes the way of teaching and the reason why we teach. in latin, curriculum was a racing chariot; currere was to run. kerr defines curriculum as, all the learning which is planned and guided by the school, whether it is carried on in groups or individually, inside or outside the school. (kelly, 1983: 10; see also, kelly, 1999 in smith, 2000). from the field of applied linguistics, the definition of curriculum is proposed as the following. curriculum is an educational programme which states: a. the educational purpose of the programme (the ends) b. the content, teaching procedures and learning experiences which will be necessary to achieve this purpose (the means) c. some means for assessing whether or not the educational ends have been achieved. (richards et al, 1985:70). from another point of view here are multiple definitions of curriculum, which is: · that which is taught in schools · a set of subjects. · content · a program of studies. · a set of materials · a sequence of courses. · a set of performance objectives · a course of study · is everything that goes on within the school, including extra-class activities, guidance, and interpersonal relationships · everything that is planned by school personnel · a series of experiences undergone by learners in a school · that which an individual learner experiences as a result of schooling (oliva, 1997 in wilson, 2005). the relevancy of english in context for sma/ma student year one textbook to the curriculum used 58 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 from above mentioned definitions, curriculum can be defined as a guideline to be followed by those who have connection with the education in order to succeed in teaching learning process as it includes the planning, the procedure of implementing and also the way to do evaluation. competency based curriculum in order to know the definition of competency based curriculum, the writer would explain the meaning of competence in advance. competence is the combination of knowledge, skill, value and attitude which is reflected in the way of thinking and acting. according to mcahsan (1981:45), competency is a knowledge, skills, and abilities or capabilities that a person achieves, which become part of his or her being to the extent he or she can satisfactorily perform particular cognitive, affective, and psychomotoric behaviours (mulyasa, 2006:76-77). in line with that, finch and crunkilton (1979:222) define competence as mastering tasks, skills, attitudes, and appreciation needed to support successful (mulyasa, 2006:77) from all the definitions provided, it can be concluded that the competency based curriculum can be understood as the concept of curriculum focuses on the final output of students. ability and skill are the main goals of this curriculum. this curriculum is intended to develop the concept of ‘mastery learning’ in which the students have ability to perform and be able to understand the knowledge deeply. all discourse competence will only be reached by the students if they have supporting competence such as linguistic competence, actional competence (oral and written competence), sociocultural competence, and strategic competence. qudwatin nisak m.isa englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 59 there are two kinds of contexts namely the context of culture and the context of situation. as we know every culture has its own texts’ arrangement and language which commonly used within that culture. thus, from the context of culture, it creates various genres. the genre concept which is suggested by cbc lead to mastering a language by using and arranging the text like the owner of the language (english speakers). meanwhile, there are three factors of context of situations which influence the users of the language in choosing the language being used, namely: the topic of conversation (field), interpersonal relation among language users (tenor), the channel of communication used (oral or written) which is called mode. all of them taught to the students in order to teach them how to use the language appropriately based on the context they faced (depdiknas, 2003). in every context, people use the language to do three main functions as follows: 1. ideational function, which is a language function to explain or construct the idea or information. 2. interpersonal function, which is a language function to interact with other people to explain the conversation, attitude, feeling and so on. 3. textual function, which is a function to arrange how text and the language created have its coherence and cohesion, so that it will be easy to be understood by the interlocutor or the reader (depdiknas, 2003). the principles and components of cbc competency based curriculum design is based on nine principles. these principles are: 1. belief, norm, and good aesthetic 2. strengthen the national integrity 3. the balance of norms, logic, and aesthetic 4. all learners have equal opportunity to succeed 5. the knowledge century and information technology 6. developing life skills the relevancy of english in context for sma/ma student year one textbook to the curriculum used 60 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 7. life long education 8. children oriented with the continuing and comprehensive assessment 9. partnerships approach (depdiknas, 2003). the main frame of cbc has four components, they are: 1) curriculum and learning outcomes, 2) class-based assessment, 3) learning teaching activity, and 4) school-based curriculum management. all of these components are interrelated (muslich, 2007:23). from the explanation above, it can be seen clearly that many aspects are considered in cbc. the curriculum sees education as a whole process. thus, by holding to the above principles, the teaching learning process will go to the right direction. context of cbc there are four contexts which influence competency based curriculum. 1. philosophical context, that is an analytical or logical atomistic. it focuses more on science, observation, conclusion, purification and accuracy 2. psychological context, which focus on behavioural, stimulus-response of studying by repetition and using reinforcement 3. economical context, which focus on the ability to compete 4. educational context, that is an education which is implemented based on competency (sukirno (2004) in limbong, 2005). standards of competency there are three standards of competency for english subject in junior and senior high school, they are as the following. 1. communicate orally and in written using the appropriate language domain fluently in interactional discourse and monolog especially related to narrative discourse, spoof/recount, report and news item. (the theme customized with the kind of text and students’ linguistics ability) 2. communicate orally and in written using the appropriate language domain fluently in interactional discourse and monolog qudwatin nisak m.isa englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 61 especially related to narrative discourse, descriptive, anecdote, analytical exposition, hortatory exposition aimed at interpersonal variation meaning. (the theme customized with the kind of texts and the students’ linguistics ability) 3. communicate orally and in written using the appropriate language domain fluently in interactional discourse and monolog especially related to narrative discourse, explanation, commentary, and review intended to the complex interpersonal meaning and varieties textual meaning. (the theme customized with the kind of text and the students’ linguistics ability (depdiknas, 2003). the target of this curriculum cannot be successfully reached if the teaching learning process cannot fulfil the standards provided. therefore, all of the standards of competency mentioned above have to be achieved by the students of senior high school. each number of standards of competency shows the level of the students. discussion the model of this study is a qualitative research. as stated by bogdan & biklen (1998) that a qualitative methodology allows researcher to focus on understanding behaviours, experience, and explore the issues of interest in context. (merriam as quoted by lynch and studdard, 2003:2). regarding the writer’s study related to a textbook review, this study can be included into a case study. the case study according to borg & gall (1989:402) is “in its simplest form, involves an investigator who makes a detailed examination of a single subject or group or phenomenon.” they also add that “the case study approach are based on the premise that a case can be located that is typical of many other cases, that is, the case is viewed as an example of a class of events or a group of individuals.” the technique used in this study is content analysis since the raw material for the research worker may be in the form of communication, usually written material such as textbook. in education, content analysis is intended to answer the relevancy of english in context for sma/ma student year one textbook to the curriculum used 62 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 question directly relating to the material analyzed. these analyses have generally been concerned with fairly simple classifications or tabulation of specific information (borg & gall, 1989:520). the subject of this research is an english textbook entitled english in context for sma/ma student year 1 which is published by the department of education of nad in 2004. the reason for choosing this textbook as the research subject is for it is needed to be evaluated to find out whether or not its content covers the intended curriculum, cbc. the data sources of this research are the content of english in context for sma/ma student year 1, consisted of the objectives of the textbook, themes chosen, skills presented, task design, types of the text, language focus provided, vocabulary, and just for fun sections, as well as the physical condition of the textbook. the data were put based on their classifications in order to be identified, sorted, extracted, and organized the verbal instruction and grouped them according to the topic (seliger & shohamy, 1989:206). then, they were analyzed qualitatively. the steps in analyzing process were firstly, the writer analyzed the textbook’s content to see whether its material can be learned by using teachinglearning approach which is suggested by cbc 2004. after that, she analyzed whether or not the material in the textbook can accommodate all the competence suggested by cbc. the effectiveness of english in context for smu/ma student year 1 in helping students acquire the necessary skills was also examined by evaluating whether the skills presented in the textbook appropriate to cbc, and found out whether or not it actually teaches these skills or whether it only provided practice in the skills students already have. furthermore, the writer also examined whether the textbook provides learners with adequate guidelines as they are acquiring these skills. qudwatin nisak m.isa englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 63 she evaluated the types of the text or genre in order to know whether it is really relevant to the genre suggested by the curriculum. regarding the types of the text, the writer examined its genre by looking at the schematic structure and its linguistic features. in addition, the writer analyzed tasks and activities designed by finding out whether the tasks and activities in the textbook contribute to learners language acquisition. the variety of the tasks and activities in the textbook were also evaluated. besides, other parts such as vocabulary, just for fun section, and physical condition of the textbook were also analyzed. she evaluated all the data by following the standard of competency/basic competency mentioned in the cbc for english subject. the more the textbook’s content matches with the curriculum, the more relevant the textbook is. the analysis of the data was discussed in chapter four. in presenting the data analysis, the writer’s content, the writer put a checklist table of textbook analysis to sum up the discussion. the relevance element of textbook to cbc was explained descriptively by dividing skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) including vocabulary, language use, and just for fun sections, to be matched with the basic of competency mentioned in cbc. the physical condition of the textbook was also reported descriptively. findings the analysis of the textbook’s content to give clear analysis, the data were put into several classifications. the classification starts from observations on textbook’s content, the relevant element of the textbook to cbc by analyzing skills, task and activities. after that, it continues with the deficiency of the textbook. the relevancy of english in context for sma/ma student year one textbook to the curriculum used 64 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 prior to the discussion of the textbook’s content, the writer would like to describe its cover. the cover of english in context for sma/ma student year 1 textbook is colourful. it displays some pictures of acehnese great mosque, the globe and the plane. it shows that the textbook is the gate to know the world as the contents provide cultural and international substances. in the second front page the authors quote one of the verses in the holy qur’an that is ibrahim verse/14:4 related to language. the verse is also presented in the back cover of the textbook. the writer assumed that the authors want to show the islamic side of the textbook. the authors, then, continue the next page by providing forewords of the national education leader of nad province. the other foreword is from the authors of the textbook. on this page, the authors do not state a direct goal of the textbook, but they only mention that the textbook is fully designed based on curriculum 2004, cbc. in addition, cultural and islamic substances were included in the texts and conversation or dialog of the textbook. actually, a good textbook provides significance goals that the author wants to achieve. as noted by martono that a good textbook contained vision, mission, content, and the process of the information presented. a good presentation will motivate students to master the information (martono, 2005). without clear objectives and good presentation, a textbook will be only a compilation of boring material. the students who use it do not know what they are expected to achieve at the end of studying the textbook. english in context for sma/ma student year 1 textbook begins with a thorough table of contents which divides up the unit into 14 units by mentioning themes and sub themes. the themes chosen by the authors are “education”, “environment”, “family life”, “health”, “sport”, “tourism”, and “communication”. meanwhile, the sub themes presented are “at school”, “scholarship”, “sanitation at home”, “industrial waste”, “wedding”, “marriage”, “good health”, “food”, “indonesian’s first gold in sydney”, “kinds of sport”, “jakarta”, “weh island”, “newspaper”, and “television” qudwatin nisak m.isa englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 65 the textbook consists of 156 pages including bibliography, glossary, appendix, and tape scripts. in addition, grammar is focused upon in specific sections called language use. every unit is divided into seven sections they are: lislistening, speaking, reading, vocabulary, language use, writing, and just for fun. in every section, the authors provide tasks. the tasks provided by authors consist of various activities. meanwhile, patterns of classroom interaction provided by the task in the book are: pair work, group work, individual work, full-class interaction and collaboration every five units, the authors provide review as an evaluation which consists of fourty questions in the form of multiple-choice items. there are two reviews available. in every beginning page of new unit, the title of the theme and sub theme are written in the page along with a colourful picture related to the theme discussed which covers full of one page the relevant element of the textbook to cbc in order to ease the reader to see the relevance of the english in context textbook, the writer divided the report by presenting the data based on its classification. the following checklist was made to sum up the result of data analysis. table 4.17 checklist of textbook’s analysis checklist for textbook analysis a. program and course yes no are there sufficient numbers of the course objectives addressed by the textbook? x b. skills are the skills presented in the textbook appropriate to the course? x does the textbook provide learners with adequate guidance as they are acquiring these skills? x do the skills that are presented in the textbook include a wide range of cognitive skills that will be challenging to x the relevancy of english in context for sma/ma student year one textbook to the curriculum used 66 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 leaners? does the textbook integrate the skill well? x does it offer a good balance of each skill? x c. task and exercises/activities do the exercises and activities in the textbook promote learners’ language development? x is there a balance between controlled and free exercises? x do the exercises and activities reinforce what students have already learned? x does it represent a progression from simple to more complex exercise? x are the exercises and activities varied in format so that they will continually motivate and challenge learners? x are there exact descriptions of what the students should be able to once they have completed the texts? x are there periodic reviews and test sections? x are there good pronunciation explanations and practices? x are there good vocabulary explanations and practices? x are there good grammar explanations and practices? x d. practical concerns is the textbook available locally? *(not enough) * does it provide a clear and attractive lay out and print easy to read? x does it include audio cassette? x is there plenty of authentic language? *(not really) * is there adequate guidance for teacher? x (source: garinger, 2002 and ur, 1996) qudwatin nisak m.isa englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 67 english skills and tasks 1. listening in listening tasks, the authors do provides pre-listening activity from which the students have in advance some idea about what they are going to hear. it will activate their relevant schemata and enables them to use this previous knowledge to build anticipatory ‘scaffolding’ that will help them understand (ur, 1997:108). providing students with a clear instruction on what they are asked to do will help them to succeed in the task, as well as increase their motivation and interest. harmer (1991:213) states that listening task should be designed to assist students to be an effective listener. it should make the students be able to guest the content of what they are going to hear simply by looking at the tasks given before listening to a tape. regarding the types of listening activity in the textbook, they are mostly followed by short response question such as true/false questions (unit 2/task 2, unit3/task 2, unit 5/task 2, unit 6/task 2, unit 9/task 2), and ticking off items (unit 8/task 2, unit 11/task 2, unit 14/task 2), and cloze (unit10/ task 2). meanwhile, longer response activities provided are answering question based on the listening text (unit 1/task 2, unit 4/task 2, unit 7/task 2, unit 12/task 2, and unit13/task 2), and note-taking (unit14/task2). from the standard of competency mentioned in cbc for listening skill is “understand simple transactional and interpersonal theme (e.g introduction, trading, teacher instruction, and spontaneous reaction) and/ or oral monolog, especially related to the context of narrative, procedure, spoof, recount, report, and news item.” the listening text which is available in the textbook is descriptive, analytical exposition, dialogue, report, and recount. from this finding, it is shown that the listening text types which are relevance to cbc are only recount and report. the textbook doesn’t provide enough material to fulfil the standard of competency. the relevancy of english in context for sma/ma student year one textbook to the curriculum used 68 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 the indicator mentioned in cbc is “student can give correct response for speech act in transactional and interpersonal context such as: receiving things, introduction, meeting, farewell, receiving invitation/offer, receiving promise and the cancellation of promise, replying thank, replying praise and congratulation, expressing attention, surprise, sympathy, happiness, unbelievable.” understand oral instruction by giving command to draw some shapes, follow maps, fold, complete the table, plant something etc. give response to monolog theme: narrative, procedure, spoof/recount, report, news items, song. answering comprehension question, choosing food based on menu heard, telling telephone’s message, retelling etc. the transactional and interpersonal context which is provided in listening sections are introducing, farewell, and replying thanks. from that finding, we can conclude that the content of listening material in this textbook is not relevant enough to cbc. 2. speaking the speaking task types provided in the textbook are dialogue, talks/speeches, plays/role play, discussion, report. the types of speaking activities provided by the authors are topic-based which can be found in unit 2/task 4, unit 6/task 4, unit 8/task 5, unit 9/task 4, unit11/task 5, unit 12/ task 5. the second activity is task-based which can be found in unit3/ task4-7, unit 4/task 4-5, unit 5/task 4, unit 7/task 4, unit 10/task 4-5, unit 13/task 4, unit 14/task 5-6. from the analysis made toward the activities in each type, the writer found that task-based activity is more challenging. it makes students learn english in a fun way. many people get involved in the activity provided. the taskbased activities designed by the authors are find the missing information, rearrange sentences according to the pictures, role playing, set priority, summary of interview, interview. in line with the above mentioned characteristic of activities in speaking, ur (1997:123-124) states that topic-based simply asks participants to talk about qudwatin nisak m.isa englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 69 a (controversial) subject, the main objective is the discussion process itself. meanwhile, task-based actually asks students to perform something. it is essentially goal-oriented; it requires the group, or pair, to achieve an objective that is usually expressed by an observable result, such as brief notes or list, a rearrangement of jumbled items, a drawing, a spoken summary. the instructions which often found are such as ‘reach a consensus’, or ‘find out everyone’s opinion’. to foster students’ ability in speaking english, teacher should create a situation which provides them with accesses to the target language and great opportunity to practice it. when they have enough input, they will produce good output. how can students’ ability to speak english improved, when the percentage of teachers dominate the conversation in total time speaking in the classroom is between 80 and 95 percent (dunkin and biddle 1974: 221 in bernhardt, 1993: 196). the basic competency for speaking in cbc is “student can explain various meaning in transactional theme and/or oral monolog especially in the form of narrative, procedure, spoof/recount, report, news item, dan simple song.” the indicator of cbc is “do many speech acts in oral transactional theme such as: giving things/help, self introduction, meeting, farewell, ordering/asking, inviting/order, refusing invitation/order, make an appointment, thanking, praising and congratulating.” furthermore, “expressing various feelings: attention, surprise, sympathy, happiness, unbelievable, disappointed, deliver a messege, ask/ attention, give instruction in activity. do monolog in the form of: narrative, procedure, spoof/recount, report, news items, song. develop short transactional theme becomes a conversation or a long interactional.” the expression taught in speaking skill is sympathy. meanwhile the transactional taught are introducing, thanking, congratulating, and asking. many the relevancy of english in context for sma/ma student year one textbook to the curriculum used 70 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 other compenents in cbc are not included in this textbook. another activity which is relevant to cbc is doing monolog. the approach used in cbc is communicative approach. thus, to design activities fitted to this approach, three significance elements have to be taken into account. mcarthurt 1984:102) explains the three elements as follows: 1. an anthusiasm for language in use rather than language as structure; 2. a consequent preference for ‘semantics’ (meaning in real-life contexts) over ‘grammar’ (rules and paradigms in isolation from authentic language use) in the formulation of tasks for learners to perform; 3. an interest in analysisng, and planning for, the genuine needs of the learner (an activity technically described as ‘need analysis’ and taken to be an essential first step in preparing ‘communicative’ curricula or syllabuses). 3. reading most exercise materials to improve reading skill of students are still limited to short reading extracts on which are based on comprehension questions. the types of reading activities provided in english in context mostly are answering comprehension texts. almost all units start their activity by giving some prequestions before reading the text. there are two units; unit 7/task 5 and unit 8/task 7 which begin their activity by providing reading text in the beginning after that followed by question related to the text. providing a prequestion before reading is effective to motivate the readers. they will be challenged to find out whether their answer is correct or not. besides, it will build their prior knowledge toward the reading. coder (1990) in ramachandran (2004) noted that the reliance on the l1 knowledge is basically relying on prior knowledge to facilitate new learning. this seems to fit the aims of communicative approach or the communicational sylla qudwatin nisak m.isa englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 71 bus which states that new learning can be linked to prior knowledge in order for meaningful learning to take place. the texts chosen seem do not use authentic material. actually, the using of authentic material is essential to provide the real language for student. according to ur as quoted below. “in order to make our learners are able to cope with the same kinds of reading that are encountered by native speakers of the target language, it seems sensible to start basing their reading practice on a wide variety of authentic (or near-authentic) text, and on tasks that represent the kinds of things a reader would do with them in real life rather than on conventional comprehension exercise (ur, 1997:150)”. it is teacher’s role to facilitate students with lots of opportunity to expose to target language. one of efforts is by providing them with some selected literature rich in input and culture. the types of test in this textbook has various forms they are: question and answers, true /false, matching, monologue, sequencing, classifying word, rewriting/retelling, translation, gap filling/cloze and completion, transformation, essay, multiple-choice, rearrange words, and dictation. it shows that the author has tried to provide with variety of types of the test in order to prepare and train the students to be used to face different test in the future. the basic competence in cbc is “understand various meaning and steps of developing interpersonal meaning in a written text of narrative, procedure, spoof/recount, report, and news item.” the indicator given in cbc is “response to various texts of: narrative, procedure, spoof/recount reposrt, news items. identify ideational meaning in the theme, identify textual meaning. identify interpersonal meaning from the themes. read loudly of various genres of the text with a correct pronunciation and intonation.” the relevancy of english in context for sma/ma student year one textbook to the curriculum used 72 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 after analyzing the types of the text by looking at its schematic structure and language features, the writer found ten genre presents in the textbook. they are discussion, analytical exposition, anecdote, explanation, recount, argument, news item, report, and descriptive text. the genre which is relevance to cbc is recount, report, and news items. 4. vocabulary there are many interesting activities in vocabulary section, they are: rearranging, classifying, reordering, doing puzzle, matching, completing, filling-in, finding the hidden words, and gap filling. yet, those activities are only trained them to use the language in a narrow scale. it resulted to difficulties to use the language in daily context. the writer thinks that those activities is good but they are more appropriate to be taught in elementary level in which that in the last secondary level they supposed to be prepared to be in functional and informational literacy level which is suggestd by the cbc. 5. language use expressing greetings; introducing oneself, someone to another person; and saying goodbye are taught in language use sections, pricisely in unit 1. the way the authors teach those expressions is along with the suggestion of cbc in which the material that is intended to be taught should be contextualized. for some students, grammar is the most difficult part of language learning. it is also usually considered as a boring part of learning english. to avoid that impression, teacher should choose creative activities that engage students, and relate content to students’ own interest, and current event. by doing so, learning will be more fun, and also more memorable. 6. writing the basic competence for writing skill in cbc is “expressing various meaning with the steps of correct interpersonal meaning development in written texts of narrative, procedure, spoof/recount, report, and news item.” qudwatin nisak m.isa englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 73 furthermore, “demonstrate basic competence: use grammar, vocabulary, punctuation, spelling, correct sentence arrangement,write main idea, elaborate main idea, use correct italic, make draft, revise, edit. produce various texts especially in the form of: narrative, procedure, recount, report, and news items” from the analysis made toward activities designed in writing sections, it is found that unit 1 provides a letter to be learned by students. thus, this activity is relevance with the suggested topic to be taught in cbc. unfortunately, the authors do not explain the basic competence that students should master. the other text provide in writing section are procedure. there are a lot of activities asking students to write, but it is only a free writing. the authenticity issue in classroom writing can be found by distinguishing between real-writing and display writing. as stated by brown (2001:34) below. “real writing, as explained by ann raimes (1991), is writing when the reader/school contexts, however, if the instructor is the sole reader, writing is primarily for the display of a students’ knowledge. written exercises, short answer essays, and other writing in test situations are instances of display writing….if esl courses, strive to be more content-based, themebased, or task-based, students are more likely to be given the opportunity to convey genuine information on topics of intrinsic interest. but display writing is not totally unjustified. writing to display one’s knowledge is a fact of life in the classroom, and by getting your students to perform well in a display writing exercises, they can learn skills that will help them to succeed in further academic pursuits.” from the above statement, we can conclude that it is essential for teacher to give many tasks in practicing writing for students. the activity should be rich in variety. in addition, practice writing should be followed by guidelines given by teacher. the deficiencies of the textbook in the listening sections, the types of listening texts provided are in the form of dialogue and short passage. from the observation toward the content of the relevancy of english in context for sma/ma student year one textbook to the curriculum used 74 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 the dialogue, it seems that it is designed by the authors themselves. the information given is not really interesting since it doesn’t provide a simulated real-life situation. as stated by ur, “most listening text should be based on discourse that is either genuine improvised, spontaneous speech, or at least a fair imitation of it. a typical written text that is read aloud as a basis for classroom listening activity is unlikely to incorporate the characteristics of informal speech as describe above, and will thus provide the learners with no practice in understanding the most common form of spoken discourse ur (1997).” it seems unhelpful to base listening exercises mainly on checking comprehension question, and also writing. it is due to the fact that in real life we normally do not respond other speakers by answering comprehension question except in academic level. most people receive information from listening. as stated by hunsaker (1990) in brent & anderson (1993) “80 % of what people know is acquired through listening, most adults operate at no better than a 25 % listening efficiency level.” in class, many teachers invest lots of effort to give listening practice to their students in order to create better listeners. actually, the students need to have listening skill so that they are ready in every situation. therefore, the teachers should provide a wide variety of listening situation in order to improve students’ listening ability. in the field of speaking skills, an english textbook actually should provide samples of spoken english. from the tapescript available in the textbook, it does not provide a real-life conversation. students are asked to make a dialogue by themselves sometimes without any guidance. for language use sections, the grammatical items presented in this section have not any connection to the text provided. it is taught separately. actually, to introduce the rule of a language is better by teaching them in context. since the language is functional, thus in teaching grammar it also has to be taught in contextualized. it means teaching grammatical points within the context qudwatin nisak m.isa englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 75 of the lesson. for example, if there is a reading about some part of aceh history written in the past tense, and so design speaking and writing activities in which students must use the past tense. although the authors provide a good guidance for students desiring to use english in acehnese contexts, they fail to provide adequate training for students desiring to live and work in english-speaking countries. then what is the goal of learning english in such detailed fashion, if the learners would not be able to contextualize their learning also to the native language contexts and environs? furthermore, the goal of the textbook is not clearly mentioned. the authors only state the goal of education in general. thus, the students do not know exactly what they are going to achieve by using the textbook as the source. in addition, it does not really provide up-to-date contemporary material. moreover the text provides are not really authentic. it can be seen from the text that seems are coming from a translation process from indonesian language. in addition, the author did not put the source of the text presented in the textbook when they quote from other sources. the authors seem do not really know the difference between task and exercise. there are many tasks contained the exercise. actually, they should be careful in selecting the task and making a clear instruction. d. conclusion from the result of the study, the writer draws several conclusions as follows: the english in context for sma/ma student year 1 textbook already taught the four basic language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) in an integrated as suggested in the cbc. moreover, the textbook does provide a variety of materials and activities for each of the four basic language skills. the relevancy of english in context for sma/ma student year one textbook to the curriculum used 76 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 the materials provided within the textbook accept the current method of teaching. activities presented in it are various lead the students to being creative and active. yet, they are not really succesful to provide students with adequate guidelines on how to improve their skill. the activities designed only train students to practice in the skills students already have. among the transactional and interpersonal expression suggested by cbc, there are only greeting, introducing, saying goodbye/farewell, congratulating, thanking, expressing sympathy, inviting, expressing like and dislike which are included in the textbook material. the listening texts which are provided in the textbook are descriptive, analytical exposition, dialogue, report, and recount. the types of the listening text which are relevant to cbc are only recount and report. furthermore, the writing acivity provided in the textbook are only free writing, and writing a letter. genres of the reading text in the textbook are discussion, analytical exposition, anecdote, explanation, recount, argument, news item, report, and descriptive text. the genre which is relevant to cbc is recount, report, and news items. for speaking task types which are provided in the textbook are dialogue, talks/speeches, plays/role play, discussion, and report. the authors’ goal to design the textbook to include the local culture and islamic teaching is not successfully reached as the material about acehnese culture is only available in unit 5 in reading section entitled “an acehnese wedding ceremony”. meanwhile, the islamic substance is only found in unit 6 in reading text entitled “arranged married”, yet the information is only a few. all in all, english in context for sma/ma student year 1content does not really cover all the suggested material in standard of competency/ basic of competency in cbc. yet, it is a helpful resource for advancing the aptitude of students who are in the process of learning english. qudwatin nisak m.isa englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 77 references ab, mustafa. 2004. kurikulum dan penerapan kemahiran dalam penulisan bahan ajar. a paper presented in workshop on writing teaching material, teacher guided book, students’ worked book in banda aceh on july 11. (unpublished). bernhardt, s. a. 1993. teaching english: conversational competence. the clearing house, 66 (4). bogdan, r.c & biklen, s. k. 1992. qualitative research for education: an introduction to theory and methods. boston: allyn and bacon. borg, w. r., & gall, m. d. 1989. educational research. london: longman. brent, r., & anderson, p. (1993). developing children’s classroom listening strategies. the reading teacher, 47 (2). depag. 2005. kurikulum 2004: standar kompetensi madrasah aliyah. jakarta: depag. dirjen kelembagaan agama islam. depdiknas. 2004. pedoman umum pengembangan bahan ajar sekolah menengah atas. jakarta: depdiknas dirjen dikdasmenum. depdiknas. 2004. pedoman pemilihan buku sekolah menengah atas. jakarta: depdiknas dirjen dikdasmenum. dubin, f., & olshtain, e. n.d. course design: developing programs and materials for language learning. cambridge: cambridge university press, garinger, d. 2002. “textbook selection for the esl classroom”. tefl web journal. http://www.cal.org/resources /digest/0210geringer.html, accessed on march 1st, 2006). ----------. 2001. “textbook evaluation”. tefl web journal. http://www.teflwebj.org/v1n1/garinger.html, accessed on march 1st, 2006). harmer, j. 1991. the practice of english language teaching. new york: longman. harsono, y. m., & s, setiono. n.d. competency-based teaching: problems and solutions, (a photocopied article). hornby, a.s. 1995. oxford advanced learner’s dictionary of current english. oxford: oxford university press. the relevancy of english in context for sma/ma student year one textbook to the curriculum used 78 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 kizilirmak, s. 1991. an integrated approach to textbook evaluation. english teaching forum. xxix. limbong, m. (2005). peranan guru dalam penerapan kbk (kurikulum berbasis kompetensi). jurnal al-hikmah pendidikan dan pemikiran islam, 1(1). medan: stai al-hikmah medan. lynch, r. l., & studdard, s. 2003.” novice teacher implementation of contextual teaching and learning: analysis of eight case studies in classrooms”. final report. (online). university of georgia. http://www.ceo.uga.edu/ctl/casestudy/crosscase.pdf, accessed on june 11th, 2007. martono, k. 2005. “peranan buku dalam proses belajar mengajar”. (http://ganeca.blogspirit.com/ge_mozaik_juni_2005/, accessed on november 1st, 2007) maryunis, a. 2006. “kurikulum pendidikan di indonesia masih amburadul. republika online. http://www.republika.co.id/online_detail.asp?id=243820&kat_id=23, accessed on january 9th, 2008) mcarthur, t. 1984. a foundation course for language teachers. cambridge: cambridge university press. mcgrath, i. 2000. teachers’ and learners’ images for coursebooks. elt journal 60(2). london: oxford university press. merriam-webster online dictionary. (online). http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/relevance, accessed on october 14th, 2006). mulyasa, e. 2006. implementasi kurikulum 2004. bandung: pt remaja rosdakarya. muslich, m. 2007. ktsp pembelajaran berbasis kompetensi dan kontekstual. jakarta: bumi aksara. nunan, d. 1991. language teaching methodology: a textbook for teacher. new york: prentice hall. nurhadi, yasin, b., & senduk, a. g. 2000. pembelajaran kontekstual dan penerapannya dalam kbk. malang: universitas negeri malang. prayogo. 2005. “kiat memilih buku”. http://ganeca.blogspirit.com/ge _mozaik_juni_2005/, accessed on november 1st, 2007) qudwatin nisak m.isa englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 79 ramachandran, s., d. 2004. meaning recall and retention: the impact of the translation method on elemntary level learners’ vocabulary learning. relc journal, 135 (2). richards, j.c., & renandya, w. 2005. methodology in language teaching: an anthology of current practices. cambridge: cambridge university press. richards, platt & weiber. 1985. dictionary of applied linguistics. london: longman. seliger, h. w., & shohamy, e. 1989. second language research methods. new york:oxford university press. smith, m. k. 2000. “curriculum theory and practice. the encyclopedia of informal education”. www.infed.org/biblio/b-curric.htm, accessed on february 2nd, 2007) ur, p. 1996. a course in language teaching: practice and theory. cambridge: cambridge university press. wilson, l.o, 2005. “wilson curriculum page: curriculum definition”. http://www.uwsp.edu/education/lwilson/curric/curtyp.htm, accessed on february 2nd, 2007) englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2022. vol. 10, no.1, 146-167 dissecting the types and functions of religious humor in nasreddin hoja short-stories saiful akmal *1 , faraha hamidi 2 , ikhramah ismed 1 , muhammad nasir 1 1 universitas islam negeri ar-raniry, banda aceh, indonesia 2 goetheuniversität frankfurt am main, germany manuscript received april 26, 2022, revised june 8, 2022, accepted june 16, 2022, and published online november 7, 2022. recommended apa citation akmal, s., hamidi, f., ismed, i., & nasir, m. (2022). dissecting the types and functions of religious humor in nasreddin hoja short-stories. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(1), 146-167. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.13191 abstract humor is a significant element in funny stories. this study aims to analyze the types and functions of humor in selected nasreddin‟s short stories from the book nasreddin‟s funniest stories (2011) by priyasudiarja and purwaningsih. by using the descriptive qualitative method, the study adopts textual analysis to examine the materials. based on the analysis, the findings of this present study revealed that the types of humor applied in the stories are joke, sarcasm, satire, replies to rhetorical question, clever replies, and double entendres. however, these short-stories lack some other typical types of spontaneous conversational humor used in short stories‟ texts: puns and selfdeprecation. meanwhile, unintentional humor is also not found in the nasreddin short stories because it is raised from the speaker‟s misspellings, mispronunciations, errors in logic, and freudian slips. further reading shows that the underlying use of humor in these stories is dominated by social management: to control and mediate readers. this present study will provide the practical benefit of using religious humor from short stories in english for islamic studies-related courses in an efl context, specifically in the language education program at an islamic university. the vital contribution of this study will have a significant theoretical impact on developing a body of knowledge in literature, discourse analysis, and semantic and pragmatic courses and recommend its appropriate use in a manner that can improve performance in reading comprehension for efl students. this paper should link its title/content with the efl context to meet the journal's aims and scope. * corresponding author: saiful akmal english language education department, universitas islam negeri ar-raniry, kopelma darussalam, syiah kuala, banda aceh 23111, indonesia email: saiful.akmal@ar-raniry.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.13191 saiful akmal, faraha hamidi, ikhramah ismed, & muhammad nasir englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 147 keywords: religious humor; nasreddin hoja; short-stories 1. introduction humor is one of the most common forms of communication strategy to pass profound messages across without hurting others or to connect with others in a lighthearted way. many writers choose humor in their works for similar purposes, gaining the effect of laughing. humans find laughing as a form of releasing stress, and they do so regardless of whether in a group or alone when they find something funny on television, in a comical writing, or when they remember a funny personal experience. shuqin (2013) argues that humor is divided into visual humor, verbal humor represent through pictures and actions funny utterances, respectively. stories that apply humor present specific values, norms and particular messages (kasunic & kaufman, 2018). psychologically, humor does not only reduce stress and achieve positive effects in our behavior and mental health, but it also brings positive outcomes and acts as a coping strategy to reduce stress in human interactions (berk, 2015). as a part of human life and experience, oring (2003) argues that humor is culturally universal. humor is universally thought as mood booster and mood changer, and exciting construction of happier life (rizzolo et al., 2011). although its universality remains unchallenged, martin and ford (2018) believe that the way humans perceive humor is not the same. different societies or cultures understand humor differently; if it is funny here, it does not mean funny elsewhere (chovanec & tsakona, 2018). in addition, rahman, hidayat, and alek (2021) also agree that everyone interprets humor in a different way; it may be amusing to one but not to another. these habitual variances are created over time through community members‟ behaviors, attitudes, experiences, consensus and idiosyncratic personality (schneider et al., 2018). humor can be presented in any form of media, such as stand-up comedies, short stories, cartoon strips, cartoon series, or situation comedy. martin and ford (2018) suggest that humor exists in several forms; joke, spontaneous conversational humor, and unintentional humor. in a study conducted by yaman (2017), the writer states that a teacher offered humor stories from nasreddin hoja‟s short-stories as materials in english classroom. in this sense, humorous elements potentially work to motivate students to learn the english language. according to akmal and hadi (2015), storytelling and narration are two teaching methods that can be employed to enhance students‟ reading and speaking skills. therefore, this study focuses on the narrative in nasreddin hoja‟s short stories that can be used for language teaching or learning purposes, especially to humanize, encourage, reduce anxiety and keep people thinking (torok et al., 2004). nasreddin hoja, or hodja, or hoca, or mullah nasreddin, is a turkish sufi known for his comical tales and spiritual therapy (mukholik & luthfi, 2019). his funny but divined anecdotes were famously told in book, radios, and homes over centuries and dissecting the types and functions of religious humor in nasreddin hoja short-stories 148 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 generations. it has started to become popular in turkey and the middle east in the thirteenth centuries (shah, 2004), before internationally recognized following the decision by unesco to mark the year of 1996 and 1997 as the international nasreddin year to mark the seven hundredth anniversary of the turkish humorist (cesran international, 2022). in turkish folk tradition and most muslim cultures and literatures, nasreddin hoja humor is famous as it addresses educational values (asilioglu, 2008; erdoğan, 2013), wisdom, and critical thinking (corrao, 2016; ozdemir, 2010) reflect mundane human nature interaction and psychology (temiz et al., 2019; torusdağ & aydın, 2020). others went further and discussed the implementation of nasreddin humorous texts in efl classroom for children (cevik & spahiu, 2013) or its use for designing drama activities for students (ekmekçi, 2017). according to karadağ (1998), nasredin hodja folk stories are short, real and simple and able to offer reflection on daily life pieces of human beings. moreover, we have identified that humor in language and literature educations has relationship with societal transformation, at least in values and attitudes. yet, the lack of empirical evidence of what types and functions of humor on the contribution of how amusing short-stories like the ones from nasredin hoja in changing personal and societal point of view is thus restricted. in this study, the goals are to dissect the types and functions of humor contained in nasredin hoja short-stories and to assess their potential for the modified language literature classroom in islamic university contexts. for language learning purposes, tuncay (2007) suggests that humor is an essential additional element in the process, and it can be implemented in various ways in classroom setting. yaman (2017) adds that “nasreddin‟s funniest stories” by priyasudiarja and purwaningsih (2011) is a well-known textual material in in eastern islamic regions cultures. his works are famous for the nature of the tales, which are dynamic, amusing, relatable to all ages, efficient, and pedagogical. for this reason, we found that humor in nasreddin hoja‟s short stories fits the aim of the study. however, in the selected short stories for this study, not all forms of humor are found in the texts selected. nasreddin contextually uses humor. readers need to have a certain level of background information before they can catch the author‟s sense of humor. therefore, the purpose of this study is to get a clearer understanding of the different types and functions of humor in “nasreddin‟s funniest stories” (2011) book. 2. literature review to define humor, we must first embrace the idea that humor is dynamically constructed and negotiated in human interaction (chovanec & tsakona, 2018). martin and ford (2018) argue that humor is a broad, multifaceted term, and therefore psychologically represents funny actions or sayings and can make people laugh. it is essential to understand that humor is substantially beyond textual or literal notions and saiful akmal, faraha hamidi, ikhramah ismed, & muhammad nasir englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 149 requires a contextual opinion to experience. henman (2001) further underlines that humor is a coping mechanism and a symbol of human resilience. people often laugh and thus represent a form of social or at least imagined social context either alone or in public setting. its compelling nature and powerful trait has made humor is unsurprisingly subjected to various analytical observation and researches. meyer (2020), for example, introduces four functions of humor in communication; identification, clarification, enforcement and differentiation. meyer additionally proposes three main theories of humor; relief, incongruity, and superiority. relief theory explains how humor release tension, incongruity is basically against definite patterns, and superiority stresses the importance of triumph. earlier, attardo (1994, 2017) an italian linguist, promotes another four types of humor function, something different from the latest four functions proposes by meyer, namely: social management, decommitment, mediation, and defunctionalization. the term humor also refers to the interactive experience of interpersonal understanding deriving from the alternative interpretation of social regulation (goel & dolan, 2007; rosenheim, 1974). to denote humor, we need to associate it with human expression. in addition to involving emotions in humor, harper (2016) claims that humor is elusive as each has different interpretations and appreciations on what is denoted as funny or not. this concept of absurdity becomes a useful construct in humor research, as forabosco (2008) notes that humor‟s most important component, though not always sufficient, is often its incompatibility to every culture and society. in short stories, narratives and literature, studies on humor are rich. in different countries and cultures, humor in short stories is a major topic for discussion. chłopicki (2017) brings forward the idea of how humor and narrative are inseparable in literature tradition when discussing three basic tendencies in short stories humor: escalation, variation, and accumulation. at the same time, triezenberg (2008) mentions that humor are simply bizarre and inexplicable. such creativity in writing humor requires the comic mind (rishel, 2002) to be able to examine which one consequence or cause in short stories (snauwaert, 2018). humor is often established to brings people closer together for solidarity, shared common views and interests among the speakers at work (omar & jan, 2013), or provides relief, contestive or reprieve in adversarial and formal courtroom interaction (ibrahim & nambiar, 2011). 2.1. types of humor according to martin (2006), a person‟s identity is determined by the amount of comedy they generate in their daily encounters with others. the majority of people appreciate the positive outcomes of excitement so much that they respect those skilled at making others laugh. these are the individuals who are frequently requested to partake in humorous activities and those who are actively seeking friendships. some people use their talents to make others laugh so much that they become professional dissecting the types and functions of religious humor in nasreddin hoja short-stories 150 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 humor producers, assembling a team of humorous writers, cartoonists, stand-up comedians, comedy writers, and actors. the billions of dollars spent on various forms of comedy demonstrate the high value of money placed on entertainment associated with humor (crawford & gregory, 2015). martin and ford (2018) divide humor that occurs in the everyday situations into three general types: (1) jokes, which are prepackaged humorous stories that people learn by heart and pass on to one another with typical excellence (oring, 2017); (2) spontaneous conversational humor, which is created purposefully by persons throughout the sequence of a community interface, and can be either verbal or nonverbal that indicate the existence of paradox and ambiguity of a problem and solution (hatch & erhlich, 1993); and (3) accidental or unintentional humor, is also unintentionally delivered coming from the script overlap (farghal, 2006). as such, apart from these three most-used categorizations of humor types, martin and ford (2006) also explain several other types of humor, ranging from irony to puns. in irony, the opposite of what is really stated is intended. a speaker makes a statement whose literal meaning is inconsistent with its intended meaning, such as manifested in the case of situations, acts, or remarks. the irony is, by far, the most pragmatic model of humor in literary text or the figurative language of literary products (hirsch, 2011; reyes et al., 2012). satire is next in their typology. it is antagonistic humor that ridicules public institutions or policies. it highlights the underlying cultural principles and provides them for critique (martin, 2006). this critique presents societal interpretations and questions regarding contemporary cultural practices using the cultural sociology approach (tesnohlidkova, 2021). satire includes comedy that emphasizes race relations, sexual discrimination, and nonspecific popular culture depictions. satire develops humor by providing shared commentary on a problematic situation. there is a very close link between sarcasm and irony, as literary philosophers frequently treat sarcasm as simply the crudest and least exciting practice of irony (martin & ford, 2006). thereafter is hyperbole, another term for overstatement and exaggeration (turayevna, 2019). to use hyperbole is to exaggerate beyond what is required. a speaker can utilize it to disregard the principle of excellence (cutting & fordyce, 2021). on the other hand, understatement adds humor to an otherwise serious circumstance (ma‟yuuf & hasan, 2021), as a weaker sort of strength than what is typically assumed. commonly, an understatement is intended to be humorous in the form of hedging, to display a sense of politeness and to diminish the seriousness of the impact. nonetheless, a negative syntax of understatement can also be utilized for humor, as is frequently observed in litotes. a litotes is a sort of understatement that expresses a positive assertion by negating its contradictory assertion (mokhlosa & mukheefb, 2020). self-deprecation is another humorous remark targeting oneself as the object of humor. this may be done to display modesty, put the listener at ease, or curry favor with the listener (long & graesser, 1988). examples of self-deprecation include saiful akmal, faraha hamidi, ikhramah ismed, & muhammad nasir englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 151 highlighting physical imperfections, discussing prior failures, and admitting faults (matwick & matwick, 2017). then there is teasing, a humorous comment made at the listener's physical appearance, habits, or personality traits. as opposed to sarcasm, the intention of irony is not to insult or offend severely but rather to maintain self-control and serve educational purposes (franzén & aronsson, 2013). the following type of humor is replies to rhetorical question. rhetorical questions are not intended to elicit a response. answering the one that violates a conversational expectation and surprising the person who posed the question is the function of this type of humor (schaffer, 2005). subsequently, clever responses connect to the responses to the rhetorical questions stated above. “clever” refers to inappropriate or ridiculous responses to a statement or inquiry that was intended to be taken seriously (long & graesser, 1988). the statement is intentionally misinterpreted so that the speaker responds to an alternative meaning. martin and ford (2006) and kiddon and brun (2011) state that double entendres are a form of humor in which a remark is intentionally misrepresented to invoke a twofold meaning. when used intentionally, double entendres can be amusing, as their purpose is to elicit laughter from those who understand the second meaning and those who do not. next is the transformation of frozen expression. transformations of frozen expression happens when a speaker transforms common phrases, clichés, or adages into unique utterances (martin & ford, 2006). last is the pun, witty use of a word that inspires a second meaning. it is mostly based on a homophone, a word with different meaning that sounds identical (dhiaa & abbas, 2016). 2.2. functions of humor humor serves not only an entertaining purpose but also numerous societal purposes. the principal consequences of humor in conversation are those that the speaker can achieve directly by employing hilarious passages or texts in his or her speech ( attardo, 2017). in the same light, according to zekavat (2017), the functions of humor in the communicative process can be grouped into four classes: social management, decommitment, mediation and functionalization. the social management functions are the first function of humor. it addresses all situations in which humor is utilized to facilitate in-group contact and strengthen ingroup bonding or out-group rejection. social management examples include social controls, social norms transmission, ingratiation, discourse management, common ground establishment, intelligence, social play, and repair. in terms of social control, the speaker uses humor as a social remedial to disconcert or daunt the members of the group to correct their social actions (graham et al., 1992). humor can also become a standardized means to form social norms as the speaker uses humor to attract attention to taboos or unacceptable behavior. nilsen (1994) notes that white, middle-class, suburban women aim wit or sarcasm at each other to control sexual behavior. dissecting the types and functions of religious humor in nasreddin hoja short-stories 152 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 ingratiation satisfies the social management function of humor since it explains the motivation behind the speaker's attempts to garner attention and promote likeability. it demonstrates and fosters unanimity when two or more individuals laugh together. by being more likable, the speaker is deemed more influential in the public realm and the workplace (cooper, 2005). the following example of the social management function of humor includes discourse management. in this regard, humor can be used for initiation, termination, passing, and exchange of control, topic shift, and checking. the ability of an individual to appreciate other humors and to create humor is necessary to be skilled in discourse management in the workplace (holmes et al., 2003). common ground establishment is the subsequent social management function where a speaker can use the hearer's reaction to humor to establish attention, understanding, and degree of involvement. in intercultural interaction, ladilova and schröder (2022) further claim that this aspect is central to avoiding misunderstandings in the communication of something they formerly disagreed with. cleverness in humor demands additional processing, production, and comprehension. in general, gimbel (2018) states that humor should have good connotations in society, as it resembles a fun show of intelligence. the social play generated through such play may improve social relationships and foster group cohesion (long & graesser, 1988). for women, humor serves as a technique of controlling commonality and intimacy, while for men; it functions as dominance (kotthoff, 2006). repair is unfavorable situations may be defused by amusing remarks, signifying a good attitude, in-group cohesion, and the exuberance of a bad joke (bell, 2017). decommitment is the second function of humor. attardo (1993) defines decommittment as the denial of any harmful intent for action and the declaration by the speaker that he or she did not plan to continue, carry out, or take seriously an action that had been initiated. the premise underlying the decommitment function is that humorous communication is retractable, for instance, the speaker can retract his or her statement without losing face (attardo, 2009). decommitment strategies consist of questioning and attempting to remove the speaker from what he or she is saying by making a joke that is becoming socially offensive (attardo, 1993). there are two sub-types of decommitment; probing and salvaging. humor's probing function allows a speaker to elicit information by making a humorous utterance. according to eastmond (1992) probing is the balancing function of humor that attempt to discover facts that others do not want you to know by asking careful and indirect inquiries. the use of this humor is to communicate implicitly serious material. it serves as a tool for discussing topics that may be too risky to address. in the instance of hostile humor, however, humor can be utilized to convey an explicit message of agreement or disagreement towards a person or group (salvatore attardo, 1993). the next sub-type of decommitment is salvaging. salvaging is a humorous function in which the speaker attempts to improve a negative situation. attardo (1993) saiful akmal, faraha hamidi, ikhramah ismed, & muhammad nasir englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 153 explains salvaging as a situation in which a person who is about to suffer an unfavorable social setting may seek to save the situation by expressing that the proposed or past conduct was merely a joke to protect the speaker's reputation. this places the responsibility of initiating an awkward social interaction on the audience and provides the speaker with an out, such as "i did not mean it seriously." the third function of humor is mediation. mediation in humor is used either to introduce or carry out potentially embarrassing or confrontational situations. in brief, humor is viewed as a mechanism for mediating conflict, whereas teasing is viewed as a device for criticizing a person without directly attacking them. it is because they are not connected to the quality maxim that the speaker can disavow accountability for what he or she is saying. if the speaker's remarks are deemed socially inappropriate, he or she can deny their legitimacy by asserting that they were hilarious. since joking is an approved style of communication, the speaker does not have to confront the repercussions of his/her remarks. in other words, the speaker may argue that he or she was merely joking (mulkay, 1988). in the sense that its future serious nature can always be denied, humorous discourse bears less responsibility for the speaker, according to mulkay. teasing or joking is utilized to evaluate possibly socially inappropriate behavior and to address emotionally sensitive topics. the last function of humor is defunctionalization. humor, especially nonsense humor or puns, can be seen as a defunctionalization of language (attardo, 2020). defunctionalized language is not intended to transmit information but rather for amusement reasons. this argument is based on freud's observation that hilarious use of language is comparable to children's enjoyment of playing with words. in addition, guiraud's approach to the defunctionalization of humor explains that humor is viewed as a form of language play, which shifts the emphasis from language as a means of communication to language as a ritual and, eventually, language as an art (attardo & raskin, 2017). the notion that linguistic humor will be governed by the rules of the funny game as opposed to those of language is compatible with the metalinguistic position of puns and humor in general. the speakers are aware of the entertaining potential of language and the metalinguistic freedom from its constraints that humor permits; they may choose to take advantage of these potentials for amusing reasons. 3. method a qualitative research design was used in this study. the corpus in this study is derived from selected short stories in nasreddin‟s funniest stories collection compiled by yusup priyasudiarja and y. sri purwaningsih (2011) published in bandung, indonesia. this study specifically applies martin and ford's (2018) analysis of humor and attardo's (2008) four theories of humor functions cited in mietusch (2013). dissecting the types and functions of religious humor in nasreddin hoja short-stories 154 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 3.1. research design and approach this study's data can be gathered from words, sentences, and conversations contained in the selected book of nasreddin hoja‟s short stories. ashley et al. (2012), mackey and gass (2005), and johnson and christensen (2004) note that qualitative design in educational social research involves the collection and analysis of nonnumerical data in an effort to extract meaning from the data. qualitative research design and approach, according to tufford and newman (2012), focuses on the interpretation or development of meaning in specific contexts, emphasizes phenomena, and relies on assumptions, explanations, and descriptions. 3.2. material of analysis short stories, novels, poems, poetry, drama, and other literary-related objects are viable objects of analysis in literature studies for education. the short story is one of the research materials that can demonstrate the explicit and implicit meanings conveyed. the analysis material in this study comprises selected short stories from nasreddin hoja compiled by priyasudiarja and purwaningsih (2011) in the collection of nasreddin‟s funniest stories. the book was chosen because it is an enjoyable read for youngsters, adolescents, and adults alike (ohebsion, 2004). each story demonstrates distinct moral ideals and funny stories with profound meaning. also, the stories are told in a simple manner to have an effective pedagogical effect on efl learners of any level. 3.3. data analysis there will be several steps in collecting data for this present study. first, the writer chose some short stories from nasreddin hoja‟s short stories book as the source for analyzing the types and functions of humor they contain. second, the writer read the whole text in each part to understand the stories. then, the writer chooses which type and function of humor to apply in each sentence. finally, the data were analyzed based on the theory of function and type of humor proposed by martin and ford (2018) and attardo (2008), four theories of humor functions. 4. findings and discussion 4.1. types of humor by martin (2018) humorous lines support the development if narrative as well as provides for entertainment. martin (2018) explains that each individual may generate humor in their everyday exchanges with others. most individuals relish the encouraging results of excitement and value individuals who are good at making them laugh. in this light, martin and ford (2018, p. 30) differ humor that transpires in daily collective interfaces into three general groupings: (1) jokes, which are pre-packaged humorous anecdotes that the public remember and disseminate to others; (2) spontaneous conversational humor, which is shaped purposefully throughout mutual communication, it can: verbal or nonverbal; and (3) unintentional humor. saiful akmal, faraha hamidi, ikhramah ismed, & muhammad nasir englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 155 figure 1. types of humor by martin and ford (2018) in this discussion, the writers find martin‟s theory on the three types of humor and the functions according to attardo‟s theory in nasreddin‟s funny stories book. each short-story contains different types of humor. in nasreddin‟s short-stories, the common types of humor found are joke, spontaneous conversational humor, and unintentional humor. in spontaneous conversational humor, there are eight categories: irony, sarcasm, satire, overstatement, self-deprecation, teasing, replies to rhetorical questions, clever replies, and double entendres. while the list is comprehensive, some of the categories are not found in nasreddin‟s selected works. this study will highlight the categories discovered in excerpts from short stories of nasreddin's funniest stories by priyasudiarja and purwaningsih (2011) that will be elaborated below: 4.1.1. joke in “chocolate cake” short-story (pp. 303-304) according to martin and ford (2018), first type of humor, which is joke consists of a setup and punch line that stipulates a preliminary outline or arranged reasonable probabilities about the state of affairs. the image of individuals amused as a reaction to punch lines constructs bizarre destruction of expectations. an example of joke: { “do you have some flour?” nasreddin asked the grocer. punch line “i certainly do, nasreddin,” the grocer replied “do you have eggs?” nasreddin asked again. “yes, i do,” “what about sugar?” nasreddin asked again. “what‟s up, nasreddin? how much do you want?” the grocer puzzled. { “so then, what are you waiting for, my friend? go and make yourself a delicious chocolate cake and eat it! and i‟d love to taste a bit.” set up types of humor spontaneous conversational humor joke unintentional humor irony, satire, sarcasm, overstatement selfdeprecation, teasing, replies to rhetorical questions, clever replies double entendres, transformation of frozen expression, and pun. dissecting the types and functions of religious humor in nasreddin hoja short-stories 156 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 the conversation above happens when nasreddin goes to the supermarket to find ingredients to make a chocolate cake. he asks the grocer whether he had sugar, flour, eggs, and chocolate. when nasreddin continues to ask the grocer to make a him a chocolate cake,this got the grocer puzzled. nasreddin‟s dialogue is categorized as a joke because the setup is when nasreddin asked the grocer for the flour, egg and sugar. it created the grocer‟s expectations about how the condition must be understood while the grocer asked him how much he wanted. the punch line is when nasreddin asked the grocer to make a chocolate cake to him. unexpectedly moves the meaning in an unanticipated and lively manner, making the insight of non-serious absurdity required for humor to happen. 4.1.2. sarcasm in “a big lie” short-story (pp. 19-20) pexman (2018) defines sarcasm as an aggressive type of humor in which the speaker says the opposite of what he or she means, usually with a unique tone of voice, in to be humorously critical. sarcasm relies on its consequence on nasty, scathing, and other mocking languages that are typically focused on a person. “i am sorry, my father isn‟t at home.” “kid, listen to me! tell your father, every time he goes out, he should go with his head, not leaving his head by the window. is that clear?” nasreddin replied. nasreddin receives an invitation from a rich man who has a bad reputation among the villagers because of his unfriendliness. when nasreddin arrives at the rich man‟s house, the rich man‟s son opens the door but does not let him in and instead tells him that his father is not at home. nasreddin sees through the corner of his eyes that the rich man is peeping behind the window. nasreddin becomes furious and tells the son that if his father wants to go out next time, “he should go with his head and not leaving it by the window.” nasreddin uses sarcasm to embarrass the rich man who refuses to see him. the use of sarcasm is sometimes concentrates on social out-casts as a subtle way of asserting cohesion among members of the social group. nasreddin does not really mean to ask the rich man to literally leave his head at the window before he leaves the house, he knows that the action is impossible, but what he means is he wants the rich man to really think of the effect of his actions before doing anything. 4.1.3. satire in “an expensive outfit” short-story (pp. 45-46) satire is considered as hostile humor that discloses problems in personalities or social societies through calculated mockery (martin & ford, 2018). satire includes humor that underlines racial affairs, sexual judgment and non-specific cases of popular beliefs. satire created humor by raising public interpretation. an illustration of satire is found in the excerpt below: saiful akmal, faraha hamidi, ikhramah ismed, & muhammad nasir englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 157 ”you have to drink it, too.” nasreddin said to his outfit as he dipped his outfit into wine glass. “nasreddin, try this roasted turkey, you‟ll like it,” the host said “sure, i will,” nasreddin replied. he took a piece of roasted turkey, chewed it a bit then fed the rest to his outfit. “nasreddin, why are you feeding your outfit and dipping it into your wine glass?” “well… you know why i have to feed my outfit. to tell you the truth, this outfit is the one which helps me get this wonderful treatment and delicious food,” nasreddin explained happily. nasreddin can secure an invitation from a rich family‟s party. he decides to wear the best outfit that he has. the outfit is plain and basic for an elite party. due to this, he receives bad treatment at the party. realizing that it is because of the unbefitting outfit, he decides to return home and borrow one of his friend‟s to come back to the party and impress the host. when he arrives there, everyone changes their attitude towards him. they welcome and respect him. they serve him the best food and drink at the party. seeing how pretentious everyone is, nasreddin begins to feed his coat with the food and “gave” his coat some wine “to drink”. everyone who saw this was shocking. when they asked him, he finally answered that they invited his coat and not him. nasreddin‟s behavior is considered satirical. his satire is a hostile humor that pokes fun at people‟s behavior who likes to discriminate against those who lack material possessions and care only for outer appearance. 4.1.4. replies to rhetorical question in “dove feast” short-story (pp. 239-240) rhetorical questions are not questioned with the prospect of a response (martin & ford, 2018). responding to one interrupts a conversational expectation and surprises the person who posed the question. this can be categorized as hilarious, and the purpose is typically to amuse a speaking partner. “sublime allah,” he spoke, looking up. “it‟s such an amazing bless that you gave life to those cooked doves, but how are you going to pay me for the butter, salt, tomato and sugar i used?” nasreddin seldom hosts parties, but one day, he decides to host one. he invites his friends over dinner and they are delighted to receive his invitation. however, they want to prank nasreddin. they ask him what he is planning to serve for dinner. nasreddin says that he is going to serve doves for dinner. during the feast, nasreddin appears from the kitchen with the doves served on a large thin platter, the meal is covered with a lid. when nasreddin goes back to the kitchen, his friends mischievously replace the cooked doves with some living ones. as nasreddin opened the lid, the doves dissecting the types and functions of religious humor in nasreddin hoja short-stories 158 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 flew away. his friends waited anxiously to hear what nasreddin was about to say. taking the joke lightly, he only replies with praises to god, and to get back to his friends; he asks his friends how they will pay him for the ingredients he had used to prepare the meal now that the birds are gone? his question is a rhetorical question in which an answer is not needed. 4.1.5. clever replies in “first preach” short-story (pp. 127-128) according to martin and ford (2018, p. 30) in the psychology of humor an integrative approach, clever replies are often witty, odd, or ridiculous answers to declarations or requests intended to be serious. when an assertion is offered, the speaker on the receiving end replies in an entertaining manner which is the opposite of the meaning other than the intended one: “do you know what i am going to talk about?” nasreddin questioned “no, we don‟t, nasreddin,” they responded. “if you don‟t know what i am going to talk about, then i have nothing to tell you,” nasreddin replied. “do you know what i am going to tell you today?” nasreddin questioned again. “yes, we do, nasreddin,” they answered. “if you have already known what i am going to tell you, then i have nothing to tell you,” said nasreddin. “do you know what i am going to tell to you?” some of them say “yes, we do” and some others said “no, we don‟t” “well, in that case, those who know should tell those who do not know,” nasreddin answered. nasreddin always wanted to be an imam. he tries to get a lot of knowledge and trains in how to speak in front of many people. after working hard, he finally has a chance to lecture on his first day as the village‟s imam; nasreddin sat on the elevated bench, ready to deliver a lecture. everybody was curious to listen to what he had to say. nasreddin turns very worried. he is not prepared of any kind to deliver a lecture. then he tries to make a dialogue with them. he asks them whether they already knew what he was going to say. they reply that they do not know. then nasreddin told them that he would not tell them anything if they do not know anything. the following day, they say that they know what nasreddin is going to tell. once again, nasreddin says that he does not have to tell them anything because they already know. on the third day; some say they know what his content is, some say they do not know. nasreddin replies that those who have known should tell those who have not. in reality, nasreddin has not prepared his speech, so he poses questions and ambiguous responses. he never answers them directly but only swerves his responses in clever replies. saiful akmal, faraha hamidi, ikhramah ismed, & muhammad nasir englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 159 4.1.6. double entendres in “stingy rich man” short-story (pp. 27-28) declarations or words are intentionally misperceived or misconstrued to conjure a twofold denotation, with one often speak of double entendres (martin & ford, 2018). when used with intent, it may be entertaining and engaging because the impression is to get a laugh both from people in the know and people who do not even know of its double meaning. an example is found in the excerpt below: “give me your hand! give me your hand!” the people yelled. “nasreddin you should do something. hasan, the rich, has fallen into the river. he is going to get drown, but he doesn‟t let us save him,” one of them spoke to nasreddin. “let me try,” nasreddin responded. “hasan, hasan, take my hand!” nasreddin screamed to the sinking man. the man instantaneously grasped nasreddin‟s arm. “how could you make it, nasreddin?” one of the village dwellers questioned. “it‟s easy. he is quite stingy, right? he‟s better at taking than giving. so use the word „take‟ not „give‟,” nasreddin answered serenely. in the story, a wealthy man drops some coin into the river. because he is a stingy man, he does not want to let his coin go. he tries to reach the coin in the river but loses his balance and falls into the river. people see what happens and try to rescue him. they ask him to „give‟ his hand but to their surprise, he does not want to „give‟ his hands to them to get the help. the rescuers keep asking him to give them his hands, but he keeps refusing. nasreddin happens to pass the scene and wants to help. upon learning the situation, nasreddin then asks the man to „take‟ his hand and astonishingly, the rich man follows nasreddin‟s instruction and „takes‟ it. when everyone asked nasreddin about it, he only answers that the rich and stingy man is not used to „give‟ to others but only knows to „take‟. in the story above, „take‟ has a double meaning; taking nasreddin‟s hand literally so that he can be rescued from drowning and also taking materials, gifts, or anything that increase his wealth without thinking of giving back to those who gave. 4.1.7. humor functions by attardo (1994) humor not only has an amusement function but also has many communal functions. the primary function of humor in the talk is the positive effects on the listeners that the speaker may accomplish unswervingly by applying this entertaining element in humorous speech or texts. the following section discusses the functions of humor in nasreddin‟s shortstories. according to attardo (1994) as cited in the book of humor across cultures research on transcultural humor in intercultural coaching and training setting by mietusch (2013, p. 12), the functions of humor on the dissecting the types and functions of religious humor in nasreddin hoja short-stories 160 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 communicative process can be clustered into four types, they are social management, decommitment, mediation, and defunctionalization. 4.1.8. social management in “an expensive outfit” short-story (pp. 45-46) attardo‟s report (as cited in mietusch, 2013) reveals that “the social management function of humor covers all the cases in which humor is used as a tool to facilitate in-group interaction and strengthen in-group bonding or out-group rejection”. the following discussion will discuss social management that is found in nasreddin‟s short stories: “nasreddin, why are you feeding your outfit and dipping it into your wine glass?” “well… you know why i have to feed my outfit. to tell you the truth, this outfit is the one which helps me get this wonderful treatment and delicious food,” nasreddin explained happily. nasreddin uses humor as a social management since he used humor as an instrument to enable in-group communication. he conveys thoughts that contain moral messages and the logic of language that should exist in every individual. unconsciously, social criticism conveyed by nasreddin subconsciously makes his audience ponders on their actions and behaviors in real life. based on the context of the utterance delivered by nasruddin in the above excerpt is to directly make the party attendees think about their social biases on appearance and indirectly teach his readers to think the same. alternatively, nasreddin is asking his readers not to judge someone by his appearance only; he invites his readers to treat all people with the same respect they have on themselves. the social management function in this type of humor is also considered as social control. humor functions functions social management decommitment mediation defunctionalization social control social norms conveyance ingratiation discourse management common ground establishment cleverness social play repair saiful akmal, faraha hamidi, ikhramah ismed, & muhammad nasir englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 161 4.1.9. mediation in „climbing up the roof” short-story (pp. 249-250) humor is used either to make the object known to or carry out hypothetically humiliating or hostile relations. in other words, humor is perceived as a facilitating method. mediation-humor is used to check behavior that is possibly socially intolerable and to agree with enthusiastically exciting subjects (attardo, 1994 as cited in mietusch, 2013). “could you share some money with me?” the man reiterated. “ok. but you have to come up there with me,” he said. “once they got to the rooftop, nasreddin turned to the man and said, “i don‟t have money.” the context of the conversation above occurred on a rainy day when nasreddin and his family are meeting in the living room, his wife points out to the leaking from the roof. the following day, nasreddin borrows a ladder from his neighbor. he climbs the ladder very carefully. as he is about to commence working, he hears somebody knocking on the door. he then looks down from the edge of the roof and sees an unfamiliar person in front of the door. nasreddin shouts to tell the man that he is on the roof. then, the man asks nasreddin to come down because he has something important to talk to nasreddin without telling him directly what it is. following the man‟s request, nasreddin climbs down the ladder to meet him. nasreddin again demands the man to tell his intention, but his answer makes nasreddin speechless. the man requests for some money to nasreddin. nasreddin agrees to his request but he asks him to climb up the roof together. once they are on the roof top, nasreddin turns to the man and admits that he has no money to lend. the function of this humor is mediation, which is buying some time for both of them to think about the request. nasreddin rejects the man‟s request without being impolite or embarrasses both of them. therefore, he resorts to this hard humor in the form of mediation. 6. conclusion this paper argues that humor in nasreddin hoja short stories are primarily spontaneous conversational humor. this study found that joke, sarcasm, satire, replies to rhetorical question, clever replies, and double entendres. thus, the types of spontaneous conversational humor that are not found are irony, overstatement, pun, selfdeprecation, transformation of frozen expression. meanwhile, unintentional humor is also not covered because unintentional humor is raised from speakers‟ slips, misstatements, errors in logic, and freudian slips. regarding the functions of humor, social management and mediation are uncovered in nasreddin hoja short stories. this study is expected to be a small yet meaningful contribution to humor research in the study of language communication, education and humanities, and we believe that the dissecting the types and functions of religious humor in nasreddin hoja short-stories 162 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 path to examine many other rich and complex aspects of humor in short stories or other products of literature must be deliberately studied. this study attests that language and humor is explicably important to pass the main values to the pupils, especially when the normal language classroom was unable to do it. the modified language classroom whereby humor and short stories are intertwined at the beginning and at the end of the class design and management can help boost the overarching moral, educational and religious values that the teacher wanted to pass to the pupils. the knowledge disparity of how a value can be understood in humor in literature class is simultaneously enthralling. however, this present study certainly has its limitation. as once can see, this work did not provide close reading on how the actual personal and societal transformation takes places in the short-stories, but rather, a highlight on some selected short-stories in muslim literature with some available and accessible readings on it that is linked with the already established types and functions of religious humor for english language teaching purpose in introduction to literature, linguistics, sociolinguistics and discourse analysis courses. references akmal, s., & hadi, a. 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(2017). satire, humor and the construction of identities. john benjamins publishing company. englisia november 2014 vol. 2 no.1, 20-29 enhancing efl learners’ writing  skills through blogging  lilis suadah state islamic university of ar-raniry banda aceh abstract this paper presents some reasons why english teachers aiming to increase their learners’ writing skills should use blogs in their teaching, particularly in efl context. it is found that despite its drawbacks, putting pressure on computer illiterate learners and exposing them to non-standard english, blogging is an exceptional technological platform that offered learners numerous advantages such as it encourages them to write constructively, use english more frequently, and retain their motivation. this paper also highlights that to get most benefits of blogging, the teachers play major roles in ensuring the availability of reliable facilities (computer and the internet), teaching learners how to use blog purposefully, and controlling the bloggers (learners) to not only write their blog posts but also read, and provide feedback to their peers’. keywords: efl learners; writing skills; blogging; feedback. introduction writing has received a great deal of attention as it is one of the language skills which english as foreign language (efl) learners are struggling with. silvia (1993) points out that the areas of writing that many efl students perceive difficult range from composing processes (planning and revising) to written text features (fluency, accuracy and structure). the complexity of writing has challenged educators to seek effective teaching writing strategies for efl learners. currently, technology is dominantly used in foreign language teaching. as novel technological devices and the internet emerge, studies on how these devices might impact efl students’ writing skills are also expanding. blogs are internet platforms which are increasingly popular lilis suadah englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 21 in language classrooms. they are certainly not the latest innovation of the internet software. however, their influence on students’ writing skills is still fervently debated. some disagree with the application of blogs in language teaching because it could ruin efl students’ language development (kikuchi, 2008). hence, this essay will critically discuss some controversial arguments on the application of blogs in teaching writing for efl learners. it will also argue that blogging benefits efl learners to improve their writing skills because it encourages learners to write productively, exposes them to english language use and improves their motivation. discussion the term blog is defined differently. du and wagner (2005) define a blog as an electronic journal kept by an author, who regularly updates the journal (known as blogging). rettberg (2008), on the other hand, defines a blog as a frequently updated web site consisting of dated entries arranged in reverse chronological order. both definitions indicate that an author of blogs serves two functions: as a writer and an organiser. the term blog or web log is often credited to jorn barger, who was one of the earliest bloggers in 1997 (rettberg, 2008). blogs have been used for different purposes; political, economic and educational. blogs have served as a vehicle for political discussions and have been used to both educate and motivate the public about political issues. economists have used blogs for gaining financial benefits in online trading. the application of blogs in foreign language teaching started in 2005 and it has been used to teach writing and reading skills (bakar & ismail, 2009). along with studies that investigate the effectiveness of blogging in helping foreign language learners' writing, the majority of the findings support the benefits of blogging. firstly, using blogs has been presumed to be an effective way to encourage efl students to write in english constructively (bakar & ismail, 2009). this means, learning writing does not happen through knowledge transfer from teachers to students but it occurs because students actively improve their writing skills through attaining, generating, analyzing, manipulating and structuring the information. constructive writing is important as it could lead efl students to improve their writing through a series of process which includes planning, writing, editing, posting and enhancing efl learners’ writing skills through blogging 22 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 receiving feedback (bakar & ismail, 2009). learning through these steps is essential because of two reasons. first, it maintains information processing. bruning, schraw & norby (2011) point out that students could store massive information in their brain and retain it longer when they learn it step by step. second, through these processes, students have opportunities to deeply understand information and write it in a sophisticated way before publishing it in blogs (du & wagner, 2005). another feature of blogging that accounts for constructive learning is the presence of reciprocal feedback from teachers and students (peyton & staton, 2000). in a traditional learning method, in which learning solely takes place in a classroom, efl students get feedback for their writing only from their teachers. on the other hand, when students learn writing through blogging, they could get feedback from many sources such as teachers, peers and general viewers. feedback is important as it accounts for progressive writing. efl students could use feedback to reflect what they have learnt and identify the areas of writing they need to improve (ray & coulter, 2008). one research that investigates 41 secondary school students in china who use blogs reveals that most of these students have positive perceptions toward blogging because of the presence of viewers or readers who persuade them to exhibit their writing skills (bakar & ismail, 2009). the readership in blogging also aids these students to write better because they are aware of the need to check grammar and spelling before posting their writing (bakar & ismail, 2009). this awareness could stimulate efl students to have longer persistence in learning writing even though they are struggling with inadequate skills. using blogs is an example of constructive mixed-blended teaching. in this method, teachers teach their students in a classroom and integrate blogs or other technological templates as media for students to practice. teaching writing takes places in two phases: initially teachers explain the theory of writing and give examples in a classroom and finally guide students to practice writing using blogs. the benefits of using mixed-blended teaching are allowing students to find the coherence of lesson in the class and in the real world (garrison & vaughan, 2008) and encouraging students to explore the concepts of their learning rather than simply follow series of steps dictated by teachers (du & wagner, 2005). a study that investigates lilis suadah englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 23 teenagers in hong kong who learnt writing through blogging confirms that using blogs has helped these students write well because they could learn individually or collectively (ward, 2004). in the study, the students designed their own blogs or used group blogs to practice writing within six months. the study reveals that the use of blogs has strengthened students’ relationship with peers and enhanced their selfconfidence to write in english. this might happen because these students perceive learning more authentic, meaningful and frequent. using technology such as blogs also benefits teachers in an efl context in a way that they could create teaching materials that suit particular local needs without solely relying on textbooks recommended by government or institutions (hess, 2001). however, integrating blogs in a foreign language classroom would not be successful unless students are willing to devote their time to self-study by using computers and the internet. the opponents of blogging argue that blogs are not applicable for students who live in remote areas where the access to computers, printers and the internet are limited (mitchell, 2010). other students that could be disadvantaged are those who are not very proficient in english. instead of enjoying learning through blogging, these students could feel under pressure to use blogs by considering that their friends and other people would read their post (leki, 1992). this feeling could cause them to lack confidence to write in english or to be apprehensive of making mistakes. the anxiety of making mistakes is another serious problem because students would never be able to write in english without practicing to use it. a study investigating 40 japanese students learning writing through blogging shows that at the end of the class only two students continued using blogs. this happened because most of them were not confident enough to post their writing (kikuchi, 2008). however, this finding is not sufficient to conclude that using blogs is ineffective. rather, teachers should seek for a solution to make blogs effective learning tools and to diminish student’s feeling of writing anxiety. writing anxiety can be minimized through collaborative learning (leki, 1992). teachers could ask reluctant students to create and organize blogs in groups. this task would encourage each student to contribute in blogs as well as support each other. blogs are web tools that allow efl students to practice writing individually or enhancing efl learners’ writing skills through blogging 24 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 to work in teams. more importantly, blogs have different varieties that serve different functions. soares (2010) points out that blogs comprise three types; tutor blog, learner blog and class blog. the first type of blogs is managed by teachers. it is used to update parents and students about their school and classroom. a learner blog, on the other hand, is controlled and organized by individual students. it resembles online journals or portfolios. students could use this blog to express and archive their experiences and opinions. the last type of blog, the class blog, is maintained by teachers and students. this could function as a medium where students post assignments and share information. based on the varieties of blogs, it seems that teachers in an efl context have alternatives to choose blogs that could effectively accommodate students with different writing levels. secondly, besides encouraging students to write constructively, blogging also exposes efl students to language use. in a foreign language context, students learn writing in a minute amount of time. in indonesia, for example, students learn english for only two hours per week. moreover, english writing is used in certain domains such as at schools and in some international institutions. this means efl students lack exposure to the language. however, the use of blogs offers some strategies to cope with this problem. first, efl students could use blogs as a medium to engage with language without time limitation. students could access their blogs at any time as long as they have the internet connection. second, foreign language learners could communicate with people either inside or outside classroom in a meaningful way (pinkman, 2005). they could heighten the sense of community in their classroom through online interaction and receive feedback from peers and teachers. they could also interact with general readers including native speakers. further than that, while blogging, the bloggers’ roles are as consumers and producers of writing (kelly, 2008). this means, they not only read other bloggers’ writing but also produce their own and share it with others. rettberg (2008) describes the roles of bloggers with two analogies: “journalists and opinionists”. both of these words reflect that bloggers are autonomous writers who have capabilities to search information from many sources independently, report their findings creatively and publish it in blogs. as a result, using bogs is beneficial because it exposes efl students to use lilis suadah englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 25 language more frequently and it also develops students’ autonomy. anderson (2005) proposes that novices could only improve their expertise by deliberate practice. in other words, the more students write on their blogs and make use of feedback, the more likely they will be able to improve their writing skills. however, there are some constraints that may hinder students’ learning writing through blogging. blogs could be intentionally hacked and accidentally deleted (wrede, 2003). if this is the case, the learning target may not be achievable since the students would no longer be able to operate their blogs. blogging is also claimed to cause efl students to indulge in slippery writing (kikuchi, 2008). it means, learners could possibly read the writing that contains jargon and nonstandard language. as a result, they could adopt or use inappropriate language in their own writing. hence, it is assumed that blogs could improve students’ fluency in writing but it decreases the accuracy. the major constraint in applying blogs in class is the absence of feedback. the use of blogs would be meaningless if students or bloggers could not get any feedback on how their writing skills have developed. based on this constraint, the teacher should encourage students to actively make posting and give feedback for their peers’ writing. finally, blogs are exceptional internet platforms that can enhance students’ motivation in writing (richardson, 2009). blogs have some functional features such as interesting templates, comment and sharing sections. efl students could use these features to draw readers’ interests to visit their blogs and leave comment for their writing. the use of blogs could also cater variety of students’ learning styles (ward, 2004). for example, visual learners could use blogs to improve writing through the visual features such attaching photos and emoticons. auditory learners could use audios or videos to make their learning more interesting. alexander (1994) points out that the most powerful and positive learning outcomes occur when the task given match with students’ interests (cited in mclnerney & mcinerney, 2006). there are two approaches that teachers can use to enhance efl students’ motivation to write in english (campbell, 2005). first approach is guiding students to extrinsic motivation such as grade or appraisal. for example, teachers could ask students to create a blog and use it to practice writing. this task is then assessed enhancing efl learners’ writing skills through blogging 26 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 based on the number of posts, comments and the quality of their writing. a second approach is to simulate students’ intrinsic motivation. for example, students might be assigned to voluntarily write their experiences on their own blogs. this task aims to stimulate students to practice writing more frequently. campbell (2005) points out that the extrinsic approach is less efficient because students could stop using blogs when appraisals or grades are no longer given. pinkman (2005) supports this argument. based on his investigation on twenty university student’s attitudes toward using blogging, he found that the students acknowledged learning through blogging was useful to help them with writing, especially when the teacher assigned them to organize a blog in team and this assignment was graded. however, many of these students quitted blogging after the task was finished. this indicates that encouraging students to use blogs through external motivation mechanism will not always lead to the constant use of blogs. intrinsic motivation, on the other hand, seems to generate more powerful impacts on students’ motivation to write. this happens because students are aware of the benefits of blogging for their learning. there are two specific dimensions of intrinsic motivation: self-efficacy and sense of ownership (bruning, schraw & norby, 2011). self-efficacy directly links to students’ behavior (bruning et al., 2011). when efl students believe that they have ability to write or to organize blogs, they will have positive attitudes toward blogging. students may also use blogs to deepen their understanding of tasks or materials they have learnt in the class. this could lead students’ willingness to practice writing, sharing with others and using technology in order to improve their skills. however, the problem is not all students have high selfefficacy. reluctant students seem to have low self-efficacy which may be influenced by some factors such as teaching strategies or instructions, task difficulties, peers and teachers’ attitudes (bandura, 1986 as cited in bruning et al., 2011). referring to this theory, teachers could support reluctant students to improve their learning by eliciting supportive learning environment as well as solid relationship between teachers and students. in addition to self-efficacy, writing in the public, yet controlled environment of a blog, could also develop unique sense of ownership (barton, 2005) in which the authors of blogs tend to manage their blogs in a more controlled manner lilis suadah englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 27 to attract the readers’ attention to visit their blogs and to leave some comments (bakar & ismail, 2009). for example, in spite of only posting their writing, the students could also upload some photos and videos to make their blogs more interesting. however, there are some considerations that teachers should take into account in order to help efl students improve their writing through blogging (richardson, 2009). before integrating blogs into a writing lesson, the teachers should familiarize themselves with blogs, check the availability of the internet and train students in how to operate blogs. the goals of the lesson should also be specified, unless the use of blogs will be meaningless. the teachers also need to control students’ performance, encourage students to provide feedback and keep them safe. safety is one crucial point that teachers need to consider because students could possibly interact with many general bloggers outside of class. therefore, it is very important that teachers give clear instruction about how to use the blogs in the lesson. they should also give clear guidelines about how often students should post, how long the posts should be, how many hyperlinks should be included in each post and what is inappropriate to write (ferdig & trammell, 2004 as cited in richardson, 2009). in cases where students are assigned to conduct research and then post their findings in the blog, they should be required to link to their sources when possible, to avoid the temptation of plagiarism. conclusion from the above discussion, it can be concluded that teachers can use blogs to help students write constructively, promote student’s autonomy and enhance their motivation. blogging could be a solution for writing problems that many foreign language learners are struggling with. efl learners could improve their fluency by frequently post their writing on blogs. however, the accuracy element cannot be simply obtained through blogging. hence, efl learners need extra self-study time to acquire this skill. moreover, teachers who aim to integrate blogging in their teaching need to be aware of their students’ need, teaching context and learning goals in order to get the most benefits of using blogs in their teaching. blogging seems to be very beneficial to help the students improve their writing skills as long as teachers use it purposefully in the lesson. enhancing efl learners’ writing skills through blogging 28 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 references anderson, j. r. (2010). cognitive psychology and its implications (7th ed.). new york: worth. bakar, n., & ismail, k. (2009). using blogs to encourage esl students to write constructively in english, ajtlhe, 1(1), 45-57. barton, m. d. (2005). the future of rational-critical debate in online spheres. computers and composition, 22(1), 177-190. bruning, r.h., schraw, g.j., norby, m.m. (2011). cognitive psychology and instruction (5th ed.). boston: pearson. campbell, a. p. (2005). weblogs for use with esl classes. the internet tesl journal, i (2). [online]. retrieved march 15, 2012, from http://iteslj.org/techniques/campbellweblogs.html. du, h. s., & wagner, c. (2005). learning with weblogs: an empirical investigation. paper presented in the 38th systems sciences proceedings. minoa: honolulu: university of hawaii. garrison, d.r. & vaughan, n.d. (2008). blended learning in higher education: framework, principles, and guidelines. san francisco: jossey-bass. hess, h.v. (2001). online learning systems as mediation between cyberspace and learners. gfl journal, 1, 29-42. kikuchi, k. (2008). investigating the use of social networking services in japanese efl classrooms, the jalt call journal, 4(1), 40-52. leki, i. (1992). esl composing: strategies and perceptions. in b. leeds (ed.), writing in a second language: insights from first and second language teaching and research (pp. 55). longman: addison-wesley). mcinerney, d. m., & mcinerney, v. (2006). educational psychology: constructing learning (4th ed.). sydney, australia: prentice hall. mitchell, g. (2010), introducing an efl course website and blog to extend student engagement and learning. japan journal, 38，5361. peyton, j. k., & staton, j. (2000). published works about dialogue journal research and use: dialogue journal bibliography: retrieved april 24, 2012, from http://www.ca.org/ncle/dialoguej.htm. pinkman, k. (2005). using blogs in the foreign language classroom: encouraging learner independence. the jalt call journal, 1(1), 12-24. lilis suadah englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 29 ray, b. b., & coulter, g. a. (2008). reflective practices among language arts teachers; the use of weblogs. contemporary issues in technology and teacher education. 8 (1), 6-26. rettberg, j. w. (2008). blogging: digital media and society series. cambridge: polity press. richardson, w. (2009). blogs, wikis, podcasts and other powerful web tools for classroom. london: corwin press. silvia, t. (1993). toward an understanding of the distinct nature of second language writing; the esl research and its implications. tesol quarterly, 24 (4), 657667. soares, d, d, a. (2008). understanding class blogs as a tool for language development. language teaching research, 12(4), 517-533. ward, j. m. (2004). blog assisted language learning (ball): push button publishing for the pupils. tefl web journal, 3(1). wrede, o. (2003). weblogs and discourse: weblogs as transformational technology for higher education and academic research. blogtalk conference paper presented in vienna : retrieved april 24, 2012, from: http://weblogs.design.fh-aachen.de/owrede /publikationen/weblogs_and _discourse. englisia may 2017 vol. 4, no. 2, 99-115 the types of request expressions used in novel “harry potter and the chamber of secrets”: their appropriateness to esl/efl teaching for junior high school students in indonesia nuzulul isna & inong permata sari stkip muhammadiyah aceh barat daya, indonesia nuzulul_isna@yahoo.com | inongpermata@gmail.com abstract novels can be authentic sources for learning esl/efl, especially in non-english speaking countries. they may present reliable learning references in the absence of native speakers. this article aims to identify the types of request expressions originated in novel “harry potter and the chamber of secrets” as well as their appropriateness for teaching esl/efl in aligment to current applied curriculum (2006 curriculum) in junior high school level in indonesia. this research employed a qualitative research which was based on content analysis methodology. the data analysis revealed the types of request expressions (tsui, 1989) generated out of 110 items uttered by the characters in the novel. 65.5% of the finding matched the nine request expressions learning materials embedded in the 2006 curriculum. indeed, this finding may significantly contribute to the addition of authentic english learning source, especially in teaching speaking skill. keywords: request expressions; english syllabus; speech acts; 2006 curriculum; authentic material introduction learning english as the second language (efl) or english as a foreign language (efl) was not intentionally focused on learning a single english skill or aspect. it takes an integrated collaboration between those skills and its aspects to be able to possess the whole comprehension of a language (hinkel, 2008). the types of request expressions used in novel “harry potter and the chamber of secrets”: their appropriateness to esl/efl teaching for junior high school students in indonesia 100 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 nonetheless, there were still issues found in learning english as esl/efl in societies in asia, as greatest concentration the “outer-circle” english using society. bolton (2008) points out english proficiency as the issue in a number of asian society, where the interest to english seems to be driven by market forces. the ability of mastering english was usually measured by a standardized test, such as toefl, ielts, or toiec. this test could be hard for esl/efl learners; even raimes (1990) raised some concerns of their application in assessing english native speakers’ mastery. in speaking skill, pronunciation has no longer become the only main learning focus, however as tarone highlights in hinkel’s handbook (2005) that the goal of pronunciation has shifted from focusing a nativelike accent to focusing on intelligibility, where the listeners understand and comprehend the speaker’s utterances. in indonesia, the process of learning english was endorsed at school from the elementary level. it is one of the required subjects taught in educational curriculum. the use of materials in its teaching refers to the textbooks being assigned under the curriculum. reading texts out loud has still been seen as popular activities in teaching english in indonesia while the application of audio-lingual approach has been incorporated into the textbook in 2006 curriculum. although there is a shift in the focus of the syllabus, there was no such assurance on its application in the field. the scarcity of authentic material in supporting listening and speaking skills remains the focus in teaching english at schools. reading is a skill generated from habits. reading english books or novels may generate further other english skills such as speaking. however, esl/efl teaching at schools, especially in junior high schools in aceh seems to rely on utilizing the texts in english textbooks. some teachers have also found that internet surfing as another option in the effort of searching the text. nevertheless, it was uncommon for the teachers to generate the teaching material from novels. harry potter is one the most famous series of novels in the world. up until now, seven series have been released publicly in english. students in indonesia are quite familiar with the story since it was a well-known novel. the characters in this nuzulul isna & inong permata sari englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 101 novel use a great number of request expressions. accordingly, the researchers chose a specific novel of the series, “harry potter and the chamber of secrets” as the object of research. in this article, the researchers wants to determine the types of request expressions based on tsui’s classification (1989) and their alignment with english teaching materials. therefore, the purposes of this research are formulated in the following questions: 1. what types of request expressions are found in the novel “harry potter and the chamber of secrets”? 2. can these finding contribute to the english learning process at school properly based on junior high school 2006 curriculum? literature review novel as one of authentic learning resources authentic material holds significant effects on the learners; increasing students’ motivation for learning is one of them (guariento & morley, 2001). some researchers (philips & shettlesworth, 1978; clarke, 1989; peacock, 1997, richard, 2001) also listed other positive influences of authentic material that include providing cultural information, the exposure to real language, relating more closely to learners’ needs and supporting a more creative approach to teaching. these advantages may develop a pleasure situation for students in which they are voluntarily involved. effective esl/efl education can be accomplished by triggering the process of natural language acquisition. one way of doing that was by exposing the students to authentic materials (hwang, 2005). english novels can be another authentic learning resource for teaching english. the use of its literature could enhance english skills, such as reading and speaking. the focus and attention on word combinations create a feeling for language recognition and help draw attention to different types of language usage and levels of discourse (ainy, 2008). the use of literature is also highly recommended to teach both english basic skills and language areas (hişmanoğlu, 2005). furthermore, sánchez and schmitt (2010) argue that second language learners retained better meaning and spelling as well as meaning and word class above 50% from an authentic novel, where most of the students experienced incidental vocabulary acquisition. therefore, the use of novels in teaching english the types of request expressions used in novel “harry potter and the chamber of secrets”: their appropriateness to esl/efl teaching for junior high school students in indonesia 102 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 skills can greatly influence students’ success in mastering english. particularly, in a way where these materials could help the teachers in providing alternative authentic learning resources to improve their students’ ability in reading comprehension and increase the knowledge of language usage. communication as one of language areas is a real form of language usage. when people communicate with others, they may want to express their desires that may include promises, apologies, complaints, compliments, requests and many others. in fact, these expressions can be obtained through written language found in novels. to meet the need for communication, 2006 curriculum requires the need for materials to cover the topic of request expressions. for instance, in english basic competence 9.2 of 2006 curriculum for grade viii, the students are required to express how to ask permission which was also in line with english basic competence 3.3 of the 2013 curriculum for grade viii, where the students are required to apply expression of request for invitation. therefore, it is pertinent for the students to learn request expressions based on the materials in the curriculum; so that they can apply appropriate expressions of request in english communication appropriately. consequently, teachers are expected to possess a great amount of authentic learning resources. marianingtyas (2007) in her thesis, “an analysis of requestives in novel the glass house by lynn bushell and its implication to teaching english”, observes that both the english teachers and the students should know more about speech acts’ theories such as requestives and types of sentences since they are important in teaching english and improving the students’ communicative skill. speech acts speech acts are part of pragmatics study. people do not only produce utterance containing grammatical structures and words when they attempt to express themselves, but also perform actions via those utterances. actions performed via utterances are generally called speech acts (yule, 1996). therefore, speech acts are the act performed by a speaker in uttering a sentence. jucker and taavitsainen nuzulul isna & inong permata sari englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 103 (2008) emphasize that speech acts mostly obtained are those comprise facethreatening acts, such as requests, apologies, complaints, and thanks. in other words, speech acts are the actions performed by expressing something through utterances. speech acts also convey the meaning of utterances produced by the speakers. yule (1996) also divided speech into three related acts, (1) locutionary act, (2) illocutionary act/force, and (3) perlocutionary effect. the discussion in this article focuses more detailed in illocutionary forces/acts as they are bound with effect (tsui, 1987). practically, the illucutionary acts convey the purpose of the speakers whose intention to receive actions to be performed by the listeners. request expressions requests are one of the most important speech acts that occur frequently in day to day situations. the desired aim of the request utterance can involve a diverse number of actions or things (halupka-rešetar, 2014). thus, request expressions cannot be separated with the communication in daily life. floris and loanata (2011) define request as an illocutionary act whereby a speaker (requester) conveys to a hearer (requestee) that he/she wants the requestee to perform an act which is for the benefit of the speaker. therefore, the function or purpose of the request is to involve the hearer in some future actions which have positive consequences for the speaker. tsui (1989) elaborated that requests are initiations in which the addressee is expected to respond by a non-verbal action and depends on him/her if he/she wishes to carry out the expected action or not. moreover, requests are also presented in imperative forms which follow directives. it is as though the speaker is putting pressure on the addressee to comply with the requestives. this indicates his/her sincerity in having the addressee accept the prospected actions. nevertheless, when presenting requests in this form, the speaker does not have authority towards the addressee. therefore, the addressee may agree or refuse to comply. in conclusion, request expression is the speech act of the speaker to ask the hearer to do something and get the benefit of it. however, the hearer may agree or disagree to do it. the types of request expressions used in novel “harry potter and the chamber of secrets”: their appropriateness to esl/efl teaching for junior high school students in indonesia 104 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 tsui (1989) classified requests into five classes, they are: a. request for permission request for permission is a request that asks someone to allow something or to ask permission to do something. request for permission involves the speaker’s performance in the future action which is aimed to his or her own benefit. b. offer offer is a request of offering something to be accepted or refused. it commits the future action and benefit to the addressee. an appreciation and thank are expressed by the addressee. c. request for action request for action is a request that asks someone to do something. it prospects addressee’s action and it is for the speaker’s benefit. a positive response will commit the addressee to some non-verbal actions. d. invitation invitation is a request that prospects the addressee’s action. the addressee’s action is for the benefit of the addressee himself and the speaker. the addressee will perform the non-verbal action if there is a compliance response. e. proposal proposal is a request of suggestion that the speaker and the hearer perform non-verbal action and it is beneficial for both the speaker and hearer. chart 1. system network of requestives (tsui, 1989) s = speaker h = hearer requests s action s benefit request for permission h benefit offer h action s benefit request for action h benefit / s + h benefit invitation s + h action h benefit / s + h benefit proposal nuzulul isna & inong permata sari englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 105 the above chart discloses that should the action performed by the speaker for the speaker's benefit, it is called request for permission, such as, “may i use the car?”, or for the hearer’s benefit, which is called offer, in which the example of it is, “can i help you?”. another example is when the action performed by the hearer for the speaker’s benefit, then it is called request for action. “could you open the door, please?” is the example of request for action. methodology research design our research was conducted by employing qualitative content analysis. it focused on analyzing the types of request expressions presented by the characters in the novel “harry potter and the chamber of secrets” by j.k. rowling. the data of this research were identified in a conscientious way that took several attempts of reading the novel, highlighting the dialogues containing the request expressions, classifying the data and coding them to ensure the research validity and reliability aspects. the researchers used data coding to classify the findings into the five categories grounded on tsui’s theory (1987). additionally, those data were also analyzed further to check their relevance to the topics being taught to the junior high school students. this includes creating the documentation checklist, comparing these expressions to request teaching material in junior high school 2006 curriculum, and drawing conclusions. material of analysis the research object in this research are the request expression generated from the “harry potter and the chamber of secrets”. it is the second novel of harry potter series written by j. k. rowling. it was published in the united kingdom on 2 july 1998 by bloomsbury and in the united states on 2 june 1999 by scholastic inc. moreover, it was debuted at no. 1 on uk bestseller lists and in june 1999, it went straight to the top of three us bestseller lists. it consists of three hundred and forty one pages and eighteen chapters. furthermore, the harry potter books are distributed in over 200 territories, are translated into 68 languages and have sold over 400 million copies worldwide. the types of request expressions used in novel “harry potter and the chamber of secrets”: their appropriateness to esl/efl teaching for junior high school students in indonesia 106 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 according to the readers, this novel is popular because it can entertain the readers with the magical world and interesting story line. it has many great characters and teaches the moral values about friendship, standing up in the face of adversity, loyalty and love. when the readers read the novel, they can feel the imaginary nuance of the wizard world. also, this novel attracts most adolescents as the readers as trites (2001) utilized the novel as the case study for understanding the adolescent literature. the author, rowling, was voted as the author of the year in 1999 by british book awards (nibbies). in the year of 2000, she won the wh smith children’s book of the year. result and discussion types of request expressions the data collected exposed 110 items of request expressions located in the novel. these data fell into requests for action, permission, offer, invitation, and proposal. the total data found were presented as follow: table 1. the types of request expressions found in the novel “harry potter and the chamber of secrets” types data number sum request for actions 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 19, 23, 28, 29, 33, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 45, 47, 54, 56, 58, 59, 64, 70, 71, 73, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 90, 91, 93, 94, 97, 98, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108, 110 56 request for permission 1, 21, 32, 34, 35, 50, 63, 66, 72, 109 10 invitation 15, 22, 31, 41, 53, 92 6 offer 5, 6, 7, 18, 20, 48, 49, 51, 52, 62, 88, 89 12 propose 4, 14, 16, 17, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 44, 46, 55, 57, 60, 61, 65, 67, 68, 69, 75, 80, 81, 95, 96, 99, 106 26 total 110 1. request for action datum 42/ra/asking for services “will you sign it?” said colin eagerly. “no,” said harry flatly. nuzulul isna & inong permata sari englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 107 the context of situation the situation took place on the spiral staircase. the participants were collin and harry. collin came to harry and showed him a photograph and it was the photograph of harry and professor lockhart. collin adored harry potter so much that he attempted to get harry to sign the photo. harry felt uncomfortable as he did not feel like having fans. analysis of request expressions collin’s utterance is the request for action. in a request for action, the speaker prospects the addressee’s action. the future action of the addressee is beneficial to the speaker. in this case, collin expects harry’s response. he asked harry to sign the photograph. should harry undertake the action, collin will get the benefit from the action. collin will be glad to have the signed photograph of harry’s. in fact, harry responded negatively to collin’s request. hence, collin’s request refers to ask for service. he asks for harry’s service to sign the photograph. datum 59/ra/asking for facts “you’re making fun of me,” she said, “no. honestly, didn’t i just say how nice myrtle’s looking?” said hermione, nudging harry and ron painfully in the ribs. “don’t lie to me,” myrtle gasped, “oh, dear,” said hermione sadly. the context of situation the conversation happened at the nearly headless nick’s party. the participants were peeves, hermione, myrtle, harry, and ron. hermione avoided meeting myrtle. she told harry and ron that myrtle was a moaning ghost that haunted the girls’ bathroom. peeves informed myrtle that hermione was talking about her. myrtle sensed hermione’s suspicion and confronted her about it. analysis of request expressions myrtle’s utterance is the request for action. she asked hermione to tell her the truth. if hermione tells the truth, myrtle will know the fact. it makes her feel satisfied. hermione responded it regretfully. myrtle’s request refers to ask for facts. the types of request expressions used in novel “harry potter and the chamber of secrets”: their appropriateness to esl/efl teaching for junior high school students in indonesia 108 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 datum 54/ra/asking for agreements/asking for opinion/asking for services “do you think you could possibly mention to sir patrick how very frightening and impressive you find me?” “of — of course,” said harry. the context of situation harry and nearly headless nick walked along the corridor together. nearly headless nick would host a party, and sir patrick who was the leader of huntsmen was one of the invitees. earlier, he refused nearly headless nick to join the headless hunt, because he did not meet the requirements. he asked harry whether he could help him. analysis of request expressions nearly headless nick’s utterance is the request for action. he asked harry to inform sir patrick how frightening and impressive nearly headless nick was. thus, it can make sir patrick think that nearly headless nick is qualified enough to join the headless hunt which gives the benefit for nearly headless nick. nearly headless nick asked harry’s help by asking his opinion and he sought for harry’s agreement. harry gave a positive response to it. nick’s request refers to ask for the opinion, ask for the agreement, and implies asking for service. datum 77/ra/asking for clarifications harry looked up nervously at lockhart and said, “professor, could you show me that blocking thing again?” lockhart cuffed harry merrily on the shoulder. “just do what i did, harry!” the context of situation the situation was in the great hall. the participants were harry, professor snape, professor lockhart and malfoy. school held a dueling club. professor lockhart taught how to block unfriendly spells, but he did it carelessly. professor snape then chose harry to try dueling with malfoy. analysis of request expressions harry’s utterance is request for action. he asked professor lockhart to show again how to block the spells, because he did not explain it clearly. unfortunately, nuzulul isna & inong permata sari englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 109 he refused harry’ request. his request refers to ask for clarifications. he asks professor lockhart to show it again clearly. 2. request for permission datum 66/rp/asking for thing “hermione, let me read your composition,” said ron desperately, “no, i won’t,” said hermione, suddenly severe. the context of situation the conversation took place in the library. ron, harry, and hermione got the assignment from professor binns to write three feet long composition. ron has written eight inches, while hermione has done four feet. ron asked to read hermione’s composition before the bell rang. analysis of request expressions ron’s utterance is the request for permission. in a request for permission, the speaker asked the addressee to allow him to do something and it is for the benefit of the speaker. here, ron asked hermione to give a permission to read her compositions. if hermione permits it, ron will copy hermione’s writing. nevertheless, hermione gave a negative response. ron’s request refers to ask for things indirectly. when ron asks to read hermione’s composition, he asks for her composition indirectly. datum 109/rp/asking for certainty “professor dumbledore,” he said hurriedly. “can i give that diary back to mr. malfoy, please?” “certainly, harry,” said dumbledore calmly. the context of situation the conversation took place in the corridor. the participants were harry, professor dumbledore, mr. malfoy and dobby who is mr. malfoy’s house elf. mr. malfoy was abusive to dobby. harry could not stand it and wanted to help setting dobby free. dobby could be free if his master gives him something. harry planned something with mr. malfoy’s diary. he asked the diary from professor dumbledore. analysis of request expressions the types of request expressions used in novel “harry potter and the chamber of secrets”: their appropriateness to esl/efl teaching for junior high school students in indonesia 110 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 harry’s utterance is the request for permission. harry asked professor dumbledore’s permission to give back the diary to mr. malfoy. if professor dumbledore agrees, harry could be sure that what he would do was good. this request refers to ask for certainty. 3. invitation datum 53/iv/inviting “i’m holding a party down in one of the roomier dungeons. friends will be coming from all over the country. it would be such an honor if you would attend. but i dare say you’d rather go to the school feast?” he watched harry on tenterhooks. “no,” said harry quickly, “i’ll come.” the context of situation the conversation occurred in the corridor. the participants were harry and nearly headless nick. nearly headless nick would hold a party, his friends would be coming from all over the country and he invited harry to his party. he expected harry to be able to come to his party. analysis of request expressions nearly headless nick’s utterance indicates the invitation. he asked harry to attend his party. it was clear that his utterance showed that he was looking forward to harry attending his party that may benefit harry and himself. harry gave a positive response. nearly headless nick’s request refers to inviting. 4. offer datum 51/of/offering something nearly headless nick took several deep breaths and then said, in a far calmer tone, “so — what’s bothering you? anything i can do?” “no,” said harry. the context of situation harry met nearly headless nick in the corridor. harry looked like he was in trouble. so, nearly headless nick asked what harry’s problem was and offered to help. nuzulul isna & inong permata sari englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 111 analysis of request expressions nearly headless nick’s utterance is in the offer type. he offered himself to help harry and his action would benefit harry. nevertheless, harry gave a negative response. nearly headless nick’s utterance refers to offer something, particularly offering help. 5. proposal datum 25/po/inviting “let’s go together, we’ve only got a minute,” ron said to harry. harry made sure that hedwig’s cage was safely wedged on top of his trunk and wheeled his trolley around to face the barrier. he felt perfectly confident; both of them bent low over the handles of their trolleys and walked purposefully toward the barrier. the context of situation the situation took place at king’s cross station. the participants were ron, harry, ron’s mother, and ginny. ron’s mother would take ginny to hogwarts, she told ron and harry to come after them. ron asked harry to go together. analysis of request expressions ron’s utterance is the proposal. a proposal prospects both the speaker’s and the addressee’s action. ron asked harry to go together. his utterance actually prospects both ron’s and harry’s actions. harry responded ron’s utterance with nonverbal action. both of them walked together. ron’s request can refer to inviting because he invites harry to go together. the discussions above clearly indicated that “harry potter and the chamber of secrets” novel has five types of request expressions. they were requests for action, requests for permission, offer, invitation, and proposal. appropriateness to 2006 curriculum in meeting their purposes as the authentic sources in teaching english as the second or foreign language, the researchers obtained 72 data which are in line with the types of request expressions used in novel “harry potter and the chamber of secrets”: their appropriateness to esl/efl teaching for junior high school students in indonesia 112 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 nine materials based on basic competences applied in 2006 curriculum. the following table shows the grouping of data into each material. table 2. request expressions in the novel “harry potter and the chamber of secrets” based on junior high school 2006 curriculum material data number sum asking for service 12, 36, 37, 40, 42, 47, 54, 70, 73, 76, 94, 100, 103, 107, 108 15 asking for things 2, 3, 9, 21, 35, 64, 65, 79, 86, 87, 97, 104 12 asking for facts 59 1 asking for opinion 54 1 asking for clarifications 77 1 inviting 14, 15, 16, 17, 22, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 41, 44, 53, 55, 57, 60, 67, 69, 75, 92, 95, 96 22 offering something 5, 6, 7, 18, 20, 48, 49, 51, 52, 88, 89 11 asking for agreement 1, 54 2 asking for certainty 34, 50, 61, 63, 90, 100, 109 7 total 72 the above table indicated that 65.45% of the expressions ascertained in the novel were appropriate for teaching english material at the junior high school level. the request expressions originated from novel “harry potter and the chamber of secrets” serve nine materials allocated in basic competences of junior high school 2006 curriculum. most data that matched the topic for teaching request expressions at the junior high schools was to serve the purpose of inviting as many as 22 data. secondly, 15 data matched the topic on asking for service. then, 12 data matched the topic on asking for things 11 data matched the topic on asking for offering. the 12 remaining data of expressions matched the topics on asking for certainty, asking for agreement, asking for clarification, asking for facts, and asking for opinions. nuzulul isna & inong permata sari englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 113 a slight difference persists between tsui’s classification and the 2006 curriculum where the curriculum grouped the invitation and proposal into the invitation learning material, for instance: datum 25/po/ inviting “let’s go together, we’ve only got a minute,” ron said to harry. the request expression expected both the speaker’s and the hearer’s action. consequently, it would be more appropriate to classify the expression into the request to propose. unlike the request to propose, invitation only expects the hearer action such as in the following: datum 53/iv/inviting “it would be such an honor if you would attend.” he watched harry on tenterhooks. additionally, the topics on request expressions materials were found in basic competences of grade vii and vii. conclusions and suggestions the objective of this paper is to analyze the types of expressions used in “harry potter and the chamber of secret” novel and their usefulness in english learning process at schools. after analyzing the data, the result revealed five types of request expressions originated in the novel, which are requests for action, permission, invitation, offer, and proposal. these expressions served nine topics on teaching english speaking material for junior high school level. therefore, the expressions generated from the novel could be used as authentic materials for teaching request expressions in additions to the textbook used at schools. the researchers also would like to emphasize on incorporating these findings into learning activities at schools since they will enrich teachers’ authentic learning resources in teaching as well as developing students’ excitement in learning english. hence, the students are more exposed to the use of english in its natural context and could potentially expand their english skills. the types of request expressions used in novel “harry potter and the chamber of secrets”: their appropriateness to esl/efl teaching for junior high school students in indonesia 114 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 references ainy, s. (2008). defining literature and texts relevant to an efl classroom. esl journal, 10, 1-2. badan standar nasional pendidikan. (2006). panduan penyusunan kurikulum tingkat satuan pendidikan jenjang pendidikan dasar dan menengah. jakarta: bsnp. bolton,k.(2008). english in asia, asian englishes, and the issue of proficiency. english today, 24(2), 3. floris f. d., loanata, v. n. (2012). the influence of social distance in the use of request strategies in the proposal movie. lingua: jurnal ilmu bahasa dan sastra,6(3), 310-311. guariento, w. & morley, j. (2001).text and task authenticity in the efl classroom. elt journal 55(4), 347-353. halupka-rešetar, s. (2014). request modification in the pragmatic production of intermediate esp learners. journal of english for specific purposes at tertiary level, 2(1), 29-47. hinkel, e. (2006). current perspectives on teaching the four skills. tesol quarterly, 40(1), 109-131. tarone. e. (2005)speaking in a second languageinhandbook of research in second language teaching and learning by eli hinkel, erlbaum, mahwah, nj, london (2005), pp. 485–502 hişmanoğlu, m. (2005). teaching english through literature. journal of language and linguistic studies, 1(1). hwang, c. c. (2005). effective efl education through popular authentic materials. asian efl journal, 7(1), 90-101. jucker, a. h., & taavitsainen, i. (eds.). (2008). speech acts in the history of english. amsterdam: john benjamins marianingtyas, s. p. (2007). an analysis of requestives in the novel the glass house by lynn bushell and its implication to teaching english. universitas sebelas maret, surakarata, indonesia. pellicer-sánchez, a., & schmitt, n. (2010). incidental vocabulary acquisition from an authentic novel: do things fall apart?. reading in a foreign language, 22(1), 31.rowling, j. k. (1999). harry potter and the chamber of secrets. new york: scholastic. raimes, a. (1990). the toefl test of written english: causes for concern.tesol quarterly, 24(3), 427-442. richard, j.c. (2001). curriculum development in language teaching. cambridge: cambridge university press nuzulul isna & inong permata sari englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 115 trites, r. (2001). the harry potter novels as a test case for adolescent literature. style, 35(3), 472-485. retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/style.35.3.472 tsui, a.b.m., (1987). aspects of the classification of illocutionary acts and the notion of the perlocutionary act. semiotica 66(4):359-377. tsui, a.b.m., (1989). systemic choices and discourse processes. word, 40(1-2), 163-187. yule, g. (1996). pragmatics. oxford: oxford university press. englisia november 2014 vol. 2 no.1, 30-42 everyday talk: the construction of student  identities  faishal zakaria state islamic university of ar-raniry banda aceh abstract this brief article discusses the notion of identity construction through everyday talk among interlocutors. in particular, this article discusses how i construct and coconstruct my identities as a graduate student as i communicate with others. the research data used in this article was analysed through the framework of expert-novice constitution, co-construction, and legitimate peripheral participation. the data show their relevance to the notions of expert-novice, co-construction, and legitimate peripheral participation where the interlocutors are actively negotiating their identities as they try to claim their right to speak. keywords: identity construction; expert-novice constitution; co-construction; legitimate peripheral participation introduction it is my understanding that when people interact with each other they consciously or unconsciously construct their multiple aspects of identities either through verbal or nonverbal language. as a small example of identity construction by spoken language, i decided to examine my own daily interactions with peers in order to look at the way i constructed my identities. in this article, nonetheless, i will focus more on the construction of my identities as a graduate student and will include other aspects of identities in the discussion where i see fit. since the word identity is rich in meaning, second language acquisition (sla) theorists have defined this word rather differently. according to bailey (2001), the faishal zakaria englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 31 word identity is derived from a latin word, idem, which means “the same”; “identities are constituted by socially counting as “the same” as others or counting as “different” from others” (p. 191). in other words, we need others to be “the same” or “different” to claim an “identity”. as she argues that sla theorists need to develop a larger concept of identity in language learning, norton (2000) asserts that the term identity refers to “how a person understands his or her relationship to the world, how that relationship is constructed across time and space, and how the person understands possibilities for the future” (p.5). as someone might change his or her understanding, identity, as norton implies, is not fixed and will tend to change depending on the situations. in relation to this, tracy (2002) points out that identity is “best thought of as stable features of persons that exist prior to any particular situation, and are dynamic and situated accomplishments, enacted through talk, changing from one occasion to the next” (p.17). influenced by west (1992, as cited in norton, 1997; 2000), norton (2000) claims that identity refers to someone’s desires –“the desire for recognition, the desire for affiliation, and the desire for security and safety” (p.8). in relation to this, west (1992) argues that “such desires cannot be separated from the distribution of material resources in society” (as cited in norton, 2000, p.8). someone who has access to these resources will have wider access to power and privileges, and the power and those privileges will shape the way he or she understands his or her relationship with the world. norton (1997) then asserts that the question “who am i?” cannot be understood merely by itself but we need to relate to the question “what can i do?” in addition, according to norton (1997), west (1992) claims that “it is people’s access to material resources that will define the terms on which they will articulate their desires” (p. 410). in addition, shifting from one identity to another will enable people to claim their right to speak as they interact with their interlocutors. as many would believe, a language has connections to the identities of its speakers. in her book, language and culture, kramsch (1998) mentions that someone’s cultural identity is most likely related to the language he or she is speaking. everyday talk: the construction of student identities 32 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 nonetheless, kramsch acknowledges that the relationship between language and cultural identity is complex; she then writes “although there is no one-to-one relationship between anyone’s language and his or her cultural identity, the language is the most sensitive indicator of relationship between an individual and a given social groups” (p. 77). identity is also constructed through actions; similar to what richard (2006) has pointed out that identity is not only assumed or assigned as labels but it is also constructed or built through actions. in other words, identity is produced through situated social actions among interlocutors. bucholtz and hall (2004) particularly write that “identity inheres in actions, not in people … identities may shift and recombine to meet new circumstances” (p. 376). as has been said earlier that identities are constructed rather differently depending on times, spaces, or current needs, i will likely develop and construct different identities every time i face different situations. for instance, the way i constructed my identity, as a graduate student, was different from the way i constructed it when i was serving as an english teacher. perhaps, i would tend to construct my graduate student identity who is in the u.s and has “more knowing” than my past identity did. theoretical framework due to the fact that many different theories of identity have been introduced by the sla experts, i decided to incorporate and draw some of the theories of identity to be the framework of this study. it is my intention that this framework will shape the way i analyze the data in a more directed way. some of the theories are jacoby & gonzales’ (1991) expert-novice constitution, jacoby & ochs’ (1995) coconstruction, and lave & wenger’s legitimate peripheral participation. a brief discussion of these theories will be presented in this section. in a study of a university research group, jacoby & gonzales (1991) examine how the conceptualization of “expert” and “novice” is dynamic and socially constituted in interactions. they claim that the relationship between “novice” and “expert” in an interaction is not necessarily determined by mere social categories, e.g. hierarchical statuses, genders, ages, and etc. rather, the novice-expert relationship is more dynamic and complicated as it changes from time to time. as jacoby and faishal zakaria englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 33 gonzalez (1991) further explain that status of “expert” or “novice” can be changed and negotiated as the interlocutors continue to interact; for instance, a seemingly “expert”, who identifies his or herself as the more knowing person at the earlier time of interaction, will possibly construct his or her “novice” status where he or she sees it fits at a later time of interaction. this status is established and constructed by both interlocutors. regarding this process, jacoby & gonzales assert that this kind of interaction is an active learning where learning is seen “not as mental event internal to an individual but as social achievement within complex framework of community, goals, tools, and activities” (p. 150). in addition, jacoby & gonzales point out that an expert is not constituted as “all knowing” but rather momentarily “more knowing”, while a novice can be constituted as the one who is “less knowing” rather than “not-knowing” (p. 152). in relation to this notion, even if i construct my identity as a graduate student, who knows more about certain topics, it does not mean that i have “all the knowing” rather i temporarily know more because interlocutors i am speaking with have “less knowing” than i do. similarly, jacoby & ochs’ (1995) concept of co-construction also shows that both interlocutors play role in establishing meanings or their social identities. despite the claim that co-construction is meant “to cover a range of interactional processes” (p. 171), jacoby & ochs (1995) also, however, argue that co-construction will not always be in the same goal. the notion of “co-construction does not necessarily entail affiliative or supportive interactions” (p. 171). a disagreement between two parties, according to the authors, can be a form of co-construction. jacoby & ochs (1995) further explain that “everything is co-constructed through interactions … to affirm that participants to interaction are not passive robots living out preprogrammed linguistic “rules”, discourse “conventions, or cultural prescriptions for social identity” (pp. 177-178). in other words, everyone involving in an interaction will likely have to participate actively in order to attain a “shared” understanding. according to norton (2001), lave and wenger (1991) pay attention to “the relationship between learning and the social situation in which it occurs” (p. 160). lave and wenger call this relationship as “situated learning”. norton further explains everyday talk: the construction of student identities 34 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 that the notion of legitimate peripheral participation describes a situation where “newcomers interact with old-timers in a given community setting, become increasingly experienced in the practices that characterize that community, and gradually move toward fuller participation in that community” (p. 160). as the case of jacoby & gonzalez’s (1991) notion of expert-novice relationship where the “novice” can change the relationship to “expert-expert” because she or he has access to what the supposedly “truly expert” has, a newcomer (in legitimate peripheral participation) will gradually change his or her identity (as a newcomer) as he or she gets more access to the ongoing activities that they old-timers are enjoying. in regard to this, lave and wenger particularly write that “to become a full member of a community of practice requires access to a wide range of ongoing activity, old-timers, and other members of the community, and to information, resources, and opportunities for participation” (as cited in norton, 2001, p. 161). participants because this study aims to examine my interactions with others and looks the way i construct my student identity, i became the main subject in this study. however, i invited ten other participants who agreed to participate in this project. three of the participants were first language (l1) speakers of english and the other seven participants were second language (l2) speakers of english. all of the participants were graduate students at english department, indiana university of pennsylvania. i chose them to be my participants for this project because i know them and they are all fluent english speakers. methods the data i used for this paper was initially used for a final project in the second language acquisition class. the data i collected was in the form of audio recording and an audio recorder was the device for collecting the data. in collecting the data, once the participants signed the consent form, i recorded every possible conversation i had with my participants for about four weeks. the participants were neither interviewed nor asked to do anything but i simply recorded the conversations i had with them. i randomly recorded my converfaishal zakaria englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 35 sations with the participants so that the conversations, i hope, would be more natural. in addition, i also tried to hide my recorder from my participants and i used a small microphone so that they could not see it physically. it was my understanding that, at some points, it would be difficult for me to speak naturally, but after a few times of recording everything ran naturally. i managed to collect 4 hours of audio data. realizing that it would take much time to transcribe all the data, i, then, decided to choose four conversations and transcribe about 15 minutes of each of the chosen conversations. to help me choose the conversation, i decided to transcribe the conversations in which i participated more. then, i analysed the transcribed conversation to see the patterns that possibly show my identity construction. i used a computer program called express scribe to help me transcribe the data faster. then, in order to make the transcription easier to read, i adapted some of transcription symbols introduced by ochs (1979) and du bois et al (1993). some of these transcription symbols are provided in the appendix 1. findings and discussion i know that what i say during an interaction tells something about me and this will show multiple aspects of my identity. bearing this nature inside my mind, i decided to contextualize those aspects (in the transcriptions) and chose to only look at my identity as graduate student. i then focused my attention to the aspects of my student identity when i analysed and coded the transcriptions. from the data, i found that my interactions with other interlocutors seem to show the construction of my student identity. particularly, the way i constructed, negotiated, and maintained this aspect of identity shows relevancy to the notions of “expert-novice”, co-construction, and legitimate peripheral participation. due to the space limitation of this paper, only some of the examples of these constructs will be briefly provided and discussed below. when i interact with my fellow students, i tend to construct identity as a student who has the same position with my peers. interestingly, i, both consciously or unconsciously, expressed and shared the same feeling with him or her. for instance, everyday talk: the construction of student identities 36 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 when my fellow student experienced difficulties with his or her project, i tended to pay attention to him or her and it seemed that i tried to tell them that i felt the same way as i was also a student. please look at the following excerpt as an example of this construction. excerpt 1: 36 f: and i don’t know (x x) uhmm we have to have fun (x x) when i first saw this morning 37 i mean this afternoon, what happened? she’s she’s freaking out 38 k: (giggles) really (laughs) 39 f: like … no, i can see that you you’re .. worrying something 40 k: uhm i wasn’t at first but i realized that the students they said they would do it didn’t 41 come 42 f: uh uh (noises) i know i know which is like me yesterday 43 k: i only get frustrated over something that i have no control over 44 f: ok, yeah you don’t have control over it 45 k: no, i i don’t have control [over] as we can see, in line 36 f (this letter refers to me in the discussion of the findings) expresses his concern because his friend who seems to be worried about something. his friend (k) seems to be surprised that f captures her worries and she explains why she was worried (line 40); she was worried because the persons whom she was going to interview for her research did not show up and this can give difficulties for her research plan. seemingly, f shows his understanding and indicates that the experience normally happens by saying i know i know which like me yesterday. f tells k that he was also worried when the person whom he wanted to interview did not come. i think this excerpt shows how f is trying to construct his identity as a fellow student who is trying to build intimate relationship. this construct is not solely done by f alone but k agrees to this construct since she let f know why she was worried. in other words, k is helping f constructs his identity as a caring fellow student. in this case, ochs (1993) asserts that “the relation of language to social identity is not direct but rather mediated by interlocutors’ understandings of conventions for doing particular social acts and stances … (p. 289). there are also times when f and his fellow students construct themselves as “experts” who seemingly have “more knowing” than others. apparently, this construct among them creates some sorts of “competition” where both f and his interfaishal zakaria englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 37 locutors negotiate their “expertise”. the following excerpt shows this kind of construct. excerpt 2: 70 f: right, hey why? oh my goodness it’s a lot 71 b: that’s that’s why i don’t wanna give you this is too much [same] 72 f: [two papers?] 73 b: same thick 74 f: same 75 b: yeah, that’s why i don’t wanna give you 76 f: what? (with surprised intonation) this one is not an article this is a book 77 b: it’s an article 78 f: book 79 b: it’s an article in applied linguistic something in language and society 80 f: from 145 to 204 81 b: yeah, that’s why i don’t wanna give it to you 82 f: which is 80 pages 83 k: (laughs) 84 b: yeah (laughs) 85 f: an article 86 b: (giggles) so i decided not to give it to you 87 f: hey let me see something 88 b: no, you cannot 89 f: why? 90 b: because it’s related to your sla as well 91 f: but i’m doing it for the 92 b: you don’t know you don’t know [anything] 93 f: [for 6] 644 94 b: as you read you will relate it to the to the sla [so] 95 f: [so] you don’t you won’t give me then. i’ll find i’ll find it online te=ll tell me the title 96 b: no (giggles) from line 70 to 75, f’s interlocutor (b) is constructing himself as a student who “knows more”; f sees that b is holding an article and f wants to read it. but, b does not want to give it because he thinks it will be too much for f to read. in this construct, b is clearly constructing himself as a student who knows more about the article. realizing that the article is very thick, f tries to challenge b by saying that it is a book. b, on other hand, insists that it is a thick article and because its thickness b refuses to let f reads it. in line 79, b shows his “expertise” when he indicates that he knows where the article is from. f, however, does not want to easily accept b’s construction; he shows that he knows more by quoting the pages of the article (line 8082) though he might not be correct. interestingly, even b agrees to accept this construction (line 81), he does continue to tell f that it is not good for f to read the artieveryday talk: the construction of student identities 38 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 cle since it is related to f’s another project (he said this because f was collecting data for his project in sla class). still showing his insistence, f assures b that he is going to use it for another class, not sla (look at line 91-93). because he knows that his friend is not going to give him the article, f shows his confidence that he can find a copy of the article online. it is very interesting to look at the ways both interlocutors construct their identity as students. they both indicate a sense of “competition” to be the one who “knows more”. both interlocutors show their “expertise” by mentioning the characteristics of the article and relate them to their classes. one of the patterns we can draw from the interaction is both interlocutors actively participate and negotiate their identity as a student who knows more and this construct changes as they continue to interact. in regard to this changing construction, jacoby and gonzalez (1991) claim that “any relationship or interaction of individuals thus necessarily involves multiple asymmetries of knowing, which may be invoked in or relevant to a particular situated context (p. 152). in other words, both f and b in the above interaction display their knowing in regard to each other knowledge, or as schegloff (1989) points out that expertise distribution in an ongoing interaction “has been seen as a jointly constructed achievement between participants” (as cited in jacoby & gonzales, 1991, p. 152). when two or more interlocutors interact, they do not have to agree with each other’s construction. this construction is also shown in the data where f has been telling about his final project but his friend t does not seem to be supportive to his construction. instead, t shifts the topic to his own project. please pay attention to the following excerpt, excerpt 3: 99 f: so, for one month starting yesterday starting from yesterday until sometime in april 100 t: hu uh 101 f: which is … quite a while 102 t: yeah 103 b: only a month 104 f: and the thing is i don’t know what i’m doing yet 105 t: oh 106 f: so, just just record collect the data and put in the computer and that’s it. we don’t even 107 we don’t even listen to it faishal zakaria englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 39 108 b: no, we cannot listen to that 109 t: i can’t understand the article basic variety uhm 110 f: you don’t understand [basic variety?] 111 t: [laughs] i cannot understand 112 b: hold on 113 f: hey hey.. you can do 114 b: is it possible to find other books 115 t: yeah 116 b: that talking about basic variety? 117 t: i found something 118 b: ok 119 f: or you can you can search from the databases from lines 99 to 108, f and b are eagerly discussing and talking about their final project to t, and imply to t that their research project is somewhat difficult to carry out because it needs a lot of work and time. during this construction, t does not respond enthusiastically and he simply nods or gives some filler such as hu uh and yeah. when t suddenly gets his chance to speak, he shifts the topic of the conversation to his own research (line 109) where he mentions his research topic (the basic variety) is also difficult to understand. upon hearing this, both f and b shift to the topic. however, f and b still show that they know how to handle with t problems. they suggest t to look for other additional sources. in line 114, b is suggesting that t find other books and f, on the other hand, suggests even more specific thing to do (search from the databases). even all interlocutors sometimes show their divergence to each other and try to construct their “more knowing”, they successfully construct their identity as students who know how to do research. it seems that this construction is in accordance with jacoby & ochs’ (1995) assertion that the coconstruction of an identity “does not necessarily entail affiliative or supportive interaction” (p. 171). the interlocutors may agree or disagree with one another’s construction. in this case, jacoby and gonzales (1991) also imply that someone’s identities as “expert” and “novice” are constructed in relation to his or her interlocutors. conclusion in summary, the above interactions show their relevance to the notions of “expert-novice”, co-construction, and legitimate peripheral participation where the interlocutors are actively negotiating their identities as they try to claim their right to speak. as lave and wenger (1991) assert that in order to get fully involved in a everyday talk: the construction of student identities 40 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 community of practice, interlocutors need to gain wider access to an on-going activities so that they can easily get acknowledgement from the “old-timers” of the community. as the case of “expert-novice” interaction, f and his other interlocutors know how to get chance to talk and claim their “expertise”; this, of course, is enabled by the contributions of others. in this case, jacoby and gonzales (1991) write that “whether and utterance is understood to momentarily constitute a recipient as novice or as complementary expert may thus depend on the relevance of particular interaction contexts and particular combinations of participants” (p. 154). for the context of language learning and teaching, the concept of identity is becoming even more complex nowadays. digital technologies, for example, can influence a language learner’s identity (norton & toohey, 2011). students may construct their “more knowing” identity if they believe that they can get more or updated information from online resources than their teachers and peers doo. likewise, the student can resist from participating in teaching-learning activities if he or she sees those activities jeopardize or threaten his or her very identity. therefore, language teachers need to be aware of multiple identities that students may have in order to help them participate in any teaching-learning activities that will eventually develop their language proficiency. faishal zakaria englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 41 references bailey, b. (2001). the language of multiple identities among dominican americans. journal of linguistic anthropology 10(2) , 190-223. bucholtz, m., & hall, k. (2004). language and identity. in a. d. (ed.), a companion to linguistic anthropology (pp. 369-394). malden, m.a: blackwell. dubois, j. w., schuetze-coburn, s., cumming, s., & paolino, d. (1993). outline of discourse transcription. in j. w. dubois, s. schuetze-coburn, s. cumming, & d. paolino, talking data: transcription and coding in discourse research (pp. 45-90). hillsdale, nj: lawrence erlbaum associates. jacoby, s., & gonzales, p. (1991). the constitution of expert-novice in scientific discourse. issues in applied linguistics 2(2) , 149-181. jacoby, s., & ochs, e. (1995). co-construction: an introduction. research on language and social interaction 28(3) , 171-183. kramsch, c. (1998). language and culture. oxford: oxford university press. norton, b. (2000). identity and language learning: gender, ethnicity and educational change. harlow: pearson education . norton, b. (1997). language, identity, and the ownership of english. tesol quarterly 31(3) , 409-429. norton, b. (2001). non-participation, imagined communities and the language classroom. in m. b. (ed.), learner contributions to language learning: new direction in research (pp. 159-171). harlow, england: pearson education. norton, b, & toohey, k. (2011). identity, language learning, and social change. language teaching, 44, pp 412-446. doi:10.1017/s0261444811000309. ochs, e. (1993). constructing social identity: a language socialization perspective. research and language and social interaction 26(3) , 287-306. ochs, e. (1979). transcription as theory. in e. ochs, & b. b. schieffelin, developmental pragmatic (pp. 43-72). new york: academic press. richards, k. (2006). language and professional identity. new york: palgrave macmillan. tracy, k. (2002). everyday talk: building and reflecting identities. new york: the guildford press. zimmerman, d. h. (1998). identity, context and interaction. in a. charles, s. widdicombe, (eds.), identities in talk (pp. 87-106). london: sage publications ltd. everyday talk: the construction of student identities 42 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 appendix transcription symbols some of the transcription symbols i present below were used when i transcribed the audio data. these transcription symbols were derived from ochs (1979) and du bois et al. (1993).  letter “b”, “d”, etc are pseudonyms to people involving in the interaction  double brackets [ ] identify overlaps  angle brackets with letter x, <x x> suggests the uncertain quantity  three dots (…) refer to long pauses  two dots (..) refer to short pauses. englisia may 2016 vol. 3, no. 2, 83-90 partnership activity in efl reading syarifah dahliana universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia syalia_2005@yahoo.com abstract this paper analyzes the advantages of partnership activity in efl reading classroom. understanding a reading text may provide a challenge for some students as it involves a particular context and previous knowledge. for english as a foreign language (efl) learners, the challenge becomes more complex as they need to understand the words and the written symbols of the foreign language and take the meaning of the sentence by making sense them with its context which may be unfamiliar to them. for this reason, choosing an activity that provides a wider opportunity for efl students to share their thought and understanding of what they read as well as to listen others comprehension of the similar text is necessary in order to help the students have an accurate meaning of the text and learn how to be an effective reader. in this light, partnership activity is considered to be one of alternative ways to create an enjoyable and meaningful experience for efl students to develop their reading skill of another language. the benefits of partnership activity include individual concerns and social life. keywords: partnership activity; efl learners; reading classroom. introduction reading is one of major important skills that need to be mastered by language learners. it involves a complex process which includes not only physical activity but also emotional interest. in reading, the readers need to understand the text to make this activity meaningful. for english language learners, reading has its own challenges considering that there are some aspects that need to be known in understanding the text. in this case, the understanding of grammar and vocabulary will help the learners to grasp the meaning of the context as well as the knowledge of partnership activity in efl reading 84 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 recognition, content background knowledge, synthesization and evaluation, and metacognitive skills (ediger, 2001, p.154). considering that reading is a complex process, teachers need to be aware how to direct the students have meaningful experiences in reading class. in a classroom, the activity of reading can be taught in various ways and one of them is by grouping students in partnership. partnership strategy is often used in classroom to motivate the students to engage in teachinglearning activities. discussion teaching reading reading is considered as a complex process which involves a sequence of written symbols that need to be understood to get the meaning of the text (ediger, 2001). the meaning of reading activity, right now, not only puts a transaction between the reader and the text but also involves socio-context. during the reading process, there is a connection between reader’s past experience and the written content (roe, stoodt, & burns, 1995). whatever one’s path and knowledge in the past is reflected in their thought and mind which affect the way he/she interpretes the meaning of the context at present. competent reading is “an active process in which the readers calls on experience, language, and schemata to anticipate and understand the author’s written language” (roe et al., 1995, p.4). this process happens for both english language learners and english native speakers. however, for foreign language learners, teachers need to do some adjustments in teaching-learning process because the learners read the text of different language and cultural background. ‘language background’ and ‘cultural framework’ influence the readers’ interpretation of the phenomena (hudelson, as cited in ediger, 2001, p.154). in esl learning contexts, the teacher has to be aware about background knowledge and cultures of students. they should really know the characteristics of their students to avoid the mistakes in interacting and choosing the materials that have to be presented in front of the class. some aspects, such as pictures go with text, left to right written text, words are written separately from each other, punctuation, rules of written language, must be a concern of the teacher in presenting and doing assistance in class (ediger, 2001). cultural differences can affect students’ syarifah dahliana englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 85 comprehension of printed material, facial expressions, body movements, and gestures (nettles, 2006). in this light, teachers need to help their students to be familiar with the language rules and literacy of their new language. providing background information and previewing are particularly important for the less proficient language student (long & richards, 1987). in choosing the strategy that can be applied in class, the teacher can use more than one activity for the same text depend on the needs of the class and the purpose of reading activity whether it is “to search for information, for general comprehension, to learn new information, or to synthesize and evaluate information” (grabe & stoller, 2001, p. 187). teaching reading can be done as a class activity or as an individual work. as individual work, the teacher can give independent reading time per day or do retelling activity. meanwhile, as class activity, the teacher can group the students by dividing them into small group discussion, such as peerled literature circle, partnerships, interest group, and research or needs group (roe et al., 1995). class activity is considered more engaged and more motivated for students because it gives the students more opportunities to share their ideas and compare their comprehension with others. it is interesting to encourage comparisons between several interpretations of a text which will lead to discussion and probably a need to refer back to the text to check (grellet, 1981). to provide an effective group, teachers may put the students in heterogeneous or in homogenous ability group depend on the material and the activities. in addition, the teachers can let the students to choose the reading activities wanted. “when all the students are ready to read the selection text, assign the students to read in one of four ways: with partners, independently, with the teacher, or in a small group without the teacher” (nettles, 2006, p. 324). it is useful to meet the needs of the students. the students who need less support can read the text independently or with partners. students who need more support can read it with other students in a small group, led by the teacher or by a peer. the concept of partner reading partner reading is one of class activities that allows the students to work together to read a variety of texts. it is an enjoyable way for two students to complete a partnership activity in efl reading 86 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 reading assignment or share a story. it “helps to bridge the gap between relying on the teacher too much and reading more independently” (heren & bickerman, 2005, p.18). working as partners guide the students to help each other and share their ideas in a comfortable situation. the pairs will be able to freely talk what they have read with a small risk. a greater diversity of views and beliefs can be expressed. “this will be stimulating for the weaker students, while the better ones will not feel held back” (grellet, 1981, p.11). in partner reading activity, “the students are presented with a task to be completed and are allowed to pool their resources in order to complete it successfully” (roe et al., 1995, p. 265). the cooperation between the students will determine the success of the pairs to complete the tasks. in working as pairs, the students need to know the purpose for their reading and know how they will read together, so the teacher must make those details clear to them (nettles, 2006). there are some ways to read as partners: back and forth: the partners agree to read one page at a time, switching back and forth. character roles: the partners decide upon character parts to read, and divide the rest of the page. keeping track: the partners take turns keeping track of the print for each other. one partner points to the print, while the other reads aloud for one page; then they switch roles for the next page. 6” whispers together: the partners read in choral reading fashion, whispering so that only they can hear each other. say something: each partner reads silently. when they come to a stop point, the partners say something to each other about the selection so far. question the author: each partner reads silently. when they come to a stop point, ask them to collaboratively compose a question that they would like to ask the author (nettles, 2006, p.326). syarifah dahliana englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 87 moreover, in pairs, the students can also be directed to do the activities like in the moment read-aloud journal partners which is an instructional strategies encompasses many different metacognitive processes that effective readers use, including interpreting the text, pausing to reflect, and engaging in retrospection (onofrey &theurer, 2007), or asking the students to choose some reading strategies that can be used to understand the text and then they have to prepare mini lessons for each of these strategies, so they are familiar with each strategy chosen (heren & bickerman, 2005). the teacher must be careful in choosing students for partnership because pairs will work well if they can support each other and feel comfortable with their discussion. generally, students of similar reading ability are paired together. sometimes, a more competent reader is paired with a less competent one, and the more able reader reads aloud and the less able follows along. this enables the less able reader to follow the text visually with little or no pressure. in this case, the teacher must be smart to see her students’ ability and characteristics to lead each pair can work well in completing the assignments and tasks. the advantages of partner-reading activity for students: an analysis based on the previous discussions, as one of grouping activities, partner reading provides the students many benefits. these benefits are not only for individual concern but also for social life. developing oral language skills and be exposed to vocabulary words, becoming more curious about the reading task, obtaining immediate feedback on the ideas, giving a save learning environment and increasing their sense of community are some advantages of partnership activities. working in pairs provides more opportunity for english students to practice their language skills and to learn technical vocabulary (alverman & phelps, 2002). when they discuss the reading text, the students directly practice their speaking and listening. although they could still use their first language, the english reading text force them to use or quote some vocabulary from the text. if the teacher encourages them to actively communicate in english, the students will have more practice. in the classroom discussions, the students are also exposed to new vocabulary words that they can try to find out the meaning together. partnership activity in efl reading 88 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 partner reading activity also gives students immediate feedback on their ideas about a text. the ways of partnership reading activity conducted in class usually put them on the track to speak and share their ideas together. the students have to respond each other and express their opinions about his or her pair opinions. these sharing moments bring them to solution because they need to get an agreement about the text to complete the assignment or to present their opinions in front of the class as part of the class activity. becoming more curious about the reading task that follows is another positive effect of partnership in reading class. the activity which gives the students more freedom to decide each person’s role in pair make them more engaged to the material and the task and more motivated to understand and involve in every activity. if they meet an excitement during the discussion session, the students will become more curious about the next reading task. they will have a curiosity about what the next story or topic that will be offered, how the discussion will be done, and so forth. in this case, the ability of the teacher to direct the activity and to choose the appropriate and interesting material for the class is crucial. other advantage of partner-reading is that it creates a safe environment to take risks. for some students, teaching-learning process often put them in a difficult position, especially for activity which much involves a discussion or presentation. partner-reading offers only a small risk compared with discussing the subject matter directly in front of all students in the classroom. for shy-quite students, it really helps them to take a part or contribute to the discussion and to increase their selfconfidence. furthermore, partner-reading provides a valuable experience for students to interact with their peers. the interactions during the discussions require each student to compromise his/her ideas to have one solution. this condition can reduce the competition between individual students and promotes a sense of community (alverman & phelps, 2002). they learn how to deal with diverse opinions and to work together in a group. it is important to eliminate their ego as individual to learn diversity in a small scope. thus, the students will be friendlier to the differences around them. syarifah dahliana englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 89 conclusion the concept of partnership in reading class is useful to help students to gain knowledge as well as to improve their social skills. working in pairs provides more opportunity for english learning students to practice their language skills, to learn technical vocabulary, and to benefit from peer teaching. partner reading leads students receive immediate feedback on their ideas about a text. this activity also provides students a save environment to take risks in reading activity so their self confidence in their own reading ability increases. furthermore, partner reading can also reduce the competition between individual students and promotes group interdependence and a sense of community. however, the success of this concept in implementation depends on the teacher in guiding the students playing their roles in pairs and in choosing an appropriate and interesting material. in this sense, the teacher must be aware to classroom and students’ condition, and must be a good facilitator who is able to manage the class well. references alvermann, d.e., & phelps, s.f. (2002). content reading and literacy. boston: allyn and bacon. celce-murcia, m. (ed.). (2001). teaching english as a second or foreign language. boston: heinle & heinle. ediger, a. (2001). teaching children literacy skills in a second language. in m. celce-murcia (ed.), teaching english as a second or foreign language (pp. 153-170). boston: heinle & heinle. grabe, w., & stoller, f.l. (2001). reading dor academic purposes: guidelines for the esl/efl teacher. in m. celce-murcia (ed.), teaching english as a second or foreign language (pp. 153-170). boston: heinle & heinle. grellet, f. (1981). developing reading skills: a practical guide to reading comprehension exercises. usa: cambridge university press. heren, s., & bickerman, w. (2005). adventures in two classrooms: reading strategies and partner reading. illinois reading council journal, 33 (3), 17-22. long, m.h., & richards, j.c. (eds.).(1987). methodology in tesol. boston: heinle & heinle publishers. nettles, d. h. (2006). comprehensive literacy instruction in today’s classroom. boston: pearson education, inc. partnership activity in efl reading 90 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 onofrey, k.a., & theurer, j.l. (2007). what’s a teacher to do: suggestions for comprehension strategy instruction. the reading teacher, 60 (7), 681-684. roe, b.d., stoodtd, b.d, & burns, p.c. (1995). the content areas. boston: houghton mifflin company. englisia november 2013 vol. 1 no.1, 17-27 maskur state islamic university of ar-raniry banda aceh character education is necessary to be seriously concern in facing modernization. it is believed that character is one of elements to reach the aims of education. precisely, education is an effort to form inner strength, behavior, as well mind. this article focuses on method and strategy to build the character which subsequently build personality refers to the islamic fundamental sources namely as being commanded by allah through his prophet. there are some ways being introduced in the article to form good personality through building character optimally. first is to infuse positive thinking upon allah as the creator of good and bad personality. second, good personality could only be reached by strongly cling to values as it was conducted by the prophet. third is inculcating simple act though it may seem elementary but key factor in forming one’s character which subsequently form one’s personality. keywords: character education, positive thinking, inculcation introduction first and foremost, education is an effort to construct behavior, inner strength, character, and creativity as a concrete implementation of the hidden curriculum in facing a daily societal interaction. in line with the prophet undertaking to the world to correct human being behavior. a variety of disciplines to be taught and studied is exclusively to raise soul awareness that allah instruct the people to think his greatness signs. but, it must bear in mind that true awareness will not be reach if only rely on brain as the symbol of intelligence and arrogance of power which sometimes bring about the proud because no synergistic togetherness between brain and heart. character education in producing  islamic personality  character education in producing islamic personality 18 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 a multidimensional challenge is a blur portrait colored almost all aspects of life is to be suspected come from educational output. education is an institutional mechanism that accelerates the development of the national character, and as an agent of positive virus spreading which allegedly had ignored the affective elements in learning. the times past of some nations and countries and its socio-cultural disparities prove that education is believed to be fortress upon modernization influences in maintaining unity, ideology, and national identity through education. it indicates that education is a vital element should not be ignored for the manifestation of the human understanding cognitively and affectively as is expected of a religion, country and nation. again, the past proves that to reach a predicate of a developing nation is insufficient if only to learn and to develop science, but also to create an excellent learning process referring to the supreme sources as being introduced by allah through his prophet. these must be implemented thoroughly in a strategic scale by leaders, intellectuals, public, and younger generations as well. this holistic and strategic learning process subsequently produces a great strength to encourage the revival of a characterized civilization. character could not be inherited, either be bought, nor be changed. it must be built and developed consciously through non-instant process. it is not innate which could not be changed as a fingerprint. everyone is potential to be a good personality if only refer to the religious teachings. sayyed hosen nasr, a professor in islamic studies and also a prominent islamic philosopher says that “islam religion of humanity which is direct divine injunction to establish order in human society and within the human soul and at the same time to make it possible the interior of life, to prepare the soul to return unto its lord and enter the paradise”. hence, only by instilling the religious values in act and habit that civilized society could be accomplished. maskur englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 19 character based education education plays great role in civilizing if it is functionalized to run a process of transferring religious and cultural values. it leads to bright future that could not be reached with the exception through a certain process. education is an attempt to reach a single intelligence which accommodate intelligence, emotional, and spiritual quotient. these three elements could not be separated between one and another as loss one of them will reduce a potential intelligence. thus, these elements must be interrelated functionally. fundamentally, education is an effort to put humans as an intact human who emphasizes the quintessence of human as individuals and as social beings in preparing a better life. the point of education is to shape the attitudes for the sake of achieving the happiness in the world and in the hereafter. attitude is more than enything else. it determines whether people are successful and able to enjoy life. thus, the establishment of faith-based character is paramount to success and peace as it is the sources for variety of actions. character education has been a widely concern of various countries in preparing intelligent human and qualified future generation in conformity with the hope of a nation and a country. it is in a broad sense is as a deliberate action of all dimensions of educational institution life to foster optimal character development. character-based education are supposed to be understood comprehensively and holistically. it is not merely an integration of subject matters, approaches, methods, and evaluation models because not subject matters’ substances has no synchronization with the character be developed. according to lickona that character education is related to the concept moral knonwing, moral felling, moral behavior. the aim of character education is to teach specific values that could be broadly accepted as the cornerstone of good behavior and responsibility which socalled moral behavior. it deals with human relationship with the creator, self soul awareness, and interaction with others which is embodied in thoughts, attitudes, character education in producing islamic personality 20 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 feelings, words, and actions in accordance with the religious norms. shortly, it aim is to build brevity, patience, controlling ability, fairness and wise attitudes. in facing the continuous cultural changes that there must be a commitment and real implementation of the character education in all aspects of the educational spheres including educational stakeholders, instructors, students, society as well as the curriculum. it may be said that one should has two important features to be possessed such as mindset changes, and paradigm changes in action and interaction. the thinking paradigm should be reform that character education does not only take place in one dimension as producing people with sequence of knowledge but more important is to create educational climate where in which educational stakeholders truly aware that character elements must be frequently conducted though it may seems elementary. in a nutshell, educational environment should be molded as selfactualization in a broader dimension. nowadays education is shifted to narrow implication on the teaching tendency that is oriented on numerical assessment based where it lead the students to be instant human who could not be produced for long term advantages. it may deal with cognitive and brain teasers where education more focus on left brain oriented and ignore right brain. teachers and educators are only able to transfer academic sciences which only fulfill the students needs cognitively and neglects affective domain which is in fact as penetration on developing students’ character optimally. what is mean by optimal character development is reaching success cognitively along with another domain to nature maturity, attitudes, behavior in compliance with the purity of human creation purposes namely to get happiness in the world and in the hereafter that through mind controlling. the increasing deterioration of character because of neglecting religious values, were the concern of the prophet’s companions and previous religious scholars. it is what so-called “hypocrites intellectual “knowledgeable in tongue” but stupid in heart and action”. blur picture of education in forming moral concept and etiquette as pedagogical educational messages both pedagogically controlled and non pedagogical controlled bring about a controversial within one’s personality such maskur englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 21 as piety and wickedness, tenderness and violence, corrupter and philanthropist, corruptor and worshiper, honest and lie, love and hatred, diligent and laziness. these are continuously alongside between one and another. for this reason, character education is absolute answer to accurate and to overcome the weakness of the emergence worse personality attributes for the sake of molding good personality in accord with the religious values. a person will be personally characterized if only she or he grow in characterized environments. therefore, a partial understanding of the character education that only to know but not to bring it into realization is precisely contradictive toward character building. education is a touching process in instilling values through modeling in a total action which sets out moral for the sake of moral building as self actualization of the students in their daily lives. character education is not only bound by the classroom environment but rather an approach on a solid pedagogical principles namely to produce people with an awareness that character is necessary to be form based on the religious values in order to reach good personality. basically, emotional quotient is one of supported elements in assuring the educational qualified output. to develop character it is not just implemented integrated curriculum where the students neither learn closely related to the interconnected unit of subject matters nor centered curriculum which only discuss students’ life. character education deals with divinity. it is supposed to lead one know who the creator is. theodore roosevelt said that “to educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society”. morale is a core to form a solid personality in accordance with the directives of religious instructions. first and foremost moral be presented is believe in allah wholeheartedly for it encourages people to be rational, create people awareness that nature is governed by one law, encourage people not rely on and enslaved by something beyond noble purpose of human namely to spread goodness and justice in the context of worship to god. character education in producing islamic personality 22 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 in terms of tauhid (oneness), one should believe that allah plays a great role in changing one’s character. in law of attraction that a person will get whatever she or he believe to be real as long as she or he frequently affirm, visualize, and suggest something to be real. therefore, visualization and self affirmation on good character element to be possessed is one of ways for a person to get in used to a better character. the repeatedly things being visualized and affirmed then will come into subconscious mind which subsequently being recorded till finally will form one’s character. to form students with good character is not an easy task as it needs continuous efforts and deep reflection to create a series of moral choice that should be followed up with a concrete action. in addition, it requires amount of time. approach to build the character there are some approaches and strategies to build the character and afterward to form personality. firstly, manage mind and imagination. to create a concept and self motivation to change life is inherent driving force to realize the dreams to be meaningful. the words is just pre-text in education, the important thing is sympathy and empathy in attracting others. it means that imaginary concept of in changing character is a stimulus to have a good personality. imam gahazali said “one is what he or she repeatedly does, excellent is not an act but a habit”. in this context, someone could not be judge only through his or her deed, but the vital thing to be known is her or his habit as it shows one’s personality. secondly, in terms of method, inculcation through modeling is also crucial way to form one’s personality. consistency between word and act are supposed to be possessed by educators. modeling or be an example is required to be applied as strategy to build the character. to adapt these two strategies, there are two requirements must be possessed. first , educators should serve as a good model for learners . second , learners should emulate the noble of famous people such as the prophet muhammad. at a more specific spectrum of the present world, education has ambiguity values. there is a mismatch between theory and practice. in this case maskur englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 23 the instructors should behave in his or her daily life as what she or he being conveyed to the students. allah says to the people in order to read as reading gives a lot of advantages to the readers. there is a saying states that few personality will be change when one reads . however , this understanding can be expanded in its meaning. what type of reading gives a positive impact upon the readers? that is to say, very little changes one’s personality when reading science book. non-fiction book merely related to real world which sometimes ignores the feeling. thirdly, to read literary work is one of elements in character building. one’s life is surrounded by literary work. most of pedagogical aspects could be found through fiction readings. in fiction reading, the figures’ character are presented in a lot of imperfections, but he or she is able overcoming the problems faced in his or her life because of his or her patience, hard work, and honesty. this figure character labeling will inspire the readers to have such kind of character. a simple example can be presented as dora emon is more popular figure than albert einstein. not many people know the historical life of elbert einstein although this name was recorded as the genius creator of the atomic bomb formula. but most people know dora emon is so famous because of his advantages character hat motivate the readers such as having good sense of loving, responsible, hard worker, diligent, motivator, and some others. conclusion there are some efforts must be implemented in developing the optimal character first is to emerge the positive thinking to allah that he will gives kindness to one based on his or her thought upon allah. positive thinking then will create an optimism that life is solely for the sake of getting the blessing of allah. second, is to build the character is by inculcating, that is to start from simple and easy thing be conducted to get in used to better act. third, it is necessary for one to exemplify his character education in producing islamic personality 24 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 or her self to the goodness which attract others to follow the step his or her character. fourth, reading literary also one way to build someone’s character as it gives inspiration to the readers to follow step of the figures being presented with their character labeling. maskur englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 25 references abdullah munir, pendidikan karakter, pedagogia, yogyakarta, 2010. andrea hirata, laskar pelangi, pt bentang pustaka, yogyakarta, 2008. andrea hirata, sang pemimpi, pt bentang pustaka, yogyakarta, 2008. asnur muslich, pendidikan karakter: menjawab tantangan krisis multidimensional, bumi aksara, jakarta, 2011. anwar kholid, yang mengenal dirinya, yang mengenal tuhannya, pustaka hidayah, bandung, 2004. ahmad syauqi ibrahim, misteri potensi gaib manusia, qusti press, jakarta, 2012. ary ginanjar agustian, rahasia sukses membangkitkan esq power: sebuah inner journey melalui al-ihsan, arga, jakarta. al-harits al-muhasibi, meraih kalbu, meraih ikhlas: tulus tanpa batas, serambi ilmu semesta, jakarta, 2005. agus mustafa, beragama dengan akal sehat, padma press, bandung, 2008. b. suryosubroto, tatalaksana kurikulum, rineka cipta, jakarta. bondan agus suryanto, six basic energi, bumi aksara, jakarta, 2008. bobbi deporter, quantum teaching, mizan, bandung, 2010. darwin, desain pendidikan karakter, prenada media group, jakarta, 2011. danial zainal abidin, 7 formula individu cemerlang, bs print (m) sdn. bhd, kuala lumpur, 2011. eko laksono, imperium iii zaman kebangkitan besar, mizan media utama, bandung, 2010. ihsan baihaqi ibnu bukhari, yuk jadi orangtua shalih, mizan media utama, bandung, 2013. imam ghazali, ihya ulumuddin, pustaka nasional pte ltd, singapore, 2007. john c. mazwell, the winning, developing the leaders around you, becoming a person of influence, thomoas nelson publisher, usa, 1997. character education in producing islamic personality 26 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 jamal badi dan mustafa tajdin, islamic creative thinking: berpikir kreatif berdasarkan metode qur’ani, mizan media utama, bandung, 2004. muhammad alwi, belajar menjadi bahagia dan sukses sejati: bimbingan praktis penerapan multiple intelligence di keluarga, lembaga pendidikan, dan bisnis, pt gramedia, jakarta. muhaimin, rekonstruksi pendidikan islam: dari paradigma pengembangan, manajemen kelembagaan, kurikulum hingga strategi pembelajaran, pt raja grafindo persada, jakarta, 2009. m. fauzi rchman, shalat for character building: buat apa shalat kalau akhlak tidak menjadi lebih baik, mizania, bandung, 2007. mansur muslich, pendidikan karakter menjawab tantangan krisi multidimensional, bumi aksara, jakarta, 2011. muhammad suwardi, the mystery of human organ: menguak rahasia allah pada tubuh manusia, ufuk press, jakarta, 2010. masnur muslich, pendidikan karakter: menjawab tantangan krisis multidimensional, bumi aksara, jakarta, 2011. ramayulis, metodologi pendidikan agama islam, kalam mulia, jakarta. ridwan sank, 7 pusaka penarik rezeki, pt elex media komputindo, jakarta. sunarto dan agung hartono, perkembangan peserta didik, rineka cipta, jakarta, 1987. sanitah, “peranan eq dalam bidang pendidikan” dalam mohd. azhar abd. hamid(ed), panduan meningkatkan kecerdasan emosi, pts professional publishing, kuala lumpur. 2013. sahat simamora (pnjh), islam dan pembangunan, rineka cipta, jakarta, 1990. seyyed hossein nasr, islamic life and thought, islamic book trust, kuala lumpur, 2012. suwito dan fauzan, sejarah sosial pendidikan islam, prenada media group, jakarta. zuchdi, humanisasi pendidikan, pt bumi aksara, jakarta, 2009. zubaidi, desain pendidikan karakter, prenada media group, jakarta, 2011. maskur englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 27 about the author maskur is a senior lecturer and researcher in department of english uin ar-raniry. his research interest is concerned with intercultural education, islamic studies and character education. he is currently teaching islamic studies at the post-graduate program of uin ar-raniry.he is one of active researcher that has conducted various researches and written books on the aforementioned areas. englisia november 2013 vol. 1 no.1, 119-135 nur akmaliyah state islamic university of ar-raniry banda aceh metaphor is often defined as a phrase used in an imaginative way to describe, comprehend and conceive one thing in terms of something else. (lakoff and johnson, 1980) they, in addition, note that language, activity and human thought are conceptualized in metaphoric way. furthermore, the metaphorical concept in thought is developed from several correlated experience. (lakoff, 1992; kovesces, 2005) for example, as it is explained by lakoff, people talk about love in the way of talking about journey. love is conceived in the way of journey is understood. two lovers are positioned as two persons who are in traveling. their relationship is the vehicle to gain their love expectations in the same way as destination in a journey. they use journey to conceptualize love and act of love in that way. when they find several difficulties along the way, it means that they have problems in their relationship. keywords: conventional metaphor, english, malay introduction the way of human thinking, acting and speaking in everyday situations are basically guided by conventional metaphor. (lakoff and johnson, 1980) the use of metaphorical expressions is ubiquitous in either english or other languages. a range of linguists put their concern and interest on it during recent years. it happens because in every situation of language use in their life, people tend to use metaphor very frequently. furthermore, it challenges the second language learners and teachers to obtain the best way in approaching metaphor in second language classroom effectively (charteris, 2002). the comparison of conventional  metaphor of anger between english  and malay language and the  implication for teaching and learning  the comparison of conventional metaphor of anger between english and malay language 120 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 the aim of this paper is to compare one particular topic in conventional metaphor between two languages (english and malay language). this paper will focus only on anger as the topic of comparison. it will be quite difficult to compare them because there are only few sources on metaphor (especially anger) in malay language. one possible reason for this, malay people tend to use figurative language including metaphor frequently in the society without being aware of it. moreover, its implication for teaching and learning in second language classroom will be discussed as well. the first section of this paper looks at the comparison of anger in terms of conventional metaphor between english and malay language based on the conceptual approach. since english metaphor is quite different with metaphor in malay language, several different concepts in understanding metaphor will come out. then, the implication of metaphor for anger for teaching and learning will be discussed in the second section. several possibilities in teaching and learning metaphor for anger that will be shown in this section seem as suggestions rather than a standard in teaching it. it happens because there is still no best way in approaching such method in teaching metaphor of anger. conceptual metaphor metaphor is often defined as a phrase used in an imaginative way to describe, comprehend and conceive one thing in terms of something else. (lakoff and johnson, 1980) they, in addition, note that language, activity and human thought are conceptualized in metaphoric way. furthermore, the metaphorical concept in thought is developed from several correlated experience. (lakoff, 1992; kovesces, 2005) for example, as it is explained by lakoff, people talk about love in the way of talking about journey. love is conceived in the way of journey is understood. two lovers are positioned as two persons who are in traveling. their relationship is the vehicle to gain their love expectations in the same way as destination in a journey. they use journey to conceptualize love and act of love in that way. when they find nur akmaliyah englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 121 several difficulties along the way, it means that they have problems in their relationship. (lakoff, 1992) another example, life is a gambling metaphor is the concept to understand life in the same way as gambling is understood. the two units here are actually different to each other, but both entities convey the same view of playing chance and facing risk for every decision that has been made. people conceptualize life in the way of gambling where they have to take a risk in making decision in their life. they have a chance whether win or lose and succeed or fail. in conceptual approach, metaphor is viewed as a movement from one domain onto another one. target domain is understood as source domain. (lakoff, 1992) in the example life is gambling metaphor, life is a target domain while gambling is a source domain. this metaphorical concept is discovered in emotional concepts such as fear, anger, love, happiness, and hatred. moreover, many other basic concepts such as time, action, state, quantity, and purpose are also comprehended metaphorically. (lakoff, 1992) regarding its relation with culture, kovecses (2005), in a simple explanation, states that a very close connection between metaphor and culture could be analyzed as follow; metaphor is often used in pieces of writing appreciated as work of arts. the literature, which is part of culture itself, then relates metaphor with culture directly. moreover, lakoff and johnson point out that, since metaphor is not only built in language but also in thought, it has a close relationship with culture as we understand it in metaphoric way (1980). different culture, however, has developed the different conceptual metaphor on people conceptual system based on their different experience. (littlemore and low, 2006) this explanation could be comprehended as each culture has its own way in guiding people to see and comprehend the world in their point of view, which then impact the use of the language itself. for instance, the conceptual metaphor in conceptualize time is different between eastern culture ‘time is sword’ and west the comparison of conventional metaphor of anger between english and malay language 122 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 ern culture ’time is money’. both have the same target domain but different source. in eastern culture, time is conceptualized as an image that is sharp and killing. it means that if you waste your time, you will be killing by the time and losing your chance to have a better future. in contrast, time is conceptualized as a valuable thing in western culture. time is money metaphor means that you will have a great chance to improve yourself and build a better future if you use your time effectively. (budiawan, 2007) it is noticeable that eastern and western culture has different way in leading people to comprehend something. in this case, eastern people tend to understand time in negative effect when time is used inefficiently while western people conceive it on the positive side when someone manage his/her time effectively. comparison of conventional metaphor of anger between english and malay language as a background to malay, the following are two points of brief explanation on malay language and culture; malay language is spoken by people living in malay penninsula and in the dutch east indies. some countries such as malaysia, brunei darussalam, indonesia and some parts of thailand use it with only slightly differences in grammatical and pronunciation. (dyen, 1945) in malay language, metaphor is defined as a phrase used to represent one thing in terms of another which has similarities. (safyan, 1988; mumin, 1997, 110) figurative language including metaphor is one part of malay culture. furthermore, malay people (especially traditional society) tend to use metaphor to express their emotions and expressions on something. in social interaction, they usually use metaphor which has special meaning to verbalize their ideas and feelings. (mumin, 1997) for example, “mukanya masam mencuka” (his face is as acid as vinegar) which means that he shows a straight face as a sign that he is angry or sad. in addition, ahmad (2008) states that figurative language such as nur akmaliyah englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 123 metaphor and allegory is often used by the malay, especially the scholar, to describe their feeling, philosophy of life and thought deeply. the structure of anger in english and malay language conventional metaphor metaphor of anger is described in the basic mapping of metaphor by kovecses which contain; ‘the person who is angry is the container which hold the fluid, the anger is the fluid itself, the force of anger is a pressure for an angry person, the cause of the pressure is the cause of anger force, some effort to control the anger is one way to keep the fluid inside the container and the fluid which flows over the container’. (2000: 155) this container metaphor is commonly used in conceptualized anger. it was stated that the container metaphor is a basic mapping in conceptualizing anger for many cultures. (kovecses, 2000) physiological process the discussion begins with ‘certain physiological processes including body heat, internal pressure, and redness in the neck or face area’. (kovecses, 2000: 156) these expressions occur when someone gets angry as a common body’s reaction. the following examples will illustrate how the concept of anger emerges in english and malay language: body heat the common expressions both in english and malay language to describe the body heat are; english: noisy childrens make the teacher hot under the collar ( example from bbc learning english) they were having a heated argument (example from kovecses, 2000) why you do not cool down a bit? malay: the comparison of conventional metaphor of anger between english and malay language 124 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 hatinya terbakar karena berita itu (his liver/heart is getting burnt because of that news) panas hatinya setelah pulang dari rapat itu (his liver/heart was hot after the meeting) dia telah menghanguskan hatiku (he has totally burnt my liver/heart) since the word ‘hati’ is difficult to be translated literally from malay into english, two words; liver and heart are provided in the examples. from the examples, it is understood that there is a relationship between anger and body reaction on it. it is a universal and similar idea in both languages. when someone gets angry, the body heat will be produced by his/her body automatically. (kovecses, 2005) the person feels hot and it keeps going up in his/her body. then, he continues explaining that this condition leads to other body reaction and behavior such as changes in skin temperature, rise in blood pressure, and aggressive behavior. english and malay also have a similar view on the container metaphor. anger is comprehended as a pressure in a container (body). despite the similarities, however, there is a difference view on understanding the source of emotion such as anger, fear and love in human life. there is no specific organ is emerged in english expressions of anger. the examples represent the container as the whole human body which is contained by anger. in reverse, malay people consider that heart (or liver in literally) is the source of most, if not all, human emotions. (kim hui, 2003) he continues explaining that it is a cultural specific concept which conveys human feelings, desires, and thoughts. heart is communicates the negative feelings such as sadness, anger, sorrow, disappointed feeling and hatred. in the same way, it expresses many positive feelings as well such as happiness, love, and satisfied feeling. for example, when someone is in a great happiness, the expression is ‘senang hati’ (happy liver) and ‘patah hati’ (broken heart) is an expression to represent his/her failure in love. notice that both sides of human feeling represented by one specific part of human body ‘hati’. in english, however, ‘heart is primarily associated with love, affection, and the like’. (kovecses, 2000: 169) it nur akmaliyah englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 125 means that heart is commonly used to represent some positive feelings rather than the negative one. furthermore, there is another difference between two concepts of english and malay language in anger metaphor. on one hand, several expressions of anger in malay language, as mentioned in the examples above, are likely to emphasize on an action done by someone or something else outside your body which builds your bad feeling. the word ‘bakar’ (burn) is an action to produce heat on something. in this case, if you burn one’s heart means you give him such unpleasant feeling. on the other hand, english expression put more attention on the condition inside the angry person. for example, the expression ‘hot under the collar’ means that the heat produced by someone’s body because of anger is going up to his neck and make it hot. internal pressure english: he almost burst a blood vessel malay: (example from kim hui, 2003) dia membuat saya naik darah (my blood rise because of him) dia telah membuat saya naik pitam (he rose my blood pressure) mereka telah menyebabkan saya panas baran (they put me in a bad temper) examples of both languages show the similarity in illustrating anger as ‘heat within pressurized container’. (kim hui, 2003: 160) it could be described that there is a strong pressure (heat) inside human which leads to body changes in some way such as an increase in blood pressure and a rise of body’s temperature. redness in the face or neck area english: (example from kovecses, 2000) he got red with anger she was scarlet with rage malay: the comparison of conventional metaphor of anger between english and malay language 126 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 wajahnya merah padam karena marah (his face was red died out with anger) telinganya merah mendengar kalimatmu (his ear gets red listening to your sentence) (example from kim hui, 2003) the changes on one’s face might be the first noticeable sign of anger. the similarity expression between both languages is the color which is used to represent the anger. (kim hui, 2003) malay people tend to use redness to describe either embarrassment or anger. in the same way as english, malay people use red for describing anger rather than other colors. darker the color (red) means more angry. moreover, indonesian people who have a similar language root (malay language) also use the expression ‘telinga merah’ or red ear as the sign of anger. a research of human physiology that is conducted regarding the correlation between ‘language and conceptual system of emotion’ shows that one of the body reactions when someone grows angry about something is ‘an increase in skin temperature’. (kovecses, 2000: 159) anger as hot liquid in the container english: she is boiling with anger (example from kovecses, 2000) she finally boiled over (example from low, 1996) anger had been simmering for weeks malay: entah kenapa mendengar kalimat umpatan terakhir darahku mendidih (i don’t know why my blood is boiling when i heard the last slander) (from novel ‘ayat-ayat cinta) mendidih darahnya dan marahnya menjadi-jadi laksana api yang berkobar (his blood is boiling and his anger becomes a fire)(example from indonesian local newspaper, 2008) nur akmaliyah englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 127 dia membara karena kemarahan (he is steaming with anger) (example from kim hui, 2003) in terms of the concept that anger is hot fluid in the container, malay language shares the same concept with english in conceptualizing anger as a pressure inside human body. according to kovecses (2000: 146), this concept emerges from two structures on metaphor for anger; ‘the body is the container for the emotions and anger is a substance (fluid or gas) in the container’. this situation is shown in the following examples; english: he had kept the anger bottled up inside him for months. (example from low, 1996) malay: hatinya dipenuhi amarah setelah bertemu denganmu. (his liver/heart is filled with anger after he met you) since anger is conceptualized as hot liquid in the closed container, it means that when someone becomes more and more angry because of some reasons, the hot liquid is also on the higher level because of the increasing of heat inside the container. (lakoff and kovecses, 1983 in low, 1996) one of the examples given in english to describe an increase of anger is; ‘she could feel her gorge rising’. the example in malay language expression which provides the same meaning with english is shown in the following example:; rasa marahnya naik sudah hingga ke kepala (her anger increased and already reached the head) anger as an explosion if anger, which is conceptualized as an explosion cannot be controlled any longer, it will erupt and explode unless it is released. this concept brings the similar the comparison of conventional metaphor of anger between english and malay language 128 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 idea as the liquid in the container metaphor. the expression is shown in the following examples: english: (examples from low) the speaker exploded and the anger spilled over into the next room he was brimming with anger malay: (examples from kim hui, 2003) hatinya meluap-luap dengan kemarahan (his liver/heart is brimmed with anger) marahnya meletup karena dia (his anger is exploding because of her) marahnya meletup menyakiti hati orang-orang disekitarnya (her anger is exploding and she hurts everyone around her) the examples illustrates that both languages have the same concept that when liquid raises its level more and more, the container will be full and the liquid will explode and flow over the edge. in malay language, the expression often contains the process of controlling anger inside an angry person. marahnya sudah sampai ke hati dan naik ke ubun-ubun (his anger reaches the liver/heart and goes to the fontanel) the word ‘fontanel’ in the example indicates the top level of anger as it is one part of head. in this case, when anger which is conceptualized as liquid reaches the head as the highest point of the body (container), the anger could not be controlled any longer. it could be noticed from the example that the process of increasing anger in human body involves two levels. first, when the anger is in one’s heart, he/she tends to control it inside as shown in the following example; dia mencoba memendam kemarahannya didalam hati (he tries to bury his anger in his heart/liver) this condition changes when the anger reaches the head and an angry person can not control it any longer. it often follows by an explosion. nur akmaliyah englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 129 kemarahannya sudah sampai ke ubun-ubun siap untuk meledak (his anger reaches his fontanel and ready to explode) the two examples above show the controlling levels of anger in malay culture. the above examples also express that malay language differs from english in conceptualized some parts of body as the container for emotions, including heart/liver and head as containers which can hold hot fluid. the implication of anger for teaching and learning in language teaching, teachers and learners should put their attention on metaphor more than years before. (low, 1988) it needs to be taught because it exists in everyday life and used very frequently without we are being aware of it. moreover, it will be more challenging to find out the best way in teaching metaphor for a particular topic especially in second language classroom. however, very few studies have conducted in this issue in any detail. a range of activities from few studies in teaching metaphors and idioms seems suitable to be adopted in teaching anger for second language learners. several activities in the study conducted by deignan, gabrys and solska in ‘teaching english metaphors using cross-linguistic awareness raising activities in second language classroom’ (1997) could be adopted in teaching metaphor of anger for second language learners. a number of tasks are given to the students in order to encourage them in understanding and being aware in using metaphor of anger. common expressions in conceptualizing anger in english are provided in the tasks. the first two tasks given to the students are the texts contain with basic expressions of anger metaphor in their first language and in english. they need to guess the expression which is commonly used to express anger in both languages. the next task given also consists of some common expressions of english metaphor of anger, but in more specific examples. for instance, several expressions which related to the conceptual metaphor anger is heat are provided. the students are then asked to find out the expressions from the text refer to anger, discuss and compare them to the comparison of conventional metaphor of anger between english and malay language 130 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 the similar expression in their first language. in this method, the words in anger expressions are taught in sequence and in context without separating them. this activity seems as an easier way for students to learn and understand metaphor because the learners can connect it with the common expressions frequently appeared in their first language. additionally, the teacher can draw an explanation of the words used in expressing anger when the students find difficulties in understanding the words. during these activities, students may also use dictionary to find out the meaning of the specific words from the expressions given. the oxford advanced learner’s dictionary for current english and the longman dictionary of the english language are two dictionaries suggested. (low, 1988) another dictionary recommended is an advanced learner’s dictionary which provides a series of metaphor explanations that is followed by a range of related examples. (philip, nd) despite its advantages, deignan, gabrys and solska also conclude some problems need to be coped; 1. students sometimes do not recognize several metaphoric expressions used in their first language because the expressions are too conventional. 2. the activities might not suitable for the students who have less motivation in learning. 3. the activities might not suitable for the students in ‘below-mid intermediate’ level. (1997) one another possible reason for the first problem is because the students tend to used metaphor so much as the common expressions in their daily life that they are not even aware in doing so. in terms of motivation and the level of students, the less motivated and lower-level students might find difficulties in understanding metaphor through this activity because they have to find, discuss, and compare the metaphors of both languages in the same time. another possible technique in teaching anger for second language learners is by understanding poetry. this technique is based on the activity used in increasing students’ ability in figurative thinking and understanding metonymy through poetry. nur akmaliyah englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 131 (littlemore and low, 2006) the activities begin by presenting students the title of one poem. then, they should explore the ideas from the title and ‘predict what the poem is going to be about’. (ibid: 116) the students are asked to identify the expressions of metaphor of anger appeared in a poem. the students need to guess and discuss these expressions and explore them in more detail discussion. then, they have to link the expressions with the similar expressions used in their first language. this activity seems effective for the lower-level students when the poem chosen is the simple and easy one, but the more complex poem only suitable for advanced-level students. the words then might be taught separately from the text which might builds the chance for the students to explore the meaning of the words based on their own understanding. another way in teaching metaphor of anger could be adopted from the idea of skoufaki in teaching idioms for the second language learners. the students have to guess the meaning of idioms in the tasks based on their own understanding. (skoufaki, 2005) the technique used in this study is based on the irujo’s opinion that students will have a better achievement in learning idiom through the ‘idiommeaning guessing’ technique. (irujo, 1993 in skoufaki, 2005) the tasks provided in the study are divided into two kinds; the task which has idiom in the context and out of context. the participants are advanced-level students of second language learners of english. one of noticeable point on this study shows that the students need a clear instruction to guide them in guessing the meaning of the words. moreover, the second language learners tend to be so nervous and afraid of making mistakes when they have to express their idea in another language. (skoufaki, 2005) furthermore, carter and mccarthy suggest that the metaphor should be adopted in language teaching materials. (carter and mccarthy, 1995 in littlemore and low, 2006) the teachers will be easier to teach metaphor in second language classroom if they have a concrete material as guidance. additionally, the figurative language will be more effective to be taught when it is included in the textbook. the comparison of conventional metaphor of anger between english and malay language 132 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 conclusion the examples discussed in this paper shows that english and malay language share the same basic concept of anger in terms of conventional metaphor. the similar basic structure in both languages is the concept of anger as a heat in the pressurized container. in addition, english and malay even have almost the same examples for several conceptual metaphors. for example, anger is a hot fluid in a container and anger is an explosion metaphor. moreover, malay and english people also have the similarity in showing their anger explicitly. despite the similarity, malay has specific organs of human body conceive as the container for emotions such as heart/liver and head. regarding its implication, only few studies have carried out to examine the method used in teaching and learning metaphor especially metaphor of anger. several methods could be employed in teaching metaphor of anger such as guessingmeaning, comparing expressions between two languages, and understanding metaphor through poetry. the words and expressions of anger itself could be taught either separately or in sequences. the teaching of metaphor will be more effective if it is set in the textbook or another teaching material used in second language classroom. nur akmaliyah englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 133 references bbc learning english (2008) language point: idioms of anger. http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/flatmates/episode27/languagep oint.shtml. accessed 25 january 2008. budiawan. 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(1993) streering clear: avoidance in the production of idioms, iral, 31, 205-219. kovecses, z. (2005) metaphor in culture: universality and variation. cambridge: cambridge university press. kovecses, z. (2000) metaphor and emotion: language , culture, and body in human feeling. cambridge: cambridge university press. lakoff, g. (1992) the contemporary theory of metaphor. cambridge: cambridge university press. lakoff, g. and johnson, m. (1980) metaphors we live by. chicago: the university of chicago press. the comparison of conventional metaphor of anger between english and malay language 134 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 lakoff, g. and johnson, m. (1980) conceptual metaphor in everyday language, philosophy, lxxviii (8), 453-486. littlemore, j. and low, g.d. (2006) figurative thinking and foreign language learning. new york: palgrave macmillan. low, g.d. (1996) controversy flared. unpublished manuscript, hongkong, pp. 34. low, g.d. (1988) on teaching metaphor, applied linguistics, 9 (2), 125-147. mumin, a. (1997) aliran romantisme cerpen-cerpen wanita brunei darussalam 1984-1994. m.a. thesis, universiti brunei darussalam. phraseology and collocation; dictionary use (nd) metaphor, the dictionary and the advanced learner. http://amsacta.cib.unibo.it/archive/00002062/01/metaphordictionary.pdf accessed 24 january 2008. skoufaki, s. (2005) cognitive linguistics and l2 idiom instruction. proceeding of the first annual conferenceon post-cognitivist psychology, 4-6 july 2005. cambridge: university of cambridge. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2022. vol. 9, no. 2, 154-164 teacher-student interaction in english class at state senior high school in banjarbaru ridha fadillah universitas islam negeri antasari, banjarmasin, indonesia ridhafadillah@uin-antasari.ac.id muhammad ridha * universitas islam negeri antasari, banjarmasin, indonesia ridha@uin-antasari.ac.id ahmad juhaidi universitas islam negeri antasari, banjarmasin, indonesia ahmadjuhaidi@uin-antasari.ac.id manuscript received september 13, 2021, revised january 24, 2022, first published may 1, 2022, and available online may 7, 2022. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i2.10843 recommended apa citation fadillah, r., ridha, m., & juhaidi, a. (2022). teacher-student interaction in english class at state senior high school in banjarbaru. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(2), 154-164. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.10843 abstract this study investigated the interaction happened in english class at state senior high school 3 in banjarbaru, south kalimantan. english teacher and class 11 students at senior high school 3 in banjarbaru were the research subjects. the object of the research was classroom interaction. purposive sampling was used in determining the research sample. flanders interaction analysis category as an observation guide and interviews were used to collect the data in the class. the results indicate that two-way communication among teacher, student, and students occurred in english class. the findings revealed that teacher-talk was 42.79% and student-talk was 53.79%, while silence or confusion was 3.40%. it indicated that two-way communication between teacher and students occurred in english class. it shows that students are the center of learning process and the students are active during english learning process. however, this study differs from previous studies as the flanders interaction analysis category used here was analyzed according to the perspectives of foreign language anxiety. keywords: anxiety; flanders’ category; interaction * corresponding author mailto:ahmadjuhaidi@uin-antasari.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6622 https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.10843 ridha fadillah, muhammad ridha, & ahmad juhaidi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 155 1. introduction interactions between teacher and students during the teaching and learning process always occur. good interaction is characterized by two-way communication, which ultimately reaches an understanding between teacher and students. in this case, the understanding is the achievement of teacher goals in constructing students' understanding of new knowledge. dagarin (2004) states that in one classroom situation, teachers and students create two-way communication to achieve the purpose of learning. on the other hand, it is not about the quantity of interaction between teacher and students, but the quality of the interaction. it should be goal-oriented interaction. therefore, interaction plays a significant role in students' understanding. it has great impact on the quality of teaching and learning. students who have a good relationship with their teacher show higher academic achievement (ansari, hofkens, & pianta, 2020). when students are active in class, they will learn and understand the lesson well. so, it is obvious that interaction in the classroom is a critical factor for students' understanding. researchers assume that this condition affect the learning quality for students. good interaction between teacher and student creates a good climate that influences academic achievement obtained by students (jafari & asgari, 2020) ideally, the language learning process is a two-way interaction between teachers and students. therefore, the pattern of teacher interaction determines student engagement in the learning process. from the pre-observation at state high school 3 in banjarbaru, it was found that the interaction between teacher and students in the english class happened well. this initial finding raised the curiosity of researchers on what and how the interaction between teacher and students in this school. the findings of this study can contribute to improving the learning quality of other schools, especially in the teaching and learning process of english. hence, the researchers conducted a study related to the interaction of teacher and students in the classroom to reveal the pattern of students and teacher relation in the teaching and learning process. since the ability to speak, read, write, and listen in english as a foreign language needs to be acquired individually, the students must learn and practice their english directly and individually. on the other hand, seeking out who dominated the instructional activities and why he or she dominated the instructional activities are essential. therefore, the question of this study was how the interaction happened in english class at state senior high school 3 banjarbaru. 2. literature review the interaction is resulted by two-way communication between teacher and students. interaction means to ensure the teaching and learning process goes well and the materials deliver to students safely (meida & fadhly, 2018). interaction between teacher and students determines the quality of the teaching and learning process (dahliana, 2019). allwright and bailey (1991) explained that three components make up the interaction consist of input, negotiation, and comprehension. input is the teacher-student interaction in english class at state senior high school in banjarbaru 156 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 speaker's speech to the listener. through negotiation, listeners will accept the understanding. if the listener responds to the message conveyed by the speaker that will be accepted through the negotiation process, there will be interaction between them. this interaction is seen as a two-way communication process. good interaction is an ongoing interaction between the speaker and listener, so a continuous process of understanding happens. in relation to classroom interaction, both teacher and students are speakers and listeners. the teacher influences students through explanation of subject matter, asking questions, giving direction, criticizing, and then the students react to what the teacher does and they respond. moreover, teacher-students interaction in the classroom is one of the main elements of classroom management. the classroom management components include foundational components, prevention components, and responsive components (collier-meek, johnson, sanetti, & minami, 2019). all of these components are largely determined by the ability of teachers to interact with students, verbal or nonverbal interactions. verbal interactions can be in the form of praise, hope, or motivation while nonverbal interactions describe as teacher gestures that show feedback on student behavior. further, regarding interactions in a class, flanders (1970) found a system of interaction analysis that is known as flanders interaction analysis category (fiac). this device is able to record what the teacher and students say in the classroom as a description of classroom interaction. the category consists of teacher’s talk, student’s talk, and silent or confusion. teacher’s talk is any word the teacher conveys during the teaching and learning process (solita, harahap, & lubis, 2021). according to flanders interaction analysis category (fiac), the components of teacher talk are accepting feelings, praising or encouraging, accepting or using ideas of students, asking questions, lecturing (teaching), giving directions and criticizing or justifying authority, and the components of student talk are student talk – responses, and student talk – initiation, and silence or confusion (flanders, 1970). chang (2003) investigated the interaction that happened in an english class as second language learners in a university-based intensive english language program (iep). it depends on the sociocultural viewpoint of language and learning, which looks language learning as a procedure of socialization into skillful support in socio-culturally language practices. utilizing information gathered more than seven weeks, this study examined 1) the utilitarian attributes of the interaction worked by the members in their class interactions with an accentuation on the educator's contribution to learner contributions; 2) qualities of learner contributions regarding lexical density and length of normal words, their capacities, and any progressions that may happen in student participation from time to time. at long last, the main pattern of turn-taking interactions was initiation-response-follow-up (irf) and learners reacted contrastingly based on the teacher’s type of speech. as a rule, changes in learner reactions regarding number and quality of rounds during the semester were vague. but this exploration was significant in light of the fact that it took a gander at how student contributions changed ridha fadillah, muhammad ridha, & ahmad juhaidi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 157 over time and furthermore recorded their characteristics utilizing a specific expository framework. since some grown-up second language learning studies have concentrated on classroom interactions from a sociocultural perspective, and even less on iep, this exploration would add to the subsequent language learning literature by looking at interactions in the adult class in terms of getting the details of what the educator considers to be praiseworthy. this examination would enable english as a second language professional to have progressively explicit thoughts (strategies) about how to manage adult english as the second language learners who are socially assorted in the classroom, indicating a few circumstances in the classroom where language learning happens as well. in addition, nurmasitah (2010) investigated the attributes of class interaction and to observe whether english class activities were applied for educating in the tenth grade immersion at sekolah menengah atas negeri 2 semarang using flanders interaction analysis (fia) to know the interaction in the class, components of teaching effectiveness referring to walberg's hypothesis, and questionnaire in likert scale to quantify students’ point of view. the results of the investigation showed that the most dominant characteristics of class interaction in the immersion class were content cross. it reflected that teaching and learning was given to questions and lectures by the instructor. the teacher used 57.43% of the teaching and learning time, while students used 22.20% of the teaching and learning time. this showed that students were dynamic in class interaction. interaction in this class was in three-way communication; it was the interaction between teacher and students, students and teacher, and students and students. the immersion class interactions met the prerequisites of the teaching effectiveness elements by walberg. the adequacy components of instructing utilized in the class were; academic studying time, use of reinforcement, cues and feedback, cooperative learning, class atmosphere, high level questions, advanced management, direct teaching, indirect teaching, and democratic class. in light of the students, the teaching and learning process in the class was great, however a few students were awkward with the classroom climate and the discipline of teacher. wang and castro (2010) explored the impacts of classroom interaction between a) learners and learners and b) learners and teachers on the english learning by first language chinese adult students of english as a foreign language during the language input and output treatments. in stage 1, the two groups were commanded to read and underline the material. after the materials were submitted, the members were asked to create the primary remaking. in the wake of being presented to a similar input material once more, the members produced recreation for the subsequent time. in stage 2, members composed a brief writing on the point given and were shown a composing sample given by the participating educators. the results of this research showed that classroom interaction and the language output could trigger learners to see the target structure and positively affected in improving foreign language learning. teacher-student interaction in english class at state senior high school in banjarbaru 158 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 3. method this qualitative study used the purposive sampling to determine the participants to describe the interaction between english teacher and students that occurred in particular english classroom. the participants of this study were an english teacher and class 11 students at state senior high school 3 in banjarbaru which consisted of twenty-six students. this study utilized observation and interview based on flanders interaction analysis category (flanders, 1970). the observation results were validated by the interview towards the subjects which determined randomized. the observation process done by coding the interaction among teacher and students refers to a matrix based on ten categories of fiac. collected data were analyzed through the percentage of teacher and student interactions, then interpreted and drawn conclusion. 4. findings and discussion from the observation guided by flanders interaction analysis category (1970), teacher-student interaction showed that teacher talk was 42.79% with giving direction as the highest proportion at 22.34%. while student talk was 53.79% with student talk response at 52.27% and silent or confusion was 3.40% (see table 1). the results showed that accepting feeling was 5.30%, praising or encouraging was 2.27%, accepting or using ideas of students was 1.89%, asking the question was 4.17%, lecturing (teaching) was 5.68%, giving direction was 22.34%, criticizing or justifying authority was 1.14%, student talk response was 52.27%, student talk initiation was 1.52%, and silence or confusion was 3.40%. table 1 classroom interaction percentage. category component percentage of talk teacher talk (1) accepting feeling 5.30 % 42.79% (2) praising or encouraging 2.27% (3) accepting or using ideas of students 1.89% (4) asking question 4.17% (5) lecturing (teaching) 5.68% (6) giving direction 22.34% (7) criticizing or justifying authority 1.14% student talk (8) student talk response 52.27% 53.79% (9) student talk initiation 1.52% (10) silence or confusion 3.40% 3.40% source: ten items of the component derived from flanders, n. a. (1970). analyzing teaching behavior (1 st ed.). reading: addison-wesley pub. co. p. 174 ridha fadillah, muhammad ridha, & ahmad juhaidi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 159 table 1 above showed that activities done by the teacher have different proportion. based on the percentage of seven teacher talk components, it is clear that the highest teacher talk component is giving direction, followed by lecturing (teaching), accepting feeling, asking question, praising or encouraging, accepting or using ideas of students, and criticizing or justifying authority. this condition identifies that the teacher always gives the students opportunities to explore and be active to develop their english ability. overall, teacher’s categories percentage is 42.79% while activities done by the students in english class showed that student talk response has the highest activity (52.7%), and then followed by student talk initiation (1.52%). based on the result of interview, student a stated that: … the teacher gives clear and easy-to-understand directions in teaching and learning process (segment 8). additionally, student b and d revealed that: when i respond to the teacher's direction, the teacher appreciates me, so there is a sense of pride … it makes us feel confidents, not scares or nervous (student b; segment 14 & 16). you know, my teacher always appreciates me and my friend no matter the responses we give, either right or wrong. for example if our response was wrong, our teacher appreciate our responses first, then show us the correct one. … so, although i'm still lack of english skills, the appreciation my teacher give strength my motivation in learning english (student d; segment 28 & 30). student c stated that: i feel comfortable because the teacher gives clear directions of what to do when asking for a question. … so, although i'm still in beginner level it is easy for me to understand about what i should do or…hmmm … what i should state or explain since the direction is straight to the point (segment 22). moreover, it was described that the students were more active in responding to the teacher’s command than expressing their initiation. overall, students’ categories percentage was 53.79%. looking at teacher’s categories percentage produced, teacher’s activity was 42.79% while students’ activities percentage was 53.79%. it could be concluded that teacher talk component was lower than student talk component. students were the center of learning process. this showed that the students were active during english learning process. percentage of teacher talk and student talk component combined was 98.58% while percentage of silence or confusion was 3.40%. this number showed that silence or confusion in the class was very low which meant that teacher and students activities were very active and focused on the material and learning process. the finding was supported by the data obtained from the interview with the students. it showed that the teacher has given students clear explanations and instructions for class activities (sofyan & mahmud, 2014) encouraging students to speak and participate actively through asking questions (khusnaini, 2019). students teacher-student interaction in english class at state senior high school in banjarbaru 160 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 confirmed that their activeness was caused by the role of teacher which always gave them clear direction what to do then during the learning process and always created unstressed class situation. they emphasized that direction given by the teacher encouraged them to participate actively in the class by responding all commands and questions. it is possible to draw conclusions based on the findings that two-way communication signed as interaction happened in english class. despite the teacher talk percentage was lower than student talk, it did not mean that teacher was not active, both teacher and students were active in the learning process. students were active because the teacher always gave direction to the students. it indicated that the teacher’s communication style while talking to students were supportive, creative, friendly and encouraging (dahliana, 2019). moreover, the teacher organized the learning process well and the students responded actively after getting direction from the teacher. it is signed by the highest percentage of student talk response. here, students were the center of the learning process which meant that the class was not dominated by the teacher, but students. when the class was silent, the teacher gave direction to the student in order to create an active class. teacher directed the students to a topic and used statements and questions in giving information to the students. after explaining the material, the teacher gave sentences as examples and questions to the students to practice their english based on the material until the students understood well. this two-way communication showed that the situation was educative interaction that happened in the class to reach educational goals. the reasons for the results could be focused on the role of teacher. in this study, as a tutor, the teacher always responded to all students’ expressions and always gave direction on what to do next. the teacher facilitated the students in acquiring new knowledge. students gained new knowledge through social interactions in which the teacher facilitated the learning process to be more active. it is obvious that emphasizing on social interaction is important thing in teaching and learning process. referring to the role of teacher, harmer (2007) states that the roles of teacher in the class are as controller, prompter, assessor, resource, and tutor. he highlighted that as a language tutor, a teacher is an advisor who responds to what the student is doing and advises them on what to do next so that teacher, as facilitator, has huge task to transfer their knowledge by facilitating all students to participate actively in the class. breen & candlin (1980) state that teacher has two main roles. the teacher should facilitate the communication process among students, between teacher and students, between students and the various activities and texts. in addition, the teacher should act as an independent participant within the learning-teaching group (breen & candlin, 1980). these roles imply a set of secondary roles for the teacher: first, as an organizer of resources and as resource himself, second as a guide within the classroom procedures and activities. a third role for a teacher is that of researcher and learner, with much to contribute in terms of appropriate knowledge and abilities, actual and observed ridha fadillah, muhammad ridha, & ahmad juhaidi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 161 experience of the nature of learning and organizational capacities. moreover, teachers play essential roles in providing various activities to facilitate students’ learning and create enjoyable desirable teaching climates (huang, 2021). teachers should ensure the students engagement in the learning process through active communication with other students and teacher (ridha, 2021). in short, that role of teacher is as learning organizer, learning facilitator, and learning researcher. the teacher shows good level of classroom management skills where the classroom management skills consist of teaching skills, psychosocial skills, communication skills and organizational skills (herman, 2019). besides being a tutor, another role of the teacher identified in this study is that of an anxiety reducer for the students. in order to learn english, the teacher's role as an anxiety reducer is required. teachers are expected to be friendly to their students in order to create a pleasant atmosphere in the classroom (fadillah, 2016). it is assumed that english teacher at state senior high school 3 in banjarbaru was able to create a lively climate in the classroom, therefore, resulted in making the learning context less stressful. it meant the teacher assisted students to cope with anxiety-producing situation and created unstressful teaching and learning process (aida, 1994; elkhafaifi, 2005; gregersen & horwitz, 2002; horwitz, horwitz, & cope, 1986; jia, 2013; saito & samimy, 1996; woodrow, 2006). teachers’ characteristics or attitudes, such as being helpful and encouraging, could have played an important role in reducing students’ anxiety in state senior high school 3 in banjarbaru classroom. by reducing the student anxiety in english learning process, teacher could increase students’ responses to the teacher. so, the students in the classroom were very active. this may be looked at the high percentage of student talk response (52.27%) and the low percentage of silence and confusing (3.40%). it is obvious that always giving direction to the students can increase students’ responses to the teacher which makes the students more active in the learning process. however, this study is different from previous studies. although this study used flanders interaction analysis category as an observation instrument like previous studies, the results of observations (see table 1) and interviews obtained were interpreted based on one of the students internal factors, namely student anxiety in foreign languages learning where the teacher as a facilitator can be a reducer of anxiety in english learning by creating a classroom atmosphere that is not stressful, which in this case was by building good interactions in the classroom as one of examples. thus, this classroom interaction research took the foreign language anxiety as its perspective. 5. conclusion from the results of the study, it can be concluded that teacher talk, student talk and silence or confusion have different proportion of percentage. percentage of teacher talk is 42.79% with giving direction as the highest proportion at 22.34%. while student talk is 53.79% with student talk response at 52.27% and silent or confusion is 3.40%. teacher-student interaction in english class at state senior high school in banjarbaru 162 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 this indicates that two-way communication happened in the classroom were an educative interaction among teacher and students and between students. from the interview with the students, teacher’s direction is able to make them participated actively in the class by responding all teacher’s commands and questions. to add, they express that teacher always creates relaxed and unstressed classroom climate. so, the roles of teacher, namely as tutor and anxiety reducer, are the factors that cause and influence the results of the study. based on the results of the study, there are some suggestions for the teacher to do in teaching and learning. it is suggested that teacher increases the accepting or using students’ ideas which when the teacher accepts, clarifies, constructs, and develops students’ ideas, the teacher can expect that students will be even more active in english learning process. further, the teacher should develop the direction given to the students to raise students’ initiations, not only focused on the students’ general responses. thus, it is hoped that not only student talk response gains high percentage of interaction, but students talk initiation will as well. also, it is hope that the teacher can keep the comfortable and unstressed classroom climate in order to keep the students’ activeness in english learning process. references aida, y. 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(2006). anxiety and speaking english as a second language. relc journal, 37(3), 308–328. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688206071315 englisia may 2016 vol. 3, no. 2, 119-128 re-conceptualizing communicative language teaching through sociocultural perspective lina farsia universitas muhammadiyah aceh, indonesia linafarsiafachri@gmail.com abstract communicative language teaching (clt) has been know as one of the most successful approaches in teaching english to speaker of other languages. with this approach students are required to engage in communication trough interaction using the target language as much as possible. in the countries where english is taught as a foreign language or as a second language, this approach has become an ideal example on how activities are reconstructed in teaching learning activity to improve students’ ability in communicating in english both in spoken and written ways. despites all of the advantages of clt, there are still some the flaws found in he implementation of clt in teaching learning activities. therefore, in this paper, the writer will not only provide some critiques that are normally found in clt but also suggesting some alternatives based on the socio cultural concepts to mitigate the shortcoming. the provided alternatives are aimed to re -conceptualize the clt in based on the socio cultural perspectives. keywords: communicative language teaching; socio-cultural; scaffolding; feedback introduction communicative language teaching (clt) was originally found in the changes in the british language teaching tradition in the late 1960s (richards & rodgers, 1987). according to littlewood (2013), when firstly developed, it was widely seen as the definitive response to the shortcomings of previous approaches and the commure-conceptualizing communicative language teaching through socio-cultural perspective 120 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 nication needs of a globalized world. banciu and jireghie (2012) also suggested that historically, clt has been seen as a response to the audio-lingual method and as an extension or development of the notional-functional syllabus. since then, clt has been widely used in all over the world as an approach to teaching english as a foreign language. clt itself is defined as a set of principles about the goals of language teaching, how learners learn a language, the kinds of classroom activities that best facilitate learning, and the roles of teachers and learners in the classroom (richards, 2006). according to nunan (as cited in banciu & jireghie, 2012), there are five general principles or features of communicative language teaching as follow: a. an emphasis on learning to communicate through interaction in the target language, b. the introduction of authentic texts into the learning situation, c. the provision of opportunities for learners to focus, not only on language but also on the learning management process, d. an enhancement of the learner's own personal experiences as important contributing elements to classroom learning e. an attempt to link classroom language learning with language activities outside the classroom. similarly, coscun (2011) mentioned some core features stated by brown (1994): 1. classroom goals are focused upon in all the components of communicative competence; they are not restricted to grammatical or linguistic competence. 2. language teaching techniques are designed to engage learners in the pragmatic, authentic, and functional use of language for meaningful purposes. linguistic structures do not represent the central focus but rather aspects of language that enable the learner to accomplish those purposes. lina farsia englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 121 3. fluency and accuracy are seen as complementary principles underlying communicative techniques. at times, fluency may have to take on more importance than accuracy in order to keep learners meaningfully engaged in language use. 4. in the communicative classroom, students ultimately have to use the language, productively and receptively, in unrehearsed contexts. in addition, savingnon (1983) referred clt to both processes and goals in classroom learning. the central theoretical in this approach is called communicative competence. having communicative competence means an ability to interpret and endorse appropriate social behaviors, and it requires the active involvement of the learner in the production of the target language. she also added that communicative language teaching derives from a multidisciplinary perspective that includes, at the least, linguistics, psychology, philosophy, sociology, and educational research. current developments or issues surrounding communicative language teaching in countries where english is taught as foreign language, clt seems to be an ideal and relevant approach to be used in learning activity. however, several circumstances need to be accounted for in applying this model. koosha and yakhabi (2013) suggested that although the clt approach attempts to involve learners in more authentic and interactive learning tasks that promote both comprehensible input and learners' language output, teachers still find it difficult and challenging to adopt the approach and maximize the learning; especially in efl classrooms. it is mainly because teachers have to have a very good competence and fluency in english for they are the role models for the students. in addition, in order to make this approach successful, teachers have to make the situation in the class similar to the real communicative condition. this is quite difficult because students commonly start learning english with low intrinsic motivation and to make such situation where they can communicate actively in foreign language is something hard to achieve. in addition, o’neil (2000) argued that clt has some weaknesses in preparation and implementation as follow: re-conceptualizing communicative language teaching through socio-cultural perspective 122 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 a. generative competence the ability to use underlying syntax and structure is one of the foundations of communicative competence. without it, there is no pragmatic competence worth talking about b. a language syllabus is more than a list. that is why examples of speech acts cannot be the basis of a syllabus. c. communicative goals are exercises in illusion rather than reality. it is not possible to specify communicative goals with any precision d. good teaching requires an understanding of both "whole-class" and "pair/group-methods. very often far more often than most clt supporters are prepared to admit competent whole-class teaching is more efficient than pair and group work e. a reasonable degree of accuracy is an essential part of fluency f. there are essential differences between using your own language and trying to use a language you do not know well. these differences help to explain the differences in behavior of people in the foreign language classroom and in the streets outside the classroom. from those points, it can be assumed that in realizing clt approach, it is essential to concern on students’ character, sociocultural beliefs and behavior because applying english in classroom will be difficult if the context of learning activities have no integration with the students’ daily reality. in indonesia, clt has not been used commonly in teaching learning process. this is due to low level of english education in some schools even though this language is included as one of the major subjects that students must learn. there are several reasons underlying the lack of the use of clt in learning process. first of all, in some areas especially remote areas, teachers do not have good qualification in teaching english and they prefer to use native language in teaching. another reason why the use of native language is more common is that because the students themselves feel more comfortable and easier to understand english speech if it is learned and translated into their language. therefore, applying clt in this kind of situation is very difficult. next, english communication practice in the syllabus generally use forlina farsia englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 123 eign context which is not familiar with the students and that makes the less interested in following the lessons. those are several examples of how clt is very difficult to be implemented in indonesian system of education. in the next questions, the writer will also explain some critiques and suggestions on the implementation of clt in english as foreign language teaching. relevant sociocultural concepts or perspectives assumed or lacking in the communicative language teaching clt is for sure believed that one of the best way to be used in teaching second language. however, there are some shortcomings of the methodology if it is seen trough sociocultural concepts. according to savignon (2007) clt does not require small group or pair work. this is according to socio cultural theory is not a very good approach for students’ language and mental development because group tasks have been found helpful in many contexts as a way or providing increased opportunity and motivation for communication. vygotsky (1978) claims that the secret of effective learning lies in the nature of the social interaction between two or more people with different levels of skills and knowledge. here, the socio cultural theory demands that teaching language to children does depend on the teachers or more capable peer assistance. however, classroom group or pair work should not be considered an essential feature and may well be inappropriate in some contexts but it does not mean that the peer or group works are not implemented at all. donato (1994) states that in an l2 classroom, collaborative work among language learners provides the same opportunity for scaffolded help as in expert-novice relationships in the everyday setting. another critique is that in the communicative language teaching the, only the target language is used as the mediation tool between teachers and students. when students do not understand the instruction, teacher has to repeat and use easier lexical to make students understand. however, from my own experience, i found this so frustrated because no matter how slow or how many times i repeat the instruction for the task for example, my students still do not understand and finally i give up and translate or explained the instructions in my mother tongue but feeling guilty because it had broken the rule of the communicative language teaching which has been bere-conceptualizing communicative language teaching through socio-cultural perspective 124 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 lieved as one of the most influencing method in teaching english. students who are comfortable or used to being taught exclusively in their first language may at be uncomfortable if the teacher speaks to them in the second, expecting them not only to understand but, perhaps, to respond. moreover, the students are only allowed to speak english in the class. this rule must be demotivated my students who has very low english proficiency due to lack english exposure and they never use english in their daily conversation. consequently, my students refuse to take part or to participate or to engage in the teaching learning activities. the last critique of the clt is that the clt focus more on the fluency and tends to ignore the accuracy. therefore, students are asked to talk or communicate fluently and are told not to pay a lot of attention to the grammar. clt requires teachers to focus on how students speak english with fluency and ignore the fact that students use wrong forms. in the one hand this is a good way to make students keep speaking and not worry about making mistakes. but on the other hand, without students will never be aware if they are using a correct form or not, are they grammatically correct, are they performing the meaning that they want to say. in this case, it is believed that clt does not pay a lot of attention on the accuracy form as long as students can speak fluently that’s all matters. sociocultural theory enriches or enhances further development of the pedagogy from the critique above, the communicative language teaching might be completed by the use of the sociocultural concepts. the first critique about the lack of the pair or group works in the class, clt might be improved by providing the pair or group works in some of the activities that are appropriate with the context. within the pair and group work students can have social and collaborative aspect of learning. ellis (2000) claims that sociocultural theory focuses on how the learner accomplishes a task and how the interaction between learners can scaffold and assist in the l2 acquisition process. here, ellis implies that by providing the group or pair work the students can have the chance to be scaffolded by their peers and they can use the interaction amongst themselves as a valuable chance to practice and to use the language that has been taught. therefore, in clt some tasks are should be implelina farsia englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 125 mented in group or pair works. in teaching language teachers have to pay more attention on students’ motivation by considering that some tasks can be too difficult for some students to perform that can lead students to be less motivated and be more stressful. but on the other hand, these tasks can be too easy to be preformed by some students that can lead them to boredom and also make them less motivated. therefore, here the group or peer study can help students to understand each other. the more capable students can help their friends about the tasks. teachers must realize that the is something that students can do alone but there is also something that students cannot do alone which means that there sis something that students can do with the assistance. here, vygotsky (1978) introduced the construct of the zone of proximal development (zpd) as a fundamentally new approach to the problem that learning should be matched in some manner with the child's level of development. “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers” (p. 85). the second critique is about the use of the mother tongue that is totally avoided in clt. in this way, the clt has to change the perspective of the use of the mother tongue as something useless in teaching learning activities. therefore, when it is needed teachers sometimes can code switch from mother tongue to english and vice versa because if teachers and students does not understand each other it is for sure the study will never take place. the sociocultural theory sees a mother tongue as a valuable tool for socio-cognitive processes in language learning. in line with this, schweers (1999, p. 6) encourages teachers to insert the native language into lessons to influence the classroom dynamic, provide a sense of security and validate the learners’ experiences. from the sociocultural theory based english and language teaching the teachers and students sometimes insert the mother tongue into teaching and learning activities. furthermore, according to harmer (2001, p. 131), a principal cause of the mother tongue use is required by the activity, if students are linguistically incapable of activating vocabulary for a chosen task. another reason is that translation is a natural thing to do in language learning, and code switching bere-conceptualizing communicative language teaching through socio-cultural perspective 126 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 tween languages is regarded as naturally developmental. the amount of mother tongue use by certain students may well have to do with differing learner styles and abilities. the third critique is that clt tends to ignore the important of accuracy in language mastery. the sociocultural theory believes the importance of meaning construction and fluency in l2 classrooms when he suggested simultaneous dual focus on form-and-accuracy together with meaningand-fluency in l2 classroom as the best way of enhancing l2 students‟ level of proficiency. here, both fluency and accuracy are two important aspects in learning target languages. therefore, teachers have to provide the corrective feedback for students’ errors. however, teachers are required to give the feedback on the right time and the right place if not, student will not willing to engage with the activities. if clt ignores the important of accuracy and teachers bnever provide the positive feedbacks then students will never now how well their mastery. in line with this ur (1996) mentiones that in terms of skill-learning approaches the learner needs feedback on how well he or she is doing’. again for sure, students not only need to be good in in terms of fluency but also they have to be good in accuracy for total target language mastery. in short, clt teachers now have to consider about providing feedabck in term of accuary; when and how. one of the slosuyion is provided by ellis (2009) who states that teachers have the option of either correcting immediately an error occurs or making a note of the errors and delaying correction until later; immediately in accuracy activities and delayed in fluency activities. here, there is no an excuse that teachers cannot provide the accuracy feedback because of worrying that students will not be fluent in speaking but when and how to provide a feedback is the crucial. by having the awarness of the sociocultural concept that both fluency and accuracy are matters teacher can provide a better way of teaching engslih or any other target language. the following is the illustration provided by ellis (2009) on how to provide corrective feedback in terms of accuracy: s: oh my god, it is too expensive, i pay only 10 dollars t: i pay? //
 s2: okay let’s go
 lina farsia englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 127 t: i pay or i’ll pay? (.1.) // i will pay // i’ll s: i’ll // i’ll pay only 10 dollars. from the above example it is clear that teacher can find the right time and the right way to provide feedback on student’ zpd about the use of will/ll form. this kind of the feedback about accuracy has to be paid more attention of teachers teaching using communicative language learning. in the future, with the understanding of the sociocultural theory the language teaching will become more meaningful. with the understanding that learners can gain knowledge from the language if the context is familiar and adaptable for them, it will be easier for the teachers to transfer the knowledge. therefore, choosing appropriate context in teaching design is very important and thus teachers must consider integrating english language with students’ daily communication. language teaching especially english as foreign language teaching is a complicated and complex subject which demands variety of approaches to be used. clt is one but not the only approach that can be implemented in learning activities. in its application, it is very essential to consider on the real situation outside the classroom activities because effective english communicative competence can be taught if it is integrated with students’ sociocultural context. for instance, in expressing gratitude or compliments, some culture has different style with another and therefore by considering this matter, teachers can provide more appropriate materials which are suitable with the students’ real life. using effective language to communicate in socially appropriate ways that fit varied contexts is an important skill for students to have in learning a language. therefore, learning a foreign language with a sociocultural approach is essential not only to make the students easier to comprehend a learning material because it is introduced by using their own cultural view, it is also a good way to make them able to use english in their community as part of global community. by having the awareness about the sociocultural teachers will understand that providing model and scaffolding is vital for student language development. without model and scaffolding students will be demotivated and will no wiling to engage in the teaching and learning activities because they find that tasks are too difficult to re-conceptualizing communicative language teaching through socio-cultural perspective 128 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 do. however, when the model and scaffolding are provided students somehow feel secure because they have the idea about what they have to do. references banciu v, jireghie a., (2012). communicative language teaching. the public administration and social policies review. 94-95 donato, r., (2000). sociocultural contributions to understanding the foreign and second language classroom. in: lantolf, j. p., ed. sociocultural theory and second language learning. oxford university press, 27-50 coscun a,. (2011). investigation of the application of communicative language teaching in the english language classroom – a case study on teachers’ attitudes in turkey. journal of linguistics and language teaching volume 2 (2011) issue 1 ellis, r., (2000). task-based research and language pedagogy. language teaching research. 4(3). 193-220 ellis, r., (2009). corrective feedback and teacher development. l2 journal. (2)1, 3-18 harmer, j. (2001). the practice of english language teaching. england: pearson education limited koosha, m, yakhabi, m,. (2013). problems associated with the use of communicative language teaching in efl contexts and possible solutions. department of english, khorasgan branch, islamic azad university littlewood, w, (2013). developing a context-sensitive pedagogy for communication-oriented language teaching, hongkong baptist university o’neil r,. (2000). the appeal and poverty of clt. retrieved from http://www.tedpower.co.uk/esl0404.html savingnon s, j,. (1983). communicative competence: theory and classroom practice. texts and contexts in second language learning. the addison-wesley second language professional library series schweers, c.w., jr. (1999). using l1 in the l2 classroom. english teaching forum 37 (2), 6-9. ur, p. (1996). a course in language teaching. cambridge: cambridge university press
 vygotsky, l. (1978). mind in society. cambridge, ma: mit press. http://www.tedpower.co.uk/esl0404.html englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2021. vol. 9, no. 1, 113-128 offline or online?: efl students’ perceptions on working in face-to-face and virtual learning modes rahmat yusny  universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia ryusny@ar-raniry.ac.id fitria rizki universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia fitriarizki792@gmail.com ika kana trisnawati universitas muhammadiyah aceh, banda aceh, indonesia ika.kana@unmuha.ac.id mulia mulia universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia muliapbi@ar-raniry.ac.id manuscript received j u l y 2 5 , 2021, revised october 20, 2021, first published november 1, 2021, and available online november 7, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i1.10492 recommended apa citation yusny, r., rizki, f., trisnawati, i. k., & mulia, m. (2021). offline or online?: efl students’ perceptions on working in face-to-face and virtual learning modes. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(1), 113-128. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i1.10492 abstract given the intensified number of online learning activities and having inadequate knowledge to identify the details of how it was organized within increased students’ language learning ability; this study focused on identifying the students’ perceptions of learning in two different situations. this study investigated how students perceived working in a new learning mode (online learning activity) compared to the traditional or face-to-face learning mode (offline learning activity) in regards to the learning frameworks, including the depth and comprehensiveness of learning, appropriate length for learning, comfortability of learning, and flexibility of learning. ten students were selected to be the participants of the current study; all of whom were sixth and eighth  corresponding author offline or online?: efl students’ perceptions on working in face-to-face and virtual learning modes 114 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 semester students at the department of english language education of universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh. they were served by several questions related to their experiences working on two different learning modes. the findings revealed that working in offline learning mode was still the common preference among the students and only a few of them preferred online learning. even more interesting was the finding of one or two students who perceived no differences between participating in offline and online class learning activities. in addition, the findings also indicated that interaction between the course instructors and students still becomes a prominent element on the students’ satisfaction and comfort of learning. the students also suggested that the keys to their satisfactory learning experiences are access to learning materials and to their class instructors. to conclude, this study also provides new insights on what matters the most to the students’ learning experiences with respect to the current online learning trend. keywords: efl students’ perceptions; offline learning; online learning 1. introduction people are very reliant on technology today, making technology a basic necessity for everyone. the development of technology and science has affected almost every aspect of lives including education. technology-based learning is immensely used in the instructional process as a supporting media to deliver knowledge in a more attractive, flexible, and convenient way (derakhshan, salehi, & rahimzadeh, 2015). one of the examples of such use within education is online learning that utilizes the internet access in the learning process. lecturers and students in universities can now access the internet for various educational purposes such as looking for new learning materials and interacting virtually outside the classroom (rambe, 2021; safriyani & khasanah, 2021; warschauer, 1996). shih, chen, chen, and wey (2013) argue that online learning help enhance teaching effectiveness and complete inadequacy of conventional education. online learning also let students actively engage in learning activity and make them change their habits in learning from passive acceptance to more active self-oriented learners (tathahira, 2020). in addition, zainuddin (2015) highlights that online learning enables students to gain educational material and to participate in learning along with other students and teachers. online learning also creates a more convenient and flexible teaching resource for students to acquire knowledge (zhong, 2015). further, dağ and geçer (2009) also add that online learning approaches the learning process by using communication technology. therefore, technology such as the internet makes learners and lecturers be brought together for learning purposes without barriers. the change in the classroom condition to be more flexible and convenient through online learning settings helps produce a better outcome in student learning performance. means, toyama, murphy, bakia, and jones (2010) reported their study on online learning in u.s schools and higher education between 1996 and 2008 which showed that in general, students in online settings had better performance that those in traditional offline classes who studied similar learning material. additionally, research rahmat yusny, fitria rizki, ika kana trisnawati, & mulia mulia englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 115 by platt, raile, and yu (2014) found that students who carried out online learning also gained better outcomes than those in offline learning. as such, applying online learning entirely can be useful in order to get better academic performance among students. nevertheless, despite being used extensively in education, technology still has some issues, such as limited physical interactions between students and lecturers which affect assessments toward students’ body language, gestures and also students’ involvement in the learning process (hart, berger, jacob, loeb, & hill, 2019; kanuka & anderson, 2007). in this regard, conventional learning still contributes to face-to-face and social interaction for teachers and students during lessons (sun, tsai, finger, chen, & yeh, 2008). a number of studies have also revealed that the role of teachers in physical classroom plays a role in student motivation and achievement (mentzer, cryan, & teclehaimanot, 2007; meyer, 2007). in light of the above discussions, this present study concerned english as a foreign language (efl) students' experiences carrying out different learning activities, in offline (traditional) and online (web-based) learning at universitas islam negeri (uin) ar-raniry banda aceh, aceh province. the study sought to answer how efl students perceived working in the offline and online learning modes. 2. literature review 2.1. offline learning vs online learning 2.1.1. offline learning offline learning is commonly known as traditional learning that provides a face to-face learning activity in a conventional face to-face classroom setting (staker & horn, 2012). traditional learning employs zero online technology used whose learning content is provided in writing and orally (allen & seaman, 2013) such as lectures and textbooks (nguyen, 2011). cpd news team (2018) points out that offline learning requires students to travel to the teaching places, e.g., a classroom or lecture hall, and learning period is usually during office hours which makes little flexibility to students or teachers. however, it is more convenient to confirm whether or not students pay attention to the learning process in offline learning. 2.1.2. online learning online learning refers to technology-based environment where students are required to have supporting learning tools such as computers and internet connection. anderson (2008) describes that online learning is a set of learning process which includes “e-learning, internet learning, distributed learning, networked learning, telelearning, virtual learning, computer-assisted learning, web-based learning, and distance learning” (p. 16). although there are many definitions of online learning, no specific compliment refers to online learning itself; so far, all the definitions are associated to the technology-based learning and distance learning. offline or online?: efl students’ perceptions on working in face-to-face and virtual learning modes 116 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 according to kuong (2015), online learning not only changes the learning system from traditional model into some electronics format, but it also includes the other essential elements such modifying the learning arrangements, preparing the instructional strategies, providing a proficient instructor, and providing a well-organized learning platform. moreover, online learning leads to the new improvement for students and teachers to be more active and autonomous in the real-life practice. for these reasons, online learning constructs the student capability and knowledge to direct and influence them for active learning (vonderwell & tuner, 2005). therefore, online learning should be designed appropriately in order to engage students to actively participate in learning activity and support the learning system. 2.2. main differences between online learning and offline learning recognizing the basic differences between online and offline learning is really important to help determine the gap between the two. platt, et al. (2014) classify the distinction between offline and online learning based on three major aspects: 1) flexibility, which allows students in online learning to have greater control over learning time and place; 2) interaction, in which in face-to-face learning, students can get higher interaction levels with teachers and other students as they can communicate directly; and 3) knowledge gained, in which both online and offline learning show that students can have obtain more knowledge whichever learning mode they have. all in all, platt et al. (2014) pinpoint that students seem to view online learning with more flexibility, but with fewer opportunities to get interactive than offline learning. 3. method this qualitative study used the snowball sampling to select participants of the study, consisting of ten students (one male and nine females). the researchers asked the participants to recruit others to take part in the study. the participants of this study were students in the department of english language education, had taken courses related to technology (e.g., computer-assisted language learning (call), instructional media, english language assessment), and had experienced learning using technological practices. this study took place at uin ar-raniry banda aceh in aceh, indonesia. the study utilized interview to obtain data, in which the researchers carried out the interview with each participant separately. the interview was recorded and then transcribed. then, the researchers employed qda miner lite, a software to analyze qualitative data to run the coding process and the data analysis. the results were categorized into two points: how the students perceived working in online learning mode and how they perceived working in offline learning mode. rahmat yusny, fitria rizki, ika kana trisnawati, & mulia mulia englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 117 4. findings to answer the research question on how efl students viewed working in both offline and online learning settings, this study revealed several common themes, as described in the following. 4.1. theme 1: personal learning experiences the first category is the personal experience of the students working in both offline and online learning activities. the experience refers to their involvement in teaching-learning process during the technology-related courses. specifically, this is related to the students’ physical, emotional, and intellectual experiences after taking the offline and online learning activities. 4.1.1. positive experiences the researchers asked the participants about the most interesting learning mode in the teaching-learning process that they had attended. the study found that the participants showed their own views about the interesting aspect of both offline and online learning activities. on the one hand, some participants revealed that learning online was more interesting than learning offline since using technology-based learning has made english learning become more attractive and flexible. i think online learning is a new thing right now because we know we are in the twenty-first century where the internet has a very fast development ... and this [online learning activity] is one of the alternatives of face-to-face instruction... this is the new revolution in education. (student 2; segment 169) i think that’s more interesting because for the assignment i prefer to online because the timeline can be modified. like, the assignment should be submitted on tuesday, so, the deadline commonly at 12 p.m. so, we still have spare time from morning until night if we are a deadliner. (student 10; segment 174) however, other participants also addressed that offline learning activity was more interesting than online learning activity. i think after i have experienced both of them, i think i like offline learning because you know, like, offline learning are we study with the picture, i mean lecturer. we can ask if we have the problem. we can ask face-to-face to the lecturer. yes. but i am more familiar with offline learning. (student 9; segment 160, 161, 162, & 168) from the interview results, it can be highlighted that most students put a higher interest in online learning activity. they found that online learning activity is a new discovery for their learning activity in today’s education completing the missing puzzle in conventional face-to-face learning. interestingly, in this case, online learning activity not only becomes a fascinating and attractive learning experience itself, but also helps offline or online?: efl students’ perceptions on working in face-to-face and virtual learning modes 118 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 the students manage their learning activity to be more flexible according to their own learning pace and needs. 4.1.2. negative experiences the interview results also found a pattern of negative experience and the difficulties faced by the students within offline and online learning activity. this is related to the way the students learn, absorb the material, engage in classroom activity, and interact with teachers during the learning activity. the participants not only admitted their difficulties, but also expressed their concern and gave suggestion about the missing part in their learning experience. in addition, they lacked understanding on the materials provided in english learning activity. the students’ negative experiences are as follow: 4.1.2.1. negative experiences in offline learning mode 1) undisciplined learning several students pointed out that after considering the agreements and rules during lesson, many still ignored them, and so most students and even the lecturers broke the rules, as expressed by student 7, “the offline class, maybe we can come a little bit later than the time. i often break the rule of offline. yeah. sometimes the lecturer and the students itself will break their own rules yeah. the deadline.” (segment 143) here, it can be interpreted that in traditional face-to-face learning, students and lecturers who frequently break the teaching and learning rules can produce undisciplined and unconducive classroom situations. consequently, this problem can make teaching and learning objectives unfulfilled. 2) time limitation time limitation is one of the major issues in face-to-face (f2f) learning. short time period sometimes becomes a major problem in students’ learning process. students only have little time to absorb the materials effectively. thus, limited time to study in class makes many lessons unfinished, and so a lot of learning materials are not wellcovered. some students addressed that offline learning activity provided shorter time duration than online learning activity. moreover, sometimes the materials were not fully delivered in the classroom. for the disadvantages of an offline class, i think when the material is needed to take more time it will be... uh... you know it doesn't cover, it doesn't cover enough to students to understand because sometimes one material only provides two meetings or at least one meeting while the material is hard to understand, so of course we need another meeting to cover it. (student 1; segment 19) i don’t think the time management in offline learning activity is well because, uh... because when we were in offline activities absolutely the lecturer will run rahmat yusny, fitria rizki, ika kana trisnawati, & mulia mulia englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 119 of time, will be in a hurry because of the time. and then perhaps we will get final test at home not in campus, so i think it is not good in traditional offline learning style. (student 3; segment 21) these results showed that students felt uncomfortable to having limited learning period in offline class. short learning period made them difficult to absorb the material and understand the discussion properly. 3) low self-motivation to learn the study found that several students still had low self-motivation to learn during offline class, as described by student 8, “in offline you can provide yourself selfstudy, you can learn after the class; but sometimes your motivation is so low, so you can’t provide that, so you only learn in the class.” (segment 153). in addition, student 10 also expressed that “sometimes, i don’t think in the classroom my brain is in the mood in learning.” (segment 106) according to the interview results, after having the offline class, sometimes students had no interest to learn after that. nevertheless, self-motivation is one of the crucial aspects in students’ learning experiences. thus, higher learning motivation accompanied by having the mood for learning is important to get a better learning outcome. 4.1.2.2. negative experiences in online learning mode 1) problem in understanding the material the study found that students were sometimes confused in understanding the material in online learning activity. student 7 perceived that, “in the canvas i don’t really understand what he [the lecturer] means but we have to make an assignment based on what he wants.” (segment 146) moreover, student 4 added that: so, it's like the obstacle when he/she [the lecturer] delivered the materials. so, it is like there is something wrong with the material that not clearly deliver to us. oh, so that's your problem when your teacher did not provide a clear a clear question or a clear, how to say like a clear steps or regulation in your assignment, so it will hard to find her to ask a question. (segment 139) the minimum amount of information provided in the online platform made students feel it difficult to understand the instructions. on the other hand, the difficulty to contact and ask the course instructor also became one of the reasons of assignments and tasks harder to complete. offline or online?: efl students’ perceptions on working in face-to-face and virtual learning modes 120 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 2) internet connection the other negative experience faced by students while working in online learning activity is the internet connection. all of the participants admitted that the internet connection was the major obstacle in online learning activity. the difficulty of online is internet connection, yeah, because like, we know our campus doesn’t provide good wi-fi, so when it happened to me and my friends when we were in last semester... not all students use good provider internet, so we will feel like it is so hard for us to make everything in time because, yeah, because the internet connection is bad. (student 3; segment 113) for the disadvantages from online learning for the first it is also about the connection so if we use the online learning you have to make sure that you have to do to get a good connection. so, i have experienced one time, it is like we didn't get good connection, so our task is being late the deadline. i didn't get the score for the task, so makes me confused, and then sometime to make me sad because i didn't get the score. (student 9; segment 141) in this case, students agreed that the internet connection is a necessity for online learning. consequently, internet connection must be the primary concern before applying this kind of learning activity to ensure learning runs well. 3) teacher-student and student-student interactions interaction is one of the major elements in teaching and learning process. however, the study showed that online learning had the minimum level of interaction causing the difficulty for students in absorbing learning materials and information. student 6 mentioned that “the minus from the online learning styles is like and you can't... you don't know what to expect someone's facial expression when you learn.” (segment 118) additionally, student 9 stated that: sometimes if we get the problem with, i mean like the task, we cannot ask the lecturer, but you know, we ask friends... we ask the other students first, and then we made our task only by our self-information. sometime we cannot contact the lecturer. (segment 137) the students revealed that it was difficulty to interact directly and connect to the teacher to ask for clarification or further information in online learning activity. also, working in online learning created misinterpretation of assignment instructions which led to misunderstanding and wrong practices among students. 4) poor technology skills in applying technology-based learning, the proficiency level of technological development should be mastered by both the course instructor and the students. rahmat yusny, fitria rizki, ika kana trisnawati, & mulia mulia englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 121 ... [for] the lecturer use the canvas maybe for the online learning, makes sure that you know well about it. ... for example, for the first you make the schedule, and then you have to make sure that the deadline everything it is there. and then, maybe about the material you can add everything there. it is like you can share more material in canvas. (student 9; segment 116) the study found that some students seemed to have a difficulty due to the lecturer’s poor skill in managing online learning platforms. therefore, it would be better for the course instructor to be familiar and master the online platform before using it in class to the students. 4.2. theme 2: learning framework 4.2.1. depth and comprehensiveness of learning depth and comprehensiveness of learning is one of the primary elements in learning, reflecting whether students recall properly what has been learned. in this study, the result showed that some students had mixed responses on whether they could better understand materials in offline or online learning activity. some students believed that offline learning activity provides more comprehension because teacher gives explanation directly. student 10 chose offline learning because “we can actually face to face with our lecturer, so if you get confused then get more explanation at the time. so i think to make me understand its offline learning styles.” (segment 90) however, others thought that online learning activity allows for a deeper learning experience. i think both of them, but it depends on the lecturer. the lecturer is plan the material, how the lecturer give students the score, uh... the feedback, it depends on the lecturer. but when i was in online learning activities, i saw my lecturer is very obviously giving the score and giving the feedback and he is also very interesting in explaining about the online learning style. so it makes me more comprehensive in online learning style because of the lecturer. (student 3; segment 65) from the responses above, it can be inferred that both offline and online learning have equal level of comprehensiveness. nevertheless, it depends on how the learning activity itself is delivered and also how the teacher carries out learning. 4.2.2. appropriate length of learning both offline and online learning activities have their uniqueness in the time management setting, and thus, the appropriate length for learning should be organized well before applying it to the real practice. too long or too short learning time is also not appropriate for healthy learning. this study found that students had different offline or online?: efl students’ perceptions on working in face-to-face and virtual learning modes 122 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 opinions on the time for learning. in terms of offline learning, some students felt time for learning is limited, making the learning materials are not delivered properly. student 6 explained that: offline mostly doesn’t give feedback ... and we are learning and then suddenly it’s out of the time, so we can’t really understand like what it is. some of the lecturers doesn’t give a lot of explanation when we ask. (segment 2) this study identified that some students felt learning time was not enough during offline learning since they could not ask more questions and the teachers did not provide sufficient explanations due to time limitation. moreover, some teachers also came late, making lessons delayed, as stated by student 10, “lecturer not coming on time like in last 30 minutes, last 45 minutes, so it not good timing for learning anymore.” (segment 1) however, the implementation of online learning becomes a great alternative to learn. student 5 described that: i prefer online learning activity because uh... learning activity is, you know, we could have much more time in making the homework, so the lecturer giving us due dates. but, by giving the learning activity, we also could do more homework or assignment from other lecturer, so it makes easier to do in activity online. (segment 208) the response above showed that some students preferred working in online learning due to a longer period of learning time, so students can use their time flexibly. 4.2.3. comfortability of learning 4.2.3.1. conducive learning environment another category is comfortability of learning. this study found that some students admitted that online learning environment allows them to learn comfortably so that they can better understand learning materials. student 9 viewed that, “for online learning there is no distraction, but for offline learning there is a distraction from our friends. for example, there is so busy, so noisy... so sometimes we can’t get the information that the lecturer share to us.” (segment 43) according to the response above, offline learning has an uncomfortable environment to learn because of the distraction from other students. therefore, in offline learning activity, sometimes it feels difficult to catch the information delivered by the teachers. the result is consistent with the study by puteh, che ahmad, mohamed, adnan, and ibrahim (2015) which affirmed that conducive learning environment enabled students to have enjoyable study, to actively assemble the learning information, and to obtain necessary learning experiences. such a proper, comfortable learning environment helps improve teaching learning process, and consequently, it will enhance students’ learning quality. rahmat yusny, fitria rizki, ika kana trisnawati, & mulia mulia englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 123 4.2.3.2. close teacher-student interaction this study revealed that offline learning activity made students feel more comfortable since they could have an interaction and discussion with the teachers and other students in a direct, face-to-face activity. offline learning can engage you in real time communication... i guess we as humans we are social, we need to see more in real-time, not online. so, i guess getting this advantage of offline and also, we can get the feedback right on time, right after we do something, we can get the feedback in offline. so, we cannot forget what our mistakes... this is the advantage of offline. i love to interact with them [teacher and the other students] in real time. (student 8; segment 38 & segment 42) here, student 8 explained that the level of comfortability in learning is having a chance to interact with other classmates and teachers. since we are human beings, we have to communicate with other people. in addition, in offline learning activity students can get feedback directly after they ask the teachers. hence, the level of learning satisfaction will be higher in offline learning than in online learning activity. 4.2.4. flexibility of learning flexibility in learning embraces three aspects: time, place, and pace. online learning activity is commonly identified as the more flexible learning activity offering a more attractive and limitless learning experience. the online is flexible. the lecturer can ask the students to a task wherever because we know that nowadays we have the internet in our phone and we can bring the gadget wherever we go. so, the lecturer didn’t force students to learn, but the lecturer give the due date. so, the students have to fulfill the material that given before the due date. (student 3; segment 229) advantages of online is ... based on myself, we could do one, two homework at one time. we could do offline and then we could do it online later. (student 5; segment 207) overall, online learning activities give students a more dynamic movement, where they do not have to focus on one single matter. besides, students can be more flexible in organizing their learning styles. students can also be more creative by using technological support. this finding is in line with the flexibility in online learning discussed earlier by platt et al. (2014). they remark that online learning offers a greater flexibility than traditional face-to-face learning. 5. discussion to answer the research question, this study investigated the students’ perceptions of having offline and online learning activities in efl classes. the results offline or online?: efl students’ perceptions on working in face-to-face and virtual learning modes 124 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 found five themes related to both offline and online learning, including: learning experiences, depth and comprehensiveness of learning, appropriate length for learning, comfortability of learning, and flexibility of learning. the majority of the students participated in this study preferred to have blended learning as it offers a facilitative environment which helps them engage into face-toface learning activities combined with technology-based learning at the same time. this combination is often believed to deliver more meaningful learning experience as learning activities can be structured in a more integrated manner (yusny & yasa, 2019) and facilitates varied learning options (fadde & vu, 2014). furthermore, learning framework played a crucial role in developing students’ learning activities. in terms of the depth and comprehensiveness of learning, both offline and online learning provided relatively similar benefits. although some admitted that offline learning was more comprehensive in delivering the information and materials, others acknowledged online learning was better and more comprehensive. time management was also an important aspect in learning activity. the accuracy of time management in both offline and online classes could help increase students’ self-motivation in learning and influence their academic achievements. nasrullah and khan (2015) drew a conclusion that students who performed poorly gained significantly lower time management. they also emphasized that there was an association between time management practices, academic achievements, and stress reduction. their study found that most of the students had quite a high pressure while working in too limited time. therefore, open-handed time to studies outside the class or at home have shown to bring positive impacts on the students during online learning. meanwhile, the frequency of face-to-face communication has effects on students’ performance and learning comfort. since students primarily need direct clarification, feedback and also comment; traditional face-to-face learning becomes the major preferable learning activity. unfortunately, even though offline learning is better in facilitating the immediate communication, meanwhile, online learning activity also offers more flexibility in learning in terms of time and space (dhawan, 2020). students can work in online learning mode creatively by organizing and modifying the appropriate time and place according to their learning needs. the greater level of flexibility in learning is offered by online learning (platt et al., 2014; singh, rylander, & mims, 2012). hence, this reason still becomes the fundamental rationale of choosing online learning activity. the results showed that real interaction or face-to-face interaction is essential in learning activities. for most learners, interacting with lecturers and friends are needed to have proper perceived learning (baber, 2020). moreover, dobson (2009) mentions that students with visual learning style perform best when they learn using pictures, graphs, diagrams, and engage in physical interaction during learning activity. this also happen for auditory learners who admitted that without hearing the teacher explanation, they rahmat yusny, fitria rizki, ika kana trisnawati, & mulia mulia englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 125 would find it hard to understand the discussion. unfortunately, online learning lacks proper two-way interaction between teacher-student and student-student (dhawan, 2020). consequently, working in online learning activity is one of the difficulties faced by visual learners. overall, after seeing the findings of the research, it can be inferred that this research is slightly similar to the previous research by an and frick (2001) which affirmed that even though students were comfortable with technology-based learning through the convenience it offered, they still admitted that traditional face-to-face learning was faster, easier and more convenient. here, the study revealed that both offline and online learning activities present different benefits and manifestations which give a very diverse choice for the students. still, whether or not a learning mode is the best can only be determined by the students’ learning style and habits. implications for efl teaching include understanding the students’ learning needs and styles so that they can have better learning experiences in any learning mode they work. 6. conclusion this study has discussed students’ experiences in both offline and online learning activities and shaped various statements of students’ responses. the findings are divided into two themes: personal learning experiences and learning framework. in terms of personal learning experiences, there was a consistent preference working in a new learning mode, the online learning, as it was interesting and attractive. however, many still chose face-to-face learning as it was still more interesting and convenient. in relation to the learning framework, most students believed that both learning activities presented similar stages. they admitted that the level of comprehension in learning depended on the instructors’ explanations. in addition, the interaction still became the primary concern of comprehensiveness of learning. furthermore, time management also played an important role in learning activity. the accuracy of time in both offline and online settings might increase students’ self-motivation in learning and influence their academic achievements. to sum up, it can be inferred that learning using online learning mode offers a new perspective on the students’ learning experiences. still, most students suggested that it would be better to combine face-to-face discussion and online setting to become a blended learning. thus, they may work consistently with their classmates and teachers at the same time using integrated technology-based learning. finally, this study opens up a new path for students and teachers to assess their performances within this new online teaching and learning process. references allen, i. e., & seaman, j. 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(2015). development and application of an offline learning system in college teaching. ijet, 10 (5), 35-39. englisia november 2016 vol. 4, no. 1, 10-26 teaching methods used by students of department of english language education of uin ar-raniry in teaching english at english course dara fitria munzaki, lilis suadah, & risdaneva universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia lilis.suadah@gmail.com abstract learning can take place in school, course, and community. there are some differences of teaching at school and course, such as teaching methods used. it is one of the most important elements in teaching. teaching method is used to help the learners to gain the knowledge and help them to achieve their learning targets. therefore, this research focused on teaching methods that were used by english education department students in uin ar-raniry in teaching grammar at english courses. the purposes of this research were to identify which methods were used in teaching grammar at courses and to describe the teaching techniques that were applied in classroom. the participants were five english education students who have been teaching english at english courses. they were selected using purposive sampling with a consideration that they have completed teaching method, micro teaching, and teaching practice (ppl) subjects in their previous semesters. this research was conducted by using qualitative descriptive and two techniques for collecting data namely observation and interview. based on the research findings, writer found that all of the selected teachers used grammar translation method (gtm) as the main teaching method which was sometimes combined with some techniques of other methods such as direct method, communicative language teaching (clt), and bilingual method. keywords: teaching grammar; english courses; teaching method; techniques dara fitria munzaki, lilis suadah, & risdaneva englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 11 introduction teaching is a responsibility for every human with basic aims such as to increase knowledge, change human behavior, and change perspective toward the phenomenon. south and laslett (1993) argued that teaching is an all-purposed engaged human resource development. it means that teaching is developing individual ways of thinking. teaching aims to help someone to change their skills, attitude, increase knowledge idea, and appreciation (vin-mbah, 2012). this holistic purpose of teaching can be achieved through well-coordinated efforts among all elements involved in teaching learning process including teachers, students, facilities, materials, etc. a teacher should have a willingness to know more about the basic aims of teaching, such as the goals or targets in teaching and its obligation. besides the willingness, harmer (2001) defined that teachers are like actors because they are demanded on unique style to deliver the knowledge and supposed to teach fluently. meanwhile another expert supports that teacher is like a planter who plants something and watches the growing process. therefore, in order to develop students’ understanding, willingness, and knowledge, in teaching, teachers should use an appropriate method. patel and jain (2009) defined method as whole process of planning, selection and grading the material of language, and techniques of teaching methods; however, not all of them are effective to be applied in the classroom without considering the context of the classroom as well as the level of the students. the information on how particular teaching method is carried out and affects the teaching and learning process can be obtained through investigating some teachers who teach at english courses. english course is one of the informal study fields where english lesson is taught not only by experienced teachers but also by teachers in practice. generally, english course is an alternative place for students to increase their knowledge about english outside the school, such as to get tips in answering the test, to pass the examination easily, to review some difficult material for their examinations, and etc. teaching methods used by students of department of english language education of uin ar-raniry in teaching english at english course 12 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 this research was aimed to find out the methods and techniques used in teaching grammar at english courses in banda aceh and aceh besar. researcher made an observation and interviewed the representatives of students of batch 2012 of english education department in uin ar-raniry who were working part time at english courses as english teaching instructors. the selected students were in the seventh semester and they had taken the teaching method, micro teaching, and teaching practice (ppl) subjects. literature review learning philosophy driscoll (1994) mentioned that objectivism posits that knowledge of the world results from experiencing our world and representing it in an increasingly accurate way. knowledge is believed to exist independently of the learner, and then to become internalized as it is transferred from its external reality to an internal reality of the learner that corresponds directly with outside phenomenon. both behavioral and cognitive information-processing theories subscribe to this perspective from the objectivist tradition (appefiled, huber, & moallem). as mentioned, constructivism helps people in increasing and constructing their knowledge. therefore, pupils are demanded to develop their own understanding with purposes for developing ideas. teaching english at english course in this globalization era, it is necessary to learn english as a foreign language. english becomes the most popular language used around the world to communicate with people from different origins and linguistic backgrounds. crystal (1997) and kaplan (2001) mentioned that english becomes “global language” because it becomes a mother tongue, second language or foreign language in the world (pasassung, 2003). in some efl (english as foreign language) countries, learning english becomes the primary focus on learning activity, however students get difficulty and lack of interest in learning english. therefore, to solve these problems, there are some additional education fields purposing to help students to achieve their learning goals. pasassung (2003) distinguished education field into two types, formal and non-formal. formal is a place where students get knowledge in elementary, junior, dara fitria munzaki, lilis suadah, & risdaneva englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 13 and senior high, whereas a non-formal field aims to help students to achieve learning target and increase knowledge, such as, learn in communities, clubs, seminars, and courses. in banda aceh and aceh besar, there are some english courses that are established to help students in their learning english activity. the basic aims of the courses are to help students to get knowledge, increase students’ score, and prepare for examinations. the english courses on this study focused on the courses where english lesson is taught by english education department students of uin ar-raniry or usually called “tutor”. teaching english at english courses is different from teaching process at school, such as in activity, classroom management, and the variety of topics. in addition, learning at course consists of small number of students, and this is helpful for learners. the teacher can have adequate time to encourage each student to ask questions, do the exercise, and sometimes, create their own sentences based on the topic given. most students choose a course as an additional education program in order to help them to achieve their learning target. teaching grammar grammar is structured science and greatest importance to be taught in structured ways. therefore, teachers should understand in what ways grammar is taught easily (dykes, 2007). thornbury (2002) defined that “grammar is partly the study of what forms (or structures) are possible in language. traditionally, grammar has been concerned almost exclusively with analysis at the level of the sentence. thus, a grammar is a description of the rules that govern how a language’s sentences are formed. grammar attempts to explain why a sentence is acceptable” (p.1). williams (2005) added that teaching grammar is not easy because some people thought that learning grammar is wasting of time. he pointed out one of the important reasons is that we have to survive in our life over the world by using english as necessary and by teaching grammar as important element because grammar takes important part in writing and communication. according to ur teaching methods used by students of department of english language education of uin ar-raniry in teaching english at english course 14 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 (1999), in students’ case, grammar patterns enable students to know and apply how such sentence can be put in the same patterns. meanwhile, teaching grammar should focus on the way of patterning sentences correctly. learning grammar is learning about forms or patterns and practice to create a sentence correctly. there are some suggestions in creating successful teaching grammar. widodo (2006) suggested that students should be taught to apply grammar into their life and communication, such as relating a word or a sentence to its pattern through exercise. he decided the procedures based on his teaching experience in school, college, or university level. the five procedures are as follows: 1. building up students’ knowledge of the rule, it starts with leading questions and providing sentences based on grammar topic is taught. in this stage, teacher asks students to respond the question orally. 2. eliciting the function of rule, in this stage, the teacher completed students by giving a clear description that focuses on, so students can apply the sentence appropriately. 3. familiarizing the rule through the exercise, in this stage, the teacher presents an exercise, checks for students’ comprehension, and encourages students to be active. 4. checking up students’ comprehension, the teacher provides an assessment of students’ comprehension in order to measure students understanding of the topic. 5. expanding students’ knowledge or enrichment, in this stage, teacher gives new activity to reinforce some concept. the aim is to give the students an opportunity to work independently or do assignment that would be scored as homework. for additional information, besides the procedures that should be considered in teaching grammar, there are some recommendations for conducting a successful and effective teaching grammar (khan, 2007) as follows: 1. avoid rule-giving teaching, in this case, teacher should adjust the teaching strategies that are used during the learning process, it should be suitable with the students’ condition. 2. engage the students, in case teacher gives a topic by giving a time to students. let them prepare the material by asking some guiding questions related to the topic. dara fitria munzaki, lilis suadah, & risdaneva englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 15 3. teaching through pictures or physical objects, where students more understand the topic visually, such as explain a pattern by giving a sentence through visual objects. 4. teaching through text, in this point, teacher can apply the grammar by using a text. for instance, teachers use a text and students are asked to identify the grammatical aspects. 5. teaching through role-play means that teacher can teach students indirectly, because by performing a role-play, students can learn by a situation and use grammar appropriately. methods used in teaching grammar method is applied to ensure teachers’ willingness in covering the class during delivering the lesson to the pupils in the classroom. in other words, method is an overall plan in presenting a learning process based on the selected approach (edisherashvili, 2014). method is created based on needs, so each method is formed as function with different implementations and different goals. therefore, a teacher should know what the appropriate methods and strategies to apply in a classroom to help students. moreover, teaching is also transferring the knowledge by applying some methods and techniques. bello (1981, as cited in vin-mbah, 2012) confirmed that the success or failure of learning also depends on what methods are applied in classroom by the teachers. by using a method, teachers become easier to help students who face difficulties in getting the knowledge. some methods that are commonly used in teaching grammar are grammar translation method (gtm), direct method, communicative language teaching (clt), and bilingual method. grammar translation method (gtm) gtm is known as a classical method or traditional method. richard & rodger (2007) mentioned that this method was mainly developed by the german scholars johann seidenstuker, karl plotz, h. s. ollendrof and johann meidinger and became known in usa. richard and rodger mentioned that this method was very popular and dominant in europe from the 1840s to the 1940s, and it is still used as a modified form in certain foreign language classroom today. the method may be frustrating for students but it was still applied to know the grammar rules as cited in (khamhuber, 2010). teaching methods used by students of department of english language education of uin ar-raniry in teaching english at english course 16 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 gtm is used in a basic learning. it allows teacher to use mother tongue in teaching. moreover, it is more focused on a word, not a sentence. it is also used in teaching vocabulary and concerned on the word meaning and its form (patel & jain, 2009). grammar in language is the description of the ways in which a word can change from a form into a sentence and have a meaning as form. therefore, teaching grammar has to focus on the way of delivering the lesson and the pattern of language use. this method is applied in order to make a word easy to understand and have clear meaning in a formal sentence. gtm allows translating which can stimulate students’ understanding. duff (1996) said that “translation helps us to understand better the influence of one language to one another, and to correct errors of habit that creep in unnoticed.” in implementing gtm, teachers can use teaching techniques in the following ways: 1. translating the element of topic, such as sentence, words or meaning to first language; 2. patterning the rule of grammar or topic which is taught; 3. ensuring the students’ understanding about the pattern or rule; 4. applying the rule by creating a sentence; 5. sentences are created by the students and find the meaning and use the new words; 6. teacher gave time to students to make them memorizing the vocabulary and pattern, (rahman, 2012). direct method direct method (known as reform method) was established at the end of nineteenth century and challenged the view of grammar. the language teaching expert, f. gouin and other reformers tried to create a method based on students’ capacity in learning. already in 16th century, as example, s. sauveur (1826-1907) used intensive oral interactions as main means of instruction. and the instructions are known as natural or direct method (khamhuber, 2010). direct method is totally against gtm (grammar translation method). as mentioned earlier, that english as a foreign language can be taught without translation, because language can be taught effectively when using it actively in classroom and using appropriate teaching techniques in explaining of grammar dara fitria munzaki, lilis suadah, & risdaneva englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 17 rules (rodger and richard, 2007). people learn the language from their environment, from what they are listening to, what people are talking about, then it motivates people to learn about the meaning of one language. learning english as a foreign language is helped by first language. children learn language from their mother, and it is called as a natural approach, because the learning process occurs naturally. on the other hand, gurrey (1966) said direct method is a principle, not a teaching method. however, direct method is one of the famous methods for longer time, which focused on patterning a good structure in spoken english. the way of transmitting the languages and bring it to be performed. it demands to bind the meaning between word, sentence, experience, and expression (patel & jain, 2008). richard and rodger (2007) mentioned some techniques to apply in implementing direct method as follows: 1. classroom instruction was given by target language; 2. considering of vocabulary uses to teach a sentence; 3. oral communication used, at least in oral question by giving yes-no question; 4. grammar is taught inductively, meaning grammar is taught by giving an example first and followed by rules; 5. correct pronunciation and grammar; 6. new teaching topic is introduced orally in the first section, as cited in (khamhuber, 2010) communicative language teaching the concept of communicative competence was introduced by hymes (1972) who claimed that the study of human language should place human in a social environment. he defined the communicative is what a speaker needs to know in order to communicate with people as cited in (vongxay, 2013). communicative language teaching (clt) is a branch of communicative approach, however it does not only concern on communication, but also on grammar rule which is taught in order to be practiced on communication. moreover, a clt is not limited on oral skills, but it influences reading and writing skill, in case to promote students’ confidence in all languages (shejbalova, 2006). moreover, in clt, grammar is taught by using inductive approach, which is taught by giving example at first. this method is applied to develop a good skill in teaching methods used by students of department of english language education of uin ar-raniry in teaching english at english course 18 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 communication by concerning on the meaning. hymes, austin and halliday’s theory mentioned that grammar was considered as semantic and functional, or the study which realized meaning. in addition, meaning and communication would include study of grammar and linguist focused on using the language rather than the form (agullo, 2012). clt’s activity must involve the students in the real communication by asking them to come in front of the class and perform a conversation. simulation or role-play, in case, is classroom activity underlying clt and students are challenged for delivering the message by speaking fluently (harmer, 2007). thus, this method can be done by involving students in a whole-activity classroom during the teaching process. larsen and freeman (2000) described some practical ways in applying clt in teaching grammar as follows: 1. teachers give a topic to be discussed; 2. teachers facilitate students to communicate between all students in the classroom; 3. teachers provoke students to discuss about one topic given; 4. teachers become co-communicator to engage in communicative activities with the students, as cited in (vongxay, 2013). bilingual method bilingual method is one of the methods that can be applied in teaching english as a foreign language. this method is aimed to introduce the foreign language to the learners and teach them. this method was developed by dr. c.j dadson from university of wases college during 1967 to 1972. this method is known as bilingual method because using mother tongue is accepted. by using it, teachers drill the pattern of grammar topic to make students be able to make a sentence which refers to the available pattern. then it is recommended to use this method in developing the students’ skill, stimulating their curiosity, and helping them in learning foreign language (patel & jain, 2008). two languages which are used in bilingual method are mother tongue and target language. mother tongue is used by the teachers in order to explain the difficult words related to the topic. because the basic purpose of this method is mastering the basic of language use, such as dara fitria munzaki, lilis suadah, & risdaneva englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 19 patterning the sentences. however, the mother tongue is not accepted to be used by the learners during the learning. therefore, by applying this method, teachers hope that learners learn quickly and increase their willingness on understanding english as a foreign language. some techniques that are used in applying bilingual method in a classroom are as follows: 1. teachers give the material to the students, such as a dialog, text or grammar topic 2. teachers introduce the topic which would be taught by giving explanation and function, in order stimulate them to speak up 3. teachers give a pattern of the material 4. teachers write a sentence and meaning, then the students create the sentence and followed the teacher’s instruction. 5. teachers must explain the meaning or difficult word that has been stated by using mother tongue to avoid miss understanding, (aiiulistya, 2013). method this research took place at three english courses namely alazzam 9 bimbel, sony sugma college (ssc), and genius private. this research was designed as a qualitative descriptive. this approach focused on the description of something occurs in social life and helped other people to know about the phenomena. in addition, using this approach is useful to obtain the deep information from participants and to provide the real description about a phenomenon occurred (quinn & cochran, 2002). the term descriptive is commonly used in research. it is used based on the type of questions, data collection, and data analysis. descriptive study primarily focused on finding out the particular types of question, such as “what is?” or “how about”. krathwohl (1993) stated that three main purposes of doing a research are to describe, explain, and validate the data. description emerges following creative explorations and serves to organize the finding in order to fit them in an explanation (knupfer & mclellan, 1996). furthermore, isaac (1982) stated that descriptive is about accumulating data, explaining the relationship, making predictions, or something that purpose in descriptive methods (sanjaya, 2013). therefore, by using teaching methods used by students of department of english language education of uin ar-raniry in teaching english at english course 20 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 qualitative approach, this research aimed to find out the experiences, perspectives, thoughts, and get in-depth information from english department students who are teaching grammar at english courses. population and sample population is all the individuals or units of interest; typically there is not available data for almost all individuals in a population (hanlon & larget, 2011). the population of this research was department of english education students in uin ar-raniry from 2012 batch. the sampling technique used was purposive sampling. researcher decided to use purposive sampling technique to find the appropriate participants as research target. furthermore, purposive sampling is a strategy to minimize the object of study and participants which is selected from the population (palys, 2008). researcher selected five students from 2012 batch with the criteria that they have completed teaching method, micro teaching, and teaching practice (ppl) subjects in previous semester and have been teaching english at english courses in banda aceh and aceh besar. techniques of data collection and data analysis one of the ways of data collection in qualitative research is observation. marshal and rosman (1989) defined observation as a systematic way to describe behaviors, events, and artifacts in social phenomenon. the observation is used to indicate the phenomenon that occurs in the environment. dewalt (2002) said that it helps researcher to find a better understanding of the context and the data is transcribed into descriptive study (kawulich, 2005). in observation, a researcher should think creatively to decide an assumption toward unexpected phenomenon. observation was done by taking field-notes to monitor the environment that is related to the topic. field-note taking is the process of taking a note as a data when observing. observation included monitoring the research setting, such as teacher, students, and environment and it were collected by taking field-notes. this note taking is essential for quality of a research by providing dara fitria munzaki, lilis suadah, & risdaneva englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 21 a record about what researcher saw and heard. the field notes should be written in descriptive report (mckay, 2008). besides observation, to validate data as a primary data collection, researcher decided to use interview. generally, interviews are coupled with other forms of data collection in order to provide the researcher with a well-rounded collection of information for analyzing (daniel w, 2010). furthermore, interview is asking participants questions in one-on-one or a small group setting and stated that interview is a following method after observing in research setting, because by interviewing, researcher would gain more information and more understanding about it (driscoll, 2011). qualitative interview is designed to uncover and understand something about the particular object related to the topic and behind the participants’ assumptions and perceptions (kvale, 1996). the interview questions used in this study were semistructured, and were about the method used, the difficulties in teaching, techniques, and others. the sources of interview questions are adapted from marja glavac from interiew on teaching. marja glavac is the interviewer expert on personalities evaluation in teaching. ali hikmat’s interview (2009) is also used in this research. he is a student from university of massachusetts amherst who did a thesis about the effect of teaching method course toward teachers on secondary school. the last stages, to deliver the information, researcher transcribed the recording of the interview into a written text as a coding (driscoll, 2011). coding is a process to avoid overload data. lofland (1971) classified coding into six categories; those are acts, activities, meaning, participations, relationship, and setting. the coding process was analytical and summarizing (walliman, 2001). discussion based on the observation’s findings, it seems that all of the teachers used grammar translation method (gtm) in teaching grammar. it is because they mentioned about the way of applying the method in the classroom and some influencing factors such as situation and students’ willingness. although participants answered the questions in hesitation, but based on their teaching performances, researcher concluded that they used grammar translation method (gtm). it was teaching methods used by students of department of english language education of uin ar-raniry in teaching english at english course 22 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 apparent that they used mother tongue in the classroom as the main language of instructions. based on the interview, researcher concluded that although each participant used the same method, they did not only use the suggested techniques in the method, but they preferred to add some teaching techniques from other methods. for instance, teachers tried to explain the material by using english, yet, students did not understand the explanation. therefore, teachers preferred to use mother tongue more frequent than english. furthermore, gtm allows using two languages: target language and native language. teachers used mother tongue while delivering knowledge. through gtm, teacher led and allowed students to translate some words into mother tongue. another finding from the observation is that the teachers combined the gtm techniques with some teaching techniques from other teaching methods, such as giving vocabulary list, stimulating them to speak up, asking them to create sentences by themselves, correcting pronunciations, etc. two important points from gtm that encourage teachers to use it in teaching grammar at english courses are as follows: 1. gtm allows students to use two languages in learning: mother tongue and target language. 2. gtm allows students to translate the word used or ask the teachers to translate the difficult words or sentences into mother tongue to avoid mistakes. considering those points, all of the participants mentioned that they used gtm in teaching grammar at courses in order to help their students to understand grammar easily and help them to achieve their learning goals. in fact, because using mother tongue was acceptable, the students were more interested in learning grammar. they created variety of sentences based on the topic with different words and meanings. furthermore, for teaching grammar through gtm, the participants used two approaches: inductive and deductive approach. in inductive approach, the topic is taught by giving an example in introduction, following by meaning and, forming a dara fitria munzaki, lilis suadah, & risdaneva englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 23 pattern based on the topic taught. meanwhile deductive is an approach in which a teacher teaches a topic by giving a pattern, following by a sentence referred to a pattern, and mentioning the meaning of the sentence. therefore, the teachers may use both approaches in teaching grammar. when applying it, a tutor decided the first section as introduction. he explained the definition and function of the topic then, he gave several oral examples to stimulate their enthusiastic. afterwards, he taught about the topic form or pattern and followed by three or more sentences as samples. then, the tutor asked students to create other sentences based on the pattern stated. in addition, sometimes he asked some students to translate their friend’s sentence into first language directly. meanwhile, in deductive grammar teaching, the sentences were given in the first section and a pattern was presented from the sentence-form. the teachers started the explanation and the students were allowed to take notes. it was the teaching techniques adopted from direct method. teachers can combine the teaching techniques as their necessity. although the teaching was focused on grammar, teachers also integrated the speaking aspects. randomly, students were asked to repeat what the tutors said and corrected students’ pronunciation to develop their self-confidence in speaking. in addition, students learned the structures used in spoken. direct method was used as teaching grammar method through speaking skills (khamhuber, 2010). on the other hand, some methods are not appropriate to be used in teaching grammar. for instance, teachers tried to use clt in order to create a communicative classroom. however, it did not work well, because most of teaching activities at courses focused more on teaching grammar than increasing students’ skills in speaking, such as role-play or conversation. some obstacles in teaching grammar became the reasons of using gtm method. for instance, when the tutor started teaching by using english, students were confused. therefore, the tutor was unable to continue the lesson by using english and changed it into mother tongue. at other courses, the teacher faced difficulty when explaining one question or case to the students, because they did not focus on teachers’ explanation. however, they only focused on the pattern of the topic. teaching methods used by students of department of english language education of uin ar-raniry in teaching english at english course 24 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 in short, researcher found a new phenomenon in which the participants who have completed teaching methodology, micro teaching, and teaching practice (ppl) subjects were unable to use a method with its own techniques. practically, they used a method with its techniques and combined it with other teaching techniques. that phenomenon was influenced by some factors, such as students’ willingness and students’ learning motivation. basically, teachers have tried to use various methods but not all of them worked well because students faced some difficulties. therefore, sometimes the teachers taught students by using gtm and combined it with other teaching techniques and known as eclectic approach. eclectic approach is a whole combining teaching techniques from different methods. as mentioned before, eclectic approach used to help students achieve their learning target (khan, 2007). nevertheless, in teaching grammar, gtm is more acceptable to be applied for teaching grammar where english is as a foreign language classroom. conclusion after conducting research about teaching method used by english education department students in teaching grammar at english courses, researcher found that all of english students used grammar translation method (gtm) to teach grammar. based on their explanations, it can be concluded that gtm is more appropriate method to be applied in classroom to teach grammar, because it helped the students to understand language easily. gtm allows teachers and students to use both mother tongue and target language. mother tongue was used to explain lesson, so that the students will be more assured and not be confused in learning the target language. references aiiulistya. 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(2001). your research project: a step-by-step guide for the first time researcher. london: sage publication. englisia may 2017 vol. 4, no. 2, 66-78 language learning strategy of students in intensive english language institute (ieli) of flinders university marina universitas malikussaleh lhokseumawe, indonesia marina@unimal.ac.id abstract this study aims to examine the influence of gender and nationality on the use of language learning strategies. the population of this study was the students who enrolled and studied in ieli of flinders university and 34 students became the convenience samples. strategy inventory for language learner (sill) questionnaire version 7.0 developed by oxford (1990) was used as the main instrument of the research. the data analysis in this research used quantitative approach with cronbach’s α for measuring item reliability, descriptive statistics for demographic data and independent-samples t-test for gender differences, and analysis of variance (anova) for nationality differences. the results showed that gender and nationality has had an insignificant effect in the use of language learning strategies. keywords: language learning strategies; strategy inventory for language learner (sill); gender; nationality introduction learning is fundamental to human nature, along with the need to keep developing and improving. one indication of learning is change in behavior resulting from gain in knowledge, skills and attitudes. however, to be successful in learning, capacity to learn and intelligence are not the only influencing factors. there are many others factors that can influence success in learning such as educational background, motivation, and strategies, among others. using marina englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 67 appropriate learning strategies is one factor that can facilitate learning, making the process easier, more pleasant, organized and effective. oxford (1990, p. 8) defines learning strategy as “…specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective, and more transferrable to new situations”. therefore, to be successful in learning, it is important to use the most effective strategies to gain knowledge and skills. in language learning, the use of strategies need to be taken into account since many studies have found that success in language learning is associated with the use of strategies (green & oxford, 1995; hong-nam & leavell, 2006; park, 1997). those studies point out that the more strategies a language learner uses the more successful he or she could be at acquiring the language. however, choices of preferred strategies might be different among language learners and might depend on the context within and externally to the learners themselves. factors such as gender and nationality might influence the choice of strategy used by learners as suggested by some studies (aliakbari & hayatzadeh, 2008; green & oxford, 1995; hong-nam & leavell, 2006, 2007). literature review language learning strategies it is important to emphasise the meaning of language learning strategies to give a standard in measuring the use of language learning strategies in this study. the definition of learning strategies or language learning strategies differs across many experts in education and language teaching. weinstein and mayer (1986, p. 315) considered learning strategies broadly as “behaviors and thoughts that a learner engages in during learning”. according to stern (1992), learning strategy concept depends on the theory that learners intentionally take on in activities to accomplish certain purposes and learning strategies can be regarded as broadly conceived intentional directions and learning techniques. however, those definitions lead to one point, which is how a learner tries to achieve information by using some ways during learning process. specifically in learning language, tarone (1983) defines it as attempts a learner tries to do to develop linguistics and sociolinguistic language learning strategy of students in intensive english language institute (ieli) of flinders university 68 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 skills in learning a certain language. therefore, language learners usually use several ways or strategies to improve their language skill. classification of language learning strategies this study used a questionnaire developed by oxford called strategy inventory for language learner (sill). in sill, oxford (1990) classifies language learning strategies into six parts: memory, cognitive, compensation, metacognitive, affective, and social. sill consists of six dimensions of learning. the first part, memory, is something that is remembered in order to store and retrieve information. cognitive is a psychological result of perception and learning, reasoning and thinking in order to understand and produce the language. compensation is a defense mechanism that conceals undesirable shortcomings by exaggerating desirable behaviors in order to overcome limitations in language learning. metacognitive can be defined as “above the cognition” used to plan and monitor learning. affective is characterised by emotion and used to control emotions and motivation. social is defined by friendly companionship with others used in order to cooperate with others in language learning stern (1992), however, states that there are five main language learning strategies: management and planning strategies, cognitive strategies, communicative – experiential strategies, interpersonal strategies and affective strategies. even though the two classifications by stern and oxford seem different, their dimensions are similar upon closer examination of each strategy. factors in language learning use language learning strategies is a broad topic that can include all types of a variety of ways in obtaining knowledge and information. it is important, therefore, that a teacher should be aware that students might have different learning strategies that are influenced by background differences. as hong-nam and leavall (2006) state in their article, when the teacher interacts with students from different social and culture, they must assume that there are differences in thinking and behaviours of their students. this understanding will facilitate the respective learning process and will benefit both teacher and students. however, this study focuses only on gender and nationality differences. marina englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 69 several studies have found that cultural background and nationality are some of the factors that influence language learning strategy use (aliakbari & hayatzadeh, 2008; hong-nam and leavall, 2007; mochizuki, 1999). students from different countries supposed to have different cultures and languages as well. these culture differences might affect their preference in learning new language such as english. some studies that focus on the correlation between the use of language learning strategy and nationality and culture have found that there are differences in using strategies among nationalities (hong-nam & leavell, 2006; oxford & burry-stock, 1995; wharton, 2000). the possibility of gender influencing learning strategy use has been reported in several studies. in general, those studies report that females are considered to use more strategies than males (hong-nam & leavell, 2006; oxford & nyikos, 1989). this might be moderated by the context or culture of language learning (hong-nam & leavell, 2006). method purposes and research questions this study concerns on the use of language learning strategies. the purposes of the study are to investigate the main language learning strategies used by intensive english language institute (ieli) students of flinders university and to investigate any differences in the use of the strategies by gender and nationality. the study examines two questions related to the dependent variable (strategies used) and independent variables (gender and nationality). to make clear the issue at hand, the statement of problem is formulated in the form of two research questions. a. what are the language learning strategies used by students at ieli? b. are there differences in the use of language learning strategies because of gender or nationality? participants a convenience sample of 34 former ieli students participated in language learning strategy survey by using questionnaire based on a modification of the strategy inventory for language learner (sill) questionnaire version 7.0 developed by oxford (1990). the students involved in this study were either studying or had language learning strategy of students in intensive english language institute (ieli) of flinders university 70 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 completed level 5 and 6 at ieli during the time of research period. based on the demographic questionnaire, all 34 participants (11 males and 23 females) aged between 18-45 years (18-25 years = 18 people, 26-35 years = 14 people and 3545 years = 2 people). participants were recruited through telephone and email. table 1. demographic description of participants frequency percent (%) gender male 11 32.4 female 23 67.6 total 34 100.0 age 18-25 years 18 52.9 26-35 years 14 41.2 36-45 years 2 5.9 total 34 100.0 nationality chinese 1 2.9 colombian 2 5.9 indonesian 11 32.4 japanese 9 26.5 korean 3 8.8 persian 1 2.9 philippines 1 2.9 saudi arabian 4 11.8 taiwanese 1 2.9 thai 1 2.9 total 34 100.0 intensive english language institute (ieli) is a not-for-profit educational association located on the campus of flinders university in adelaide, south australia. ieli offers six levels of english ranging from the beginning level to the academic proficiency level. it provides many english learning programs, which can be chosen by students based on their need, such as general english, academic preparation, english for business and it and english for medical and nursing. in general, ieli students undertake fulltime study. in one day, there are three classes which include communication, reading and writing and listening class. in each class, there are only a maximum of 10 students. ieli offers 6 levels of english from beginning to academic proficiency. students undertake a placement test before starting study at ieli. the placement test includes a reading and writing test, listening test and communication test. any toefl, ielts or english language certificate cannot be marina englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 71 used to determine placement certain level. the level will only be decided based upon the result of the placement test. students who have completed the six levels are eligible to study at flinders university. in other words, they have met the necessary english language requirements required by flinders university (intensive english language institute [ieli], 2009). measures a questionnaire called strategy inventory for language learner (sill) version 7.0 and designed by oxford (1990) was used in this study. sill is a self-report questionnaire and uses a likert-scale ranging from “never true of me” (1) to “always true of me” (5). the sill is widely used as a key instrument in research with good reliability ranging from .85 to .98 (hong-nam & leavell, 2007; oxford & burrystock, 1995; park, 1997). a cronbach’s α calculated in this study also revealed an acceptable reliability (.91). therefore, sill is considered as a trusted questionnaire for determining language learning strategies. in measuring language learning strategies, sill divides the items in six sections. the brief details of sill are given in table 1. once completed, the sill data can be analyzed by using a reporting scale developed by oxford (1990) to provide information to teachers and students about which group of strategies they use the most in learning english. the scale is (1) “high usage” (3.5-5.0), (2) “medium usage” (2.5-3.4) and (3) “low usage” (1.0-2.4). table 2. strategies, number of items within each section, and one sample item for each section. strategies items sample item a memory 9 i use new english words in a sentence so i can remember them b cognitive 14 i try not to translate word-for-word. c compensation 6 to understand unfamiliar english words, i make guesses. d metacognitive 9 i look for opportunities to read as much as possible in english. e affective 6 i encourage myself to speak english even when i am afraid of making a mistake. f social 6 i ask english speakers to correct me when i talk. for the demographic data, the questionnaire requested information about gender, nationality and home language(s). the complete questionnaire was language learning strategy of students in intensive english language institute (ieli) of flinders university 72 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 distributed online through survey gizmo. the invitation of joining the survey was sent through their emails and social network such as facebook. item reliability cronbach’s α coefficient was computed to determine an internal consistency reliability of the sill (50 items) for each group. the reliability of sill for ieli students was .91 on 34 cases. the high α indicated that the students’ responses to the items in sill were relatively consistent. according to pallant (2007), an acceptable alpha level is above .7 but values above .8 are preferable. for item reliability, some items have “cronbach’s α if item deleted” higher than the final alpha value (.91). these items are considered to be removed from the scale; however, for an established, well-validated scales, the items are removed only if the alpha value was low or less than .7 (pallant, 2007). since the cronbach’s α of sill in this study was higher than .7, these items were not removed. the table 3 shows the items that have higher “cronbach’s α if item deleted”. table 3. sill items that have higher cronbach’s alpha if item deleted categories items final alpha value cronbach's alpha if item deleted cog6 i use flashcards to remember new english words. .919 .921 cog8 i write notes, messages, letters, or reports in english. .919 .920 cog10 i look for words in my own language that are similar to new words in english. .919 .922 comp3 i make up new words if i do not know the right ones in english. .919 .920 affe5 i write down my feelings in a language learning diary. .919 .922 mem (memory strategies), cog (cognitive strategies), comp (compensation strategy), meta (metacognitive strategies), affe (affective strategies), soc (social strategies), cog1 (item 1 of cognitive strategies) data collection and analysis the sill was administrated to ieli students online through surveygizmo. the full descriptive instructions regarding the procedures of answering the questionnaire were given in the introductory email, which was sent to their private emails and social network such as facebook. the students were told that there were no right or marina englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 73 wrong answers and their answers would be kept confidential as well as their responses would be used for research purposes only. they were also informed that they had the right to withdraw from the survey anytime. data analysis included the use of statistical methods consisting of descriptive statistics (means, standard deviation and frequencies and percentages) to compile information about the demography of the participants and to calculate overall strategy use. cronbach’s α was used to test the level of internal consistency within the questionnaire. to investigate gender differences in the frequency of language learning strategy use, independent-samples t-test was used because gender has two groups (male and female). according to pallant (2007, p. 232), “an independentsamples t-test is used to compare the mean score, on some continuous variables, for two different groups of subjects”. to determine any variation in strategy use because of nationality differences, an analysis of variance (anova) was conducted because nationality has more than two groups. pallant (2007) states in her book that analysis of variance (anova) is used in comparing the mean scores of more than two groups. the six categories of language learning strategies in the questionnaire are considered as dependent variables while nationality and gender as independent variables. all data analysis utilized the spss package version 17.0. results and discussion overall strategy use the overall use of strategies by participants is presented in table 2. the most preferred group of the six strategy categories were social strategies (m = 3.90) followed by metacognitive strategies (m = 3.75), cognitive strategies (m = 3.55), and compensation strategies (m = 3.53). the least preferred strategies were memory (m = 3.00) and affective (m = 3.25). table 4. descriptive statistics for the variables of the six strategy categories minimum maximum mean sd rank memory 1 4 3.00 .611 6 cognitive 3 5 3.55 .470 3 compensation 3 5 3.53 .630 4 metacognitive 2 5 3.75 .609 2 affective 2 5 3.25 .621 5 social 2 5 3.90 .672 1 language learning strategy of students in intensive english language institute (ieli) of flinders university 74 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 the finding of the least favored strategies of memory and affective was similar to several studies about language learning strategies (hashim & sahil, 1994; hong-nam & leavell, 2006). the mean scores of all items in six categories of sill are reported in table 5. all mean fell between 4.35 and 2.03 on a scale of 1 to 5. according to table 5, metacognitive strategy item “i pay attention when someone is speaking english” (m = 4.35) was the most frequently used strategy for the participants, and memory strategy item “i use flashcards to remember new english words” was the least frequently used strategy table 5. preference of language learning strategies by ieli students strategy category strategy statement rank mean high usage (m = 3.50 or above) meta3 i pay attention when someone is speaking english. 1 4.35 soc5 i ask questions in english. 2 4.24 soc6 i try to learn about the culture of english speakers. 3 4.18 cog5 i start conversations in english. 4 4.15 meta4 i try to find out how to be a better learner of english. 5 4.15 comp6 if i can't think of an english word, i use a word or phrase that means the same thing. 6 4.09 cog6 i watch english language tv shows or go to movies spoken in english. 7 4.03 soc1 if i do not understand something in english, i ask the other person to slow down or to say it again. 8 4.00 mem1 i think of relationships between what i already know and new things i learn in english. 9 3.91 comp2 when i can't think of a word during a conversation in english, i use gestures. 10 3.91 meta2 i notice my english mistakes and use that information to help me do better. 11 3.91 meta9 i think about my progress in learning english. 12 3.91 soc3 i practice english with other students. 13 3.91 affe2 i encourage myself to speak english even when i am afraid of making a mistake. 14 3.85 meta6 i look for people i can talk to in english. 15 3.79 meta8 i have clear goals for improving my english skills. 16 3.76 soc4 i ask for help from english speakers. 17 3.74 cog2 i try to talk like native english speakers. 18 3.71 cog3 i practice the sounds of english. 19 3.71 comp1 to understand unfamiliar english words, i make guesses. 20 3.71 mem2 i use new english words in a sentence so i can remember them. 21 3.68 affe1 i try to relax whenever i feel afraid of using english. 22 3.68 cog9 i first skim an english passage (read it quickly) then go back and read carefully. 23 3.65 meta1 i try to find as many ways as i can to use my english. 24 3.62 cog8 i write notes, messages, letters, or reports in english. 25 3.59 cog11 i try to find patterns in english. 26 3.59 cog1 i say or write new english words several times. 27 3.53 medium usage (m = 2.5 – 3.4) cog4 i use the english words i know in different ways. 28 3.41 cog7 i read for pleasure in english. 29 3.41 meta7 i look for opportunities to read as much as possible in 30 3.41 marina englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 75 english. comp5 i try to guess what the other person will say next in english. 31 3.38 affe6 i talk to someone else about how i feel when i am learning english. 32 3.38 affe4 i notice if i am tense or nervous when i am studying or using english. 33 3.35 soc2 i ask english speakers to correct me when i talk. 34 3.35 mem8 i review english lessons often. 35 3.29 cog12 i find the meaning of an english word by dividing it into parts that i understand. 36 3.29 cog10 i look for words in my own language that are similar to new words in english. 37 3.26 cog13 i try not to translate word-for-word. 38 3.24 cog14 i make summaries of information that i hear or read in english. 39 3.18 mem4 i remember a new english word by making a mental picture of a situation in which the word might be used. 40 3.09 comp3 i make up new words if i do not know the right ones in english. 41 3.06 comp4 i read english without looking up every new word. 42 3.06 mem3 i connect the sound of a new english word and an image or picture of the word to help me remember the word. 43 3.03 mem9 i remember new english words or phrases by remembering their location on the page, on the board, or on a street sign. 44 2.91 affe3 i give myself a reward or treat when i do well in english. 45 2.91 meta5 i plan my schedule so i will have enough time to study english. 46 2.82 mem7 i physically act out new english words. 47 2.68 low usage (m = 2.4 or below) mem5 i use rhymes to remember new english words. 48 2.41 affe5 i write down my feelings in a language learning diary. 49 2.32 mem6 i use flashcards to remember new english words. 50 2.03 *mem (memory strategies), cog (cognitive strategies), comp (compensation strategy), meta (metacognitive strategies), affe (affective strategies), soc (social strategies), mem1 (item 1 of memory strategies) differences in strategies use because of gender table 6 shows the t-test results to determine any significant differences in the use of language learning strategies because of gender. there were no significant differences in scores for males and females in memory, cognitive, compensation, affective or social categories of language learning strategies because the value of sig. (2-tailed) was above .05. therefore, there was no statistically significant difference in the mean language learning strategies scores for males and females. table 6. independent-samples t-test results to determine differences in language learning strategies because of gender strategies categories gender t-value sig. (2-tailed) mean std. deviation male female male female memory 3.04 2.99 .661 .601 .198 .844 cognitive 3.69 3.49 .356 .511 1.158 .256 compensation 3.62 3.49 .592 .656 .550 .586 metacognitive 3.98 3.64 .663 .564 1.565 .127 language learning strategy of students in intensive english language institute (ieli) of flinders university 76 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 affective 3.53 3.12 .591 .602 1.889 .068 social 4.00 3.86 .447 .761 .583 .564 differences in strategies use because of nationality as shown in table 1, the majority of the participants were from indonesia, japan and saudi arabia. since come nationalities had very low representation, certain subgroups were combined in order to evaluate statistically possible differences in strategy use nationality. china and taiwan have a similar language; therefore, they were combined in one group. the remaining participants were combined in one group as “others” since the number of participant in each group was small. a one-way between-group analysis of variance was conducted to explore the impact of nationality on the use language learning strategies. subjects were divided into six groups of nationalities. there was no statistically significant difference since the value of sig. of each variable was above .05. therefore, based on the anova, the different nationalities did not have an impact in language learning strategy used by ieli students. the complete detail of anova is presented in table 7. table 7. summary of variation in use of strategy categories by nationality variables indonesian (n = 11) japanese (n = 9) saudi arabian (n = 4) chinese/ taiwanese (n = 2) korean (n = 4) others (n = 5) f sig. d d d d d d mem 3.06 .660 2.74 .616 3.17 .799 2.67 .157 3.37 .501 3.14 .502 .772 .578 cog 3.58 .473 3.48 .556 3.93 .425 3.18 .556 3.38 .251 3.57 .398 .880 .507 comp 3.58 .534 3.46 .725 3.71 .774 3.33 .943 3.56 .481 3.50 .808 .120 .987 meta 3.60 .561 3.65 .808 4.11 .791 3.61 .079 3.74 .321 4.02 .363 .650 .664 affe 3.14 .581 .602 .908 3.75 .354 3.42 .289 3.50 .486 3.50 .621 1.545 .208 soc 3.91 .681 3.89 .687 4.38 .534 3.75 .825 3.50 1.167 3.83 .441 .605 .697 *mem (memory strategies), cog (cognitive strategies), comp (compensation strategy), meta (metacognitive strategies), affe (affective strategies), soc (social strategies) differences: p< 0.05 conclusion and implications ieli course is an important part for international students to prepare themselves to study in english speaking university although not all ieli students intend to continue to university. in other words, some students just want to learn or marina englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 77 to improve english in ieli. the review of literature suggests that there is little research focusing on language learning strategies in english program in the university context. moreover, no research was located specifically regarding language learning strategies in ieli. this study has benefit for english language teachers and learners and for ieli administrators, in particular, to inform and provide information regarding language learning strategy use. this study experienced limitations in terms of its process of answering questionnaire since the samples of this study came from many different countries and the questionnaire was presented in english. furthermore, some participants were still studying english and had lower proficiency. this led to limitation in answering the questions because of language barrier. it was difficult for the researcher to translate the questionnaire in each home language of each participant since they came from many countries with different languages. the researcher minimized this limitation by introducing several difficult terms in the questionnaire to the participants before distributing it. another limitation was the number of participants that was quite small (n = 34) to have a good statistical analysis. therefore, the results of this survey cannot be generalized. further research with an appropriate number of sample would be needed to give a clearer description of language learning strategies used by ieli students. references aliakbari, m., & hayatzadeh, a. (2008). variation of language strategies among iranian english students: the effect of gender. international journal of pedagogies and learning, 4(3), 72-87. green, j. m., & oxford, r. (1995). a closer look at learning strategies, l2 proficiency, and gender. tesol quarterly, 29(2), 261-297. hashim, r. a., & sahil, s. a. s. examining learners' language learning strategies. relc, 25(1), 1-20. hong-nam, k., & leavell, a. g. (2006). language learning strategy use of esl students in an intensive english learning context. educational technology and applied linguistics, 34(3), 399-415. hong-nam, k., & leavell, a. g. (2007). a comparative study of language learning strategy use in an efl context: monolingual korean and bilingual language learning strategy of students in intensive english language institute (ieli) of flinders university 78 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 korean-chinese university students. asia pasific education review, 8(1), 7188. intensive english language institute. (2009). ieli homepage. retrieved from http://www.flinders.edu.au/intloffice/info/ieli/ mochizuki, a. (1999). language learning strategies used by japanese university students. relc, 30, 101-113. oxford, r. l. (1990). language learning strategies: what every teacher should know. boston: heinle & heinle. oxford, r. l., & burry-stock, j. a. (1995). assessing the use of language learning strategies worldwide with the esl/efl version of the strategy inventory for language learning (sill). system, 23(1), 1-23. oxford, r., & nyikos, m. (1989). variables affecting choice of language learning strategies by university students. the modern language journal, 73(3), 291300. pallant, j. (2007). spss: survival manual. sydney: allen & ulwin. park, g. p. (1997). language learning strategies and english proficiency in korean university students. foreign language annuals, 30(2), 211-221. stern, h. h. (1992). issues and options in language teaching. oxford: oxford university press. tarone, e. (1983). some thoughts on the notion of 'communication stategy'. in c. faerch & g. kasper (eds.), strategies in interlanguage communication (pp. 6174). london: longman. weinstein, a., & mayer, r. (1986). the teaching of learning strategies. in m. c. wittrock (ed.), handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed., pp. 315-327). new york: macmillan publishing. wharton, g. (2000). language learning strategy use of bilingual foreign language learners in singapore. language learning, 50(2), 203-2435 http://www.flinders.edu.au/intloffice/info/ieli/ englisia november 2016 vol. 4, no. 1, 42-54 analysing the characteristics of a pair talk on an editing task on two intermediate indonesian learners of english risa fitria president university, indonesia rfitria@gmail.com abstract recent studies have paid attention to peer interaction as a means of second language (l2) learning. interaction among learners in carrying out task is believed to mediate the process of l2 learning. the study therefore observed the nature of a pair talk in an interaction while completing a grammar task. the interaction was recorded and analysed by using language related episodes (lre) in terms of form, lexicality, and mechanism. lre was used in order to understand the characteristics of a pair talk at homogenous (intermediate-intermediate) level and to examine the participants’ accuracy in completing the task. the results suggest that even though the pair solved the questions in the task using form-focused lre (f-lre) and resolved the task interactively, they were not able to make correct decisions over grammar errors. keywords: interaction, pair talk, lre, homogenous level introduction several studies suggest that peer interaction is very beneficial in promoting second language (l2) learning (storch, 2007; watanabe & swain, 2007). during peer interaction, learners use and explore the l2 as well as work collaboratively to solve the linguistic impasses. this study therefore attempted to analyse the characteristics of a pair talk at intermediate level when completing an editing task. further, storch (2007) found that learners working in pair could reach more risa fitria englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 43 accurate grammar over the learners working individually. thus, it also examined whether working in pair can help intermediate learners make correctly grammatical decisions when solving the given task. given the lack of study focusing on intermediate proficiency dyad, the study sought to understand the characteristics of learners’ talk that was produced by the same degree of homogenous level, which is intermediate-intermediate level. literature review this article examines the characteristics of a pair work between two intermediate english learners during completion of a grammar task. in l2 classroom, group work and/or peer interaction are commonly carried since it can facilitate the process of l2 learning (gass & mackey, 2007). the interaction process that occurs during completing task is believed to be the stage where learners use and exchange their knowledge and information of the l2. this view is supported by the psycholinguistic and sociocultural theory. despite their ontological differences, both acknowledge the importance of interaction for l2 learners to assist each other in developing their language proficiency. in sociocultural theory, cognitive development can be established via interaction between people. this development occurs during process of imitation and zones of proximal development (zpd) where the more advanced facilitators such as teachers, tutors, or peers assist the lower learners (vygotsky, 1987). in the imitation process, learners exchange languages and might fix their utterances that have been corrected by more proficient peers. meanwhile, psycholinguistics posits the theory of interaction as a means of language transfer. long (1996) in his revised theory argues that language learning is transferred from feedback, input, and output. the process of giving feedback, receiving input, and producing output might occur when there is a communication failure. in analysing what occurs in the interaction and how language is learned, many studies have focused more on the interaction between peers with heterogeneous level. analysing the characteristics of a pair talk on an editing task on two intermediate indonesian learners of english 44 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 a study conducted by leeser (2004) investigated how the different proficiency had an impact on learner proficiency towards the production of lres (storch, 2007). this study revealed that higher proficient learners were able to produce more lres compared to their lower counterparts. interestingly, the higher pairs produced more on grammatical form of lres whereas the lower ones gave their attentions more to the lexical items given the difficulty in understanding the task. likewise, watanabe and swain (2007) investigated the effect of proficiency differences on the production of lres and the participants’ post test results among the japanese participants who were divided into four groups where four intermediate learners worked with their lower and higher english proficiency partner. the study revealed that although the intermediate participants produced more lres when working with their more capable peers but they were able to achieve higher post-test score when paired with their less capable counterparts. this then suggests that lower competent learners can contribute to the language development of their higher counterparts. given the extensive research was done to learners with different proficiency level, there is lack of data that confirm the characteristics of learners with a similar level especially towards intermediate-intermediate level learners. method research questions while storch (2007) examined the nature of pair talks on the editing task without focusing on proficiency levels, this study focused on the characteristics of pair talks with the same proficiency level (intermediate-intermediate levels). thus, it formulated two research questions as follows; 1. what are the characteristics of the pair talk at intermediate level when completing the editing task? 2. can working in pair help intermediate learners make correctly grammatical decisions when solving the editing task? data collection this study was conducted online via skype where participants were recorded during completing the editing task (see appendix a). the editing task has been risa fitria englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 45 proven to be successful in drawing learners’ attention to form-focused and lexical choices (storch, 2007). the task provided in the study was adapted from first year preparation exam and practice of roma tre university (first year preparation and practice). it required participants to correct one error appeared on each numbered line. the errors included in the task were 10 grammar, two word order, one vocabulary, and two spelling errors. afterwards, the data were collected after the pair finished completing the editing task for analysis. the analysis used language related episodes (lres), which will be explained further in data analysis, to investigate accuracy over grammar and lexis during the completion of the given task. participants two indonesian learners of english at intermediate level participated in the study. the participants were graduated from english department at one of universities in banda aceh, indonesia. however, the learners are still learning english in order to improve their toefl score at one of private english courses. they are currently working as administrative staffs and have part-time jobs teaching general english at elementary level. the learners have similar institutional testing program (itp) toefl scores from 490 to 500. this means that their english l2 proficiency levels were intermediate levels, which were fairly homogenous (murakawa, 1997, as cited in watanabe and swain, 2007). the learners were chosen because of their close relationship with the researcher as well as their willingness to participate in the study. the context the study was conducted within the context of the teaching english department of a university in banda aceh, indonesia. the learners attended only one session to complete the given editing task. the session was held on sunday to avoid the participants getting distracted by the activities that they normally do during weekdays. data analysis analysing the characteristics of a pair talk on an editing task on two intermediate indonesian learners of english 46 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 in analysing the characteristics of the pair talk that learners produced, the talk was recorded during the editing task completion and transcribed after that. the transcribed data was analysed by using the same approach in storch’s (2007) study. it examined the nature of the pair talks by using analysis of language related episodes (lres). lres occurs when 2nd language learners ‘talk about the language they are producing, question their language use, or correct themselves or others,’ (swain and lapkin, 1998, p. 326). furthermore, lres are divided into three categories (swain, 1998, as cited in storch, 2007). firstly, form-focused lre (f-lre) was where learners focused on grammatical form. secondly, lexical lre (l-lre) was where learners paid attention on word meanings, word choices, and prepositions. finally, mechanical lre (m-lre) was where learners focused on punctuation, spelling, and punctuation  excerpt 1: f-lre (modal auxiliary verb) excerpt 1 is an example of f-lre where the learners discuss about modal auxiliary verb. first, olin (o) reads aloud sentence number 2 in the given the text and questions the meaning of word ‘frank’. however, lely (l) shifts olin’s attention to another part of sentence and makes suggestion of what supposed to be the correct answer is. later, olin agrees and also provides lely with the alternative answer (line 24-25). this process is referred to as ‘collective scaffolding’ by donato (1994) where learners internalize the new-shared knowledge. 24. o: but i must to be frank, what does frank mean? at first i was… 25. l: don’t think about that. must right? must is no ‘to’. after must, no ‘to’. 26. o: oh yeah yeah…but i have to, right? 27. l: i have to, okay…have have. 28. o: oh yeah…but i have to, okay. 29. l: to be frank, right? 30. o: right.  excerpt 2: l-lre (word meaning) risa fitria englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 47 excerpt 2 provides example of l-lre dealing with word meaning. lely requests for meaning of word ‘generous’ in sentence 12. olin provides lely with the meaning of ‘generous’ to respond to lely’s request. 161 o: he generous to everyone he knows but sometimes he’s too much generous. he’s too generous. 162 l: what does it mean generous. do you know that? 163 o: kind, friendly. 164 l: okay.  excerpt 3: m-lre (spelling) excerpt 3 shows an example of an m-lre focusing on spelling. olin is unsure about the word spelling of worse in sentence number 13 and lely reads out the sentence again and provides olin with correct spelling. 184 o: but the worse thing about fransisco is his jealousy. 185 l: jealousy? we need noun here right? 186 o: yes 187 l: but jeaolusy? 188 o: worse or worst? 189 l: jeaolusy is noun yeah. it’s okay with jealousy 190 o: bad worse worst 191 l: the worse thing about … ooo worst… w-o-r-s-t, right? 192 o: speeling yeaahh, w-t like this? 193 l: yeah yeah 194 o: there’s no comparison here? but he worst. 195 l: the most, right? 196 o: the most bad thing 197 l: hmmm from the three excerpts above, it can be analysed that the episodes are the interactive process. the interactive process is defined when two learners are involved in the decision-making process. non-interactive process, meanwhile, is another process where only one participant makes decision during the talk (storch, 2007). analysing the characteristics of a pair talk on an editing task on two intermediate indonesian learners of english 48 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 in addition, lres were also coded the outcome of the talk as correct/acceptable, incorrect/unacceptable, or unresolved (leeser, 2004). three excerpts above are examples of correct/acceptable lres. excerpt 4 is an example of incorrect lre where olin reads out sentence number 3 and lely suggests that word order is the error in the given sentence. in line 32 of the transcript, lely suggests that the possible error in the sentence is word order but she seems unsure about her answer. from line 33 to line 40, both of the learners try out new possibilities by trial and error. however, in line 41, olin suggests lely that the problem is not word order but prepositional phrase ‘interested in.’ lely, in this matter, agrees with olin and fails to convince olin that black short hair should be used in the given sentence excerpt 4: f-lre (word order) 31. o: at first, i was only interested in his looks. he has short black hair 32. l: how about colour and adjective? colour include to adjective, right? 33. o: yes. 34. l: he has black short hair or he has short black hair or…correct or not? 35. o: short black black short hair? don’t you think it short black? 36. l: short black hair. 37. o: he has short black hair and brown eyes … no no … 38. l: i forgot that. colour first or adjective first? but colour include to adjective. 39. o: i don’t know. is every question has to be mistake? 40. l: i think yes. 41. o: he has black short hair. maybe not there. interested? 42. l: in his looks or 43. o: on on 44. l: on his looks. 45. o: yes. 46. l: interested on his looks. okay. risa fitria englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 49 47. o: on his looks. excerpt 5 is the other example of incorrect/unacceptable lre. lely requests for clarification whether to be ‘is’ should not be included since ‘tired’ is a verb. olin agrees on lely’s answer, and they are convinced that ‘tired’ is a verb in the given sentence.  excerpt 5: f-lre (adjective) 153 l: angry very quickly with parents. okay. this is because he has a stressful work and he is…aaa… he is always tired or he always tired? 154 o: he always 155 l: always . no ‘to be’, right? 156 o: not. 157 l: because there is verb. 158 o: he always … tired. 159 l: just type tired. he always tired. results what are the characteristics of the pair talk at intermediate level when completing the editing task? the analyses of the transcript of the pair talk at intermediate level revealed that f-lre was the most frequently deliberated during the pair interaction. this is not surprising given the grammar errors in the given editing task were provided more with grammar errors. in addition, m-lre received the least attention in the pair talk. this result is consistent with the findings of previous study of storch (2007). in terms of level of involvement, the characteristics of the pair talk is resolved most of the questions interactively, especially f-lres. in addition, the unresolved lre cannot be found in the pair talk. however, the learners left some numbers unresolved several times and attempted to solve other numbers. 55. l:i don’t think particularly good looking but he has something … 56. o: i don’t think he is. 57. l: he is. there is no subject. analysing the characteristics of a pair talk on an editing task on two intermediate indonesian learners of english 50 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 58. o: yeah. 59. l: we need subject here. just type particularly here. 60. o: particularly, okay 61. l: particularly good looking but he has that make me eee that make him special person to me. that make him special person... 62. o: for me? 63. l: i think yes for me. 64. o: okay. they afterwards came back to the unresolved numbers and attempted to solve them. 124 l: i don’t think he has particularly good looking but he has something different. he has something that make him special 125 o: ooo makes this one no…makes 126 l: he has something that... 127 o: makes…him 128 l: that makes him special 129 o: yes…makes, right? something that makes … something. 130 l: that makes him. yeah. 131 o: so this not for me yeah? makes. at the end, the learners were successful to answer all the questions given. finally, can working in pair help intermediate learners make correctly grammatical decisions when solving the editing task? this study found that the learners could not reach grammatically incorrect decisions on the given editing task when working in pair. the learners were able to solve 6 questions correctly out of 15 questions. this does not mean that they did not know the basic concepts of the grammar. there were several times when the learners discussed the correct concept of grammar but they ended up having incorrect decision. this is in line with swain’s statement (1998, as cited in storch, 1999) that learners might produce grammatically incorrect decision during the interaction. risa fitria englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 51 implications for teaching given the small sample size (2) and one-attempt test, it is difficult to generalize findings, to say that peer interaction can promote learners to reach more correct decisions over grammatical items in the given task. thus, to know whether the english language learners get benefit from working in pairs particularly on writing and form-focused task, future study should include larger participants to examine the nature of the pair talks produced by different proficiencies as well as to investigate whether peer interaction can assist learners in developing their cognitive learning potential at the university in banda aceh. further, the future study should also interview learners whether they benefit from working in pair after giving the editing task. it should also be noted that working in pair during writing and form-focused task is seldom conducted at the university. thus, the study investigating pair work might be very useful for l2 teachers in banda aceh design group learners effectively to improve learners’ english proficiency. references donato, r. (1994) collective scaffolding in second language learning. in j.p. lantolf and g. appel (eds) vygotskian approaches to second language research (pp. 33-56). norwood, nj: ablex. first year exam preparation and practice. retrieved september 16th, 2013 from http://host.uniroma3.it/linguisti/lcsingles/roma3/resources_files/botsford%20boyd%20b1%20prep.pdf gass, s. and mackey, a. (2007). input, interaction, and output in second language acquisition. in b. vanpatten and j. williams (eds.), theories in second language acquisition: an introduction (pp. 175–200). mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum. leeser, m. j. (2004). learner proficiency and focus on form during collaborative dialogue. language teaching research, 8(1), 55-81. doi:10.1191/1362168804lr134oa long, m. (1996). the role of the linguistic environment in second language acquisition. in w.c. ritchie and t.k. bhatia (eds.), handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 413–468). san diego, ca: academic press. ritchie, w. c., & bhatia, t. k. (1996). handbook of second language acquisition. san diego: academic press. http://host.uniroma3.it/linguisti/lcs-ingles/roma3/resources_files/botsford%20boyd%20b1%20prep.pdf http://host.uniroma3.it/linguisti/lcs-ingles/roma3/resources_files/botsford%20boyd%20b1%20prep.pdf analysing the characteristics of a pair talk on an editing task on two intermediate indonesian learners of english 52 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 swain, m., & lapkin, s. (1998). interaction and second language learning: two adolescent french immersion students working together. the modern language journal, 82(3), 320-337. doi:10.1111/j.15404781.1998.tb01209.x storch, n. (1999). are two heads better than one? pair work and grammatical accuracy. system, 27(3), 363-374. doi:10.1016/s0346-251x(99)00031-7 storch, n. (2007). investigating the merits of pair work on a text editing task in esl classes. language teaching research, 11(2), 143-159. doi:10.1177/1362168807074600 watanabe, y., & swain, m. (2007). effects of proficiency differences and patterns of pair interaction on second language learning: collaborative dialogue between adult esl learners. language teaching research, 11(2), 121-142. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/13621688060707459 risa fitria englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 53 appendix a directions: the following text comes from a student's essay. on each numbered line there is one error of grammar, word order, vocabulary or spelling. there are no punctuation mistakes. find the mistake on each numbered line, underline it and write the correction in the space provided to the right of the text. 0 my boyfriend's name is francesco. he's 22 years but he's 22 years old 0 quite mature for his age. he works for 3 years in a bank. has worked/has been working 1 our relationship has begun two years ago and now i know has been beggining for 2 him very well, but i must to be frank, at first i was only but i have to be frank 3 interested in his looks. he has black short hair and brown interested on his looks 4 eyes. he isn't very tall but he's more tall than me. i don't taller than 5 think is particularly good-looking, but he has something he has particularly 6 that make him a special person to me. makes 7 he has a character very complex. he's usually very sweet he has a very complex character 8 and kind to me and always listens my problems but he gets and he gets 9 hungry very quickly, especially with his parents. this is angry 10 because he has a stressful work and he is always tired. he always tired 11 he's generous to everyone he knows, but sometime he’s know analysing the characteristics of a pair talk on an editing task on two intermediate indonesian learners of english 54 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 12 too much generous and his friends take advantage of him. of it 13 but the worse thing about francesco is his jealousy. if i worst 14 just look at another man he goes mad. he would like marry (no “just”) 15 me, but i say him that i'll only marry him if he learns to trust me told him name :lely & olin time taken :16.05 source: first year exam preparation and practice. retrieved september 16th, 2013 from http://host.uniroma3.it/linguisti/lcsingles/roma3/resources_files/botsford%20boyd%20b1%20prep.pdf . http://host.uniroma3.it/linguisti/lcs-ingles/roma3/resources_files/botsford%20boyd%20b1%20prep.pdf http://host.uniroma3.it/linguisti/lcs-ingles/roma3/resources_files/botsford%20boyd%20b1%20prep.pdf englisia november 2016 vol. 4, no. 1, 27-41 english instruction for earlychildhood education: a case study at tk riyadul jannah simo boyolali, central java win listyaningrum arifin iain salatiga, indonesia nurarifin_my@yahoo.com abstract kindergarten children are creative, resourceful, and imaginative. during the kindergarten years, the children’s perceptual skills can be sharpened by encouraging them to observe specific aspects of their environment. in line with the need of english as the international and the most spoken language, english subject is being taught to students from elementary to university level, or even to kindergarten. the consideration is that english should be taught very early as the students will easily absorb the english materials later on. however, kindergarten teachers in indonesia are actually not the experts of the field. there are still limited graduated teachers majoring in kindergarten or early childhood education department. promoting an effective learning can only be well done by teachers who are qualified enough. in addition, there is no best method in teaching such a foreign language to these young students. to sum up, teaching a foreign language to very young students who are living in and accustomed to the first language is a challenging task for the kindergarten teachers. keywords: stakeholders condition, english instruction, kindergarten introduction the global development is signed due to the improvement of facilities and infrastructures. this also asks for identity equity to meet communication. this possibly promotes a monopoly done by a language which later becomes the human need to live side by side. this outstanding momentum is won by english which is mostly spoken as international mean of communication. though there is no such english instruction for early-childhood education: a case study at tk riyadul jannah simo boyolali, central java 28 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 obligation to study or to learn this language, each of man who feels as part of the global society needs to acquire the language to get involve in the earth communication. the decision making to state english as the international language cannot be separated from roles of history in confirming english as language for all inhabitants in this world. the effect of using english as mean of international communication makes the mentioned language as one of the need in life even though it is not the primary one. however, not all inhabitants in the world are able to use and master the language as their first/foreign spoken communication. there are still many people who regard this language as foreign language, as always. mastering the language depends on to whom this is important. mostly, the language is used by those who are educated, or at least people who concern to the language, as the language becomes a compulsory subject taught to students even in indonesia or in other countries. surprisingly, the language is often a subject tested in the national examination. the language is also the used language in economics, social, sport, and other fields that force people under the fields to master it both actively and passively. thus, it can be concluded that the english language is the language for all people in the universe. for indonesians particularly students, english is one the most frightening subjects instead of mathematics and science. meanwhile, this subject is being thought to students from elementary to university level or even to kindergarten. the language is taught systematically following the curriculum and syllabus in unit of material. to add, the language development of english is in line with the development of global information as it is used in technological and informative devices in computers and other appliances such as mobile phone, laptop, and etc. thus, computer is also delivered to students in all levels of education as additional and important subject. is this an advantage or even a burden for students? no one wonders for the answer. talking about readiness, kindergarten education in indonesia adopts english subject within the curriculum. the considerations could be english is an international language that should be taught very early as the pupils will be easily catch the win listyaningrum arifin englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 29 material. the age, range from 2-5 years old, is also an influential consideration as this phase is regarded as a good phase to catch all informative subject including english as foreign language. the outcome is that the graduated students of this kindergarten level will be ready to continue the mentioned language in advanced study. to note, the material of english is also situated to their condition that they are still children. they are taught about numbers, letters, days, months, animals, english tales and songs, and many others performed in plays. thus, basic english is the most realistic alternative. literature review children’s language development there seem to be great similarities in all human societies in the sequence of language development as children progressively master the rules of sounds (phonology), of meaning (semantics), and of grammar (syntax), and learn to combine words, in which are acceptable and understandable (pragmatics) within their linguistic community. by 24-27 months the child is regularly producing three and four-word utterances. there are many sentences which are is in a strict sense “ungrammatical” but which reveal that the child is in fact using grammatical rules of syntax (borisch, 2007). these errors are actually a phase called “logical errors”. these are examples of words produced by a 26 months baby boy, algo who is a student of a playgroup of tk riyadul jannah simo, “mama ais napa?” (mama kenapa menangis? why is mama crying?”) or “adek mimik uh” (adek mimik susu/i want milk). these are also examples of 27 months baby sentences: “i no want it” instead of “i don’t want it” and “not my daddy work” instead of “my daddy didn’t work”. those examples are considered as ungrammatically correct but people next to the children understand the real messages of the sentences as this is the phase in which children develop their language performance. the child who speaks english as his first language also learns errors in his speech. he will have acquired the basic grammar system needed for everyday communication. the basic grammar mastery will usually complete at his teen ages. children learning english as foreign language also makes errors which can be seen as active learning. the mentioned feature shows that both first and second language english instruction for early-childhood education: a case study at tk riyadul jannah simo boyolali, central java 30 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 children are not just imitating what they hear, but are working out how the language system operates. this is a phase when children look through and see about language. skinner (1953) argues that children acquire language because adults reinforce correct usage. successive approximations are rewarded or reinforced until finally the child’s language is similar to the adult’s. other learning theorists suggest that imitation also plays an important part in language acquisition (bandura, 1971). thus, adults may correct the language usage of children then they imitate the words. overall, children are able to communicate through language because they are blessed with lad (language acquisition device) naturally as being promoted by chomsky. experts judgment on language teaching thus, english as a foreign language must be taught naturally and communicatively. reviewing to the natural method, nunan’s overview of the natural approach (1989, pp. 194-195), adapted here, outlines its characteristics: 1. theory of language the essence of language is meaning. vocabulary, not grammar, is the heart of language. this situation must be situated well. the vocabulary used in teaching kindergarten students is the words that are simple and easily understood. 2. theory of learning there are 2 ways of l2 language development: acquisition is a natural subconscious process, and learning is a conscious process. learning cannot lead to acquisition. for kindergarten students, the learning is done naturally as they perceive the learning in an unconscious manner (like the acquisition process). 3. objectives language teaching is designed to give beginners/ intermediate learners’ communicative skills in four broad areas: basic personal communicative skills (oral/written); and academic learning skills (oral/written). although communicative win listyaningrum arifin englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 31 skills are hard to achieve, kindergarten pupils are taught in english to meet communication for children. 4. syllabus it is based on a selection of communicative activities and topics derived from the learner needs. this is very risky, the teacher along with the institution should provide good syllabus planning by considering that the participants are still children of early-childhood. for example, a teacher seeks for worksheets which may contribute to pleasure in english activity learning. 5. activity types activities allow comprehensible input about things in the here-and-now: focus on meaning, not form. it is very important to put words which are familiar to kindergarten students. the learning process is done as a fun activity in which the children are not aware that they are studying english. 6. learner’s roles learners should not try and learn language in the usual sense but should try and lose themselves in activities involving meaningful communication. 7. teacher’s roles the teacher is the primary source of comprehensible input. he/she must create positive low-anxiety climate. in addition, he/she must choose and orchestrate a rich mixture of classroom activities. he/she performs the teaching in communicative and pleasant activity. 8. roles of materials materials come from realia rather than textbooks. the primary aim is to promote comprehension and communication. thus, the decision to use worksheets that may attract the kindergarten students’ interest is very crucial. another expert who drives the natural approach to second/foreign language acquisition is stephen krashen. he promotes his five hypotheses, they are: english instruction for early-childhood education: a case study at tk riyadul jannah simo boyolali, central java 32 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 1. the acquisition/learning hypothesis. he claims that there are two distinctive ways of developing second language competence: acquisition, using language for “real communication”, and learning--"knowing about" or “formal knowledge” of a language. though learning english for kindergarten students of tk riyadul jannah is a formal one but again the main focus is to meet basic communication wrapped in fun activities. 2. the natural order hypothesis. to this hypothesis, someone acquires the rules of language in a predictable order. it means that english is firstly introduced in familiar words to kindergarten students according to themes such as animals, vegetables, transportation, etc. 3. the monitor hypothesis. the hypothesis confirms that conscious learning can only be used as a monitor or an editor (krashen & terrell 1983) and cannot lead to fluency. 4. the input hypothesis. the hypothesis tells that humans acquire a language in only one way-by understanding messages or by receiving "comprehensible input". 5. the affective filter hypothesis. to this hypothesis, human’s mental block is caused by affective factors that prevents input from reaching the language acquisition device (krashen, 1985, p. 100). piaget (1952) is concerned with how the learner develops understanding. children’s minds are not empty but actively process material. the role of maturation (growing up) and children’s increasing capacity to understand their world in terms of developmental stages is central to his view. 1. children are constrained by their individual stage of intellectual development. they cannot undertake certain tasks until they are psychologically mature enough to do so. 2. there is an emphasis on discovery learning rather than teacher imparted information. win listyaningrum arifin englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 33 3. the readiness to learn, when learners are to progress, is different for each individual. 4. the idea of a linear development through stages has been widely used in the design and scheduling of school curricula. kindergarten education kindergarten children are creative, resourceful and imaginative. we can easily see that they are fascinated with objects all around them. they squeeze, roll, scratch, pinch, taste, throw, pound and chew these objects during play to learn as much as they can about them. during the kindergarten years, the children’s perceptual skills can be sharpened by encouraging them to observe specific aspects of their environment. training in visual discrimination can be done in an enjoyable way through games, for example, jig-saw, picture-matching games, and exercises in grading shapes and objects by size or by color (smith et al., 2003). thus, language teaching, especially english, can be done by integrating game activities and lesson materials in worksheets. here, the teacher demonstrates picture-matching words and asks the students to guess the names of objects. they are also driven to develop an awareness of speech sounds/pronunciation (phonological awareness) that is believed to have an influence on their later ability to read. in relation to this condition, bryant et al. (1990) hypothesized a direct link between sensitivity to sounds and competence in learning to read. take as an example, the teacher shows a picture of a sheep and then the students automatically pronounce “embek” to represent the animal’s voice. then, the teacher agrees to the sound and loudly states that the mentioned animal is sheep. he/she then pronounces “sheep” and write the word on the board. teaching english for kindergarten children in indonesia teaching a foreign language to very young students who have been accustomed to using their first language is not an easy job. this might be because they have been already in a process of understanding both their local and national languages. thus, to experts, children under 11-12 years old have the potential in english instruction for early-childhood education: a case study at tk riyadul jannah simo boyolali, central java 34 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 mastering various knowledge including language acquisition. this period is wellknown as the critical period where actually all input knowledge will be optimally received by those children (soenjono, 2005). teacher might expect children of primary age to acquire much foreign language through play, for example. one of the most common beliefs about age and language learning is that young children learn faster and more effectively than any age group (harmer, 2004). it is certainly true that children who learn a new language early have a facility with the pronunciation which is sometimes denied by older learners. lynne cameron claims that children reproduce the accent of their teachers with deadly accuracy (2003, p. 111). the way of obtaining language complex system to children is partially understood. acquiring and mastering a language in their physical and mental development are an undefined phase. this condition delivers to later question: what is adult contribution to children language development? do children perceive a language through a passive dialogue with parents, siblings, friends, and touches (including gestures) from adults? or are they naturally systemized to learn and to produce language? in relation to passive language, krashen, along with terrell, developed the "input theory," which stresses maximum amounts of passive language or what krashen (1979) refers to as ‘i+1’ (input + 1), language input that is just a little beyond the learner’s current level of comprehension. krashen contends that through context and extra linguistic information, like a mother talking to her child, hence the “natural approach”, learners will climb to the next level and then repeat the process. the message is more important than the form. the input is one way, from the teacher, and learners will participate when ready. in studying the correlation between language acquisition and natural language device of children, especially to kindergarten students, it is a different case. no doubt, parents have already introduced both local and national, even foreign language for some conditions, in very early as means of communication. later, the children acquire the language both first and foreign language formally in schools that is usually delivered the language subject integratively through songs, win listyaningrum arifin englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 35 games, tales, etc. the teacher teaches them counting, spelling, reading, pronouncing, and translating. they are added to general knowledge of animals’ names, colors, days, months, and etc. guided by the teacher. to note, the model of teaching to comprehend a correct structure of communication in cases of aims and meanings needs to be considered (krashen, 1985). it is merely because the outcome will be beneficial and sophisticated. if the students are hoped to correctly master and generalize every mistakes as process, it will influence motivation and attitude of students that may contribute to frustration. it is what is meant by teaching foreign language is not easy. an effective conditioning in order to obtain maximum input is very important. we acquire language in an amazingly simple way – when we understand messages. we have tried everything else – learning grammar rules, memorizing vocabulary, using expensive machinery, forms of group therapy etc. what has escaped us all these years, however, is the one essential ingredient: comprehensible input (krashen, 1985, p. vii). to sum up, there is no best method in teaching a foreign language to students. “…there is, as gebhard et al.(1990:16) argue, no convincing evidence from pedagogic research, including research into second language instruction, that there is any universally or ‘best’ way to teach. although, clearly, particular approaches are likely to prove more effective in certain situations, blanket prescription is difficult to support theoretically. the art of teaching does not lie in accessing a checklist of skills but rather in knowing which approach to adopt with different students, in different curricular circumstances or in different cultural settings” (klapper 2001, p.17). problems in tk riyadul jannah the limited availability and qualification of english teachers life is a fascinating world of activity to a young child a place for doing and discovering and trying out ideas. too often, however, school environments don't encourage children's natural sense of discovery. instead of learning through this most appropriate method play experience and discovery school all too often turns out to be a place where children just sit and listen to the teacher talk most of the english instruction for early-childhood education: a case study at tk riyadul jannah simo boyolali, central java 36 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 time; where children watch the teacher demonstrate things on the blackboard; where the teacher thinks that there is only one correct answer. in this type of school, for the first time in their lives, children may stop learning or find their natural learning processes thwarted (taken from http://www.discoverycenter.co.id/aboutdc.html). thus, language teaching must be taught integratively through games or other pleasure activities in order not to promote fatigue and bored situation. .kindergarten teachers in indonesia are actually not from experts of the field. there are still limited teachers graduated from kindergarten department. thus, playgroup and kindergarten programs in universities are booming as the need of teacher in field arise. in line with english teaching, many teachers are limited in this language competence as they are not from english department. mathematics, social, religious, and many more graduated teachers are now teaching kindergarten students, particularly in private schools. this situation also happened in tk riyadul jannah. as most kindergarten faced a problem in the availability of adequate english teachers to teach children less than 7 years, this school only provided an english teacher while the students were more than 40. most teaching in kindergarten were not from the english department but sometimes tackled the situation to teach english to students. imagine! pronunciation and spelling then became a very big issue here. this teacher pronounced “free” for the word “three”. unfortunately, she repeated the similar pronunciation very often. not surprisingly, she was not from english department but religious studies. the condition would be fine if at least she was from kindergarten department as english subject was also included in the program. she mispronounced many english words that later it would affect the students’ pronunciation in their advanced studies. thus, it will lead to a problematic condition. teaching english to children must be tackled by experts in the field. here, it will be helpful if english subject is taught by a teacher graduating from the english department. to note, some schools are in impoverished areas where the overall income and education levels of the community are low, whereas other schools are located in more affluent communities. the styles, condition, learning process, and the like are win listyaningrum arifin englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 37 also different between rural suburb and urban areas. in terms of the facilities, schools in urban areas are more improved than those in rural suburbs. however, playgroups which are rare in the rural areas are now developing. there are more than five playgroups as an early education in the areas. thus, the needs of stakeholders also arise. however, not all schools are careful in hiring teachers to teach these young students especially for english subject. english nowadays is already taught in kindergarten as the starting point. many teachers are now responsible for teaching children with limited or no english language capacity in classroom in teaching english to students particularly of kindergarten and elementary level (borisch, 2007). this mostly occurs in such non-english speaking countries. the previous situation, as my own experience, is still happening. they are not well-trained yet as their backgrounds are varied. schools only try to find teachers who have willingness to teach children and who have self-affection to children. again, this is not enough. there are many issues to consider in order to educate children and produce qualified outcomes. promoting an effective learning will only be done by teachers who are really qualified in the field which in line with their educational background. one aspect of an effective learning climate is the physical or visual arrangement of the classroom. this arrangement is a matter of choice that can be altered to create just the right climate for the learning objectives (borisch, 2007). talking about a good or an effective teacher, it is a necessary not to be taken to granted. borisch (2007) defines an effective teacher as a model who not only fulfills the needs of the society, parents, but students as well. a teacher should show a good attitude in the society and manner in the classroom and in the school. he/she should have a commitment to be honest, polite, discipline, optimistic, and he/she must be a hard worker. the criteria show the quality of a teacher in demonstrating and dedicating his/her knowledge at school. teacher’s experience based on his/her education qualification, the length of teaching, character, and used methods in teaching becomes the bar of the teaching success in the classroom (goldhaber & anthony, 2003). the success level of english instruction for early-childhood education: a case study at tk riyadul jannah simo boyolali, central java 38 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 teaching and learning inspired from a teacher’s qualification can be measured by tests such as professional test, scholastic and many others. personality of a teacher is also crucial factor. borisch (2007) states that personality is the integration of one’s traits, motives, beliefs, and abilities, including emotional responses, character, and even values. personality, to levis (1987), is a skill in bridging a cohesive nature of teaching that shows attitude, manner, emotion, and even close relationship between pupils and teacher. the attitude may show teaching activities done neatly toward the material and the classroom (clark & peterson, 1986; kagan & tippins, 1992). good teaching attitude may give contribution to students’ motivation improvement taught by a teacher. the need of a good curriculum the age of students is a major factor about how and what to teach. this is influenced by a consideration that different ages have different needs, competences, and cognitive skills. for kindergarten students, they may acquire much of foreign language through play. the words are mostly concrete words such as animals, cars, fruit, clothes, etc. the words are taught in a sequent manner which do not burden the children’ thought. to add, the words introduced to these students will be a capital to love english and to continue advanced studies in elementary to university level. in teaching, preparing lesson plan is very important. in other words, lesson plan is a mean of idea about what will be appropriate and what is expected. using worksheets in teaching is only a part of implementing syllabus and lesson plan. each institution might have consideration in using such worksheets. it is important to note, the worksheets should not contain hard material for kindergarten students. the teacher sometimes disobeyed the lesson plan sequence as being noted in curriculum planned by institution. it was obviously appear when they got confused about the order. take for an example, they did not greet students but they deliberately passed on the worksheets. package to teach kindergarten students should be attractive and fun. in summary, the institution need to re-plan the syllabus design. if it is necessary, teachers should be trained about syllabus and the like. again, teaching win listyaningrum arifin englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 39 english for kindergarten students is to meet communicative goals. if the stakeholders in the institution find problem on what should be done, the students will suffer more. the institution, first of all, need to have environmental and need analysis to figure out problems in teaching. the organizational management as a private school owned by one of the greatest social organization in indonesia, tk riyadul jannah was firstly founded to answer the need of kindergarten school for people in simo, especially for the member of this organization. the location is far from the main road and is very representative to deliver knowledge and information for the school members. it gradually becomes a favorite place for pre-elementary children to study. moreover, the numbers of students are improving year by year. this kindergarten used to be only for students whose ages were 3-6 years old. nowadays, this school also receives children from 6 months. these children are regarded as playgroup students. there used to be only two teachers who taught class a (3-5 years old) and class b (5-6 years old) and a headmaster. however, there are now more than ten teachers in that school. unfortunately, this school institution is not careful in hiring the teachers who will be responsible in delivering the knowledge to the students. there are no teachers whose qualifications are from kindergarten department, even the headmaster. two of them graduated from senior high schools whose jobs are babysitting children from 6 months to 2 years old. if there are teachers who do not understand the curriculum or ways in teaching, then this condition is normal as they do not have any competence in doing so. it is totally a big problem when a kindergarten school is founded to meet only financial aim for the teachers. on one hand, many kindergartens give benefit for busy parents by putting their children there. on the other hand, the hiring process to seek qualified teachers is far from being called ideal. in relation to english instruction in this institution, parents should hand in hand with the institution if they find that there is something wrong with the english teaching. the institution should also provide facilities in the english teaching learning process by providing realia, for instance. the facilities can be used also for other subjects beside english. english instruction for early-childhood education: a case study at tk riyadul jannah simo boyolali, central java 40 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 conclusion english as a foreign language must be taught naturally and communicatively. teaching foreign language to very young students who have been accustomed to the use of first language is certainly a challenging job. it is believed that there is no best method in teaching subjects, particularly in english for example. nonetheless, there are many strategies used in delivering english to students who are from nonenglish speaking countries e.g. indonesia. but, english is better taught to indonesia’s children in early age to meet native-likeness. teacher might expect children of primary age to acquire much a foreign language through play. this method is used in order to internalize foreign language to young children competence that will be beneficial in the future. however, many considerations should be taken into account. readiness level of both teacher and students; good shapes of teacher in terms of personality, experience, and attitude; and environmental conditions may lead to the success of delivering english to children in general and kindergarten students in particular. teachers’ performance on the language being taught is also a way to ascertain their qualification. references bandura, a. (1971). an analysis of modelling process. in bandura, a. (ed.) psychological modelling. new york: lieber-atherton. borisch, gary d. (2007). effective teaching methods: research-based practice (6th ed.). ohio, usa: merill prentice hall. bryant, p.e., maclean, m., & bradley, l. (1990). rhyme, language, and children’s reading. applied psycholinguistics, 11, 3, 237-52. cabello, b., & terrel, r. (1994). making students feel like family: how teachers create warm and caring classroom climates. journal of classroom interaction, 29, 17-23. cameron, l. (2003). challenges for elt from the expansion in teaching children. elt journal 57/2. clark, c. & peterson, p. (1986). teachers’ thoughts process. dardjowidjojo, soenjono. (2005). psikolinguistik: pengantar pemahaman bahasa manusia (edisi kedua). jakarta: yayasan obor indonesia. gebhard, j.g., s. gaitan & r. oprandy. (1990). beyond prescription: the student teacher as investigator. in richards, jack c and nunan, d. (eds). second language teacher education. cambridge: cambridge university press win listyaningrum arifin englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 41 good, t., & brophy, j. (2003). contemporary educational psychology (5th ed.). new york: longman. goldhaber, d., & anthony, e. (2003). indicators of teacher quality. new york: eric clearing house on urban education. harmer, j. (2004). the practice of english language teaching. cambridge, uk: longman. kagan, d., & tippins, d. (1992). the evolution of functional lesson plans among twelve elementary and secondary student teachers. elementary school journal, 92 (4), 447-489. klapper, j. (ed). (2001). teaching languages in higher education. london: cilt. krashen, s. (1982). principles and practice in second language learning and acquisition. oxford: pergamon krashen, s. & terrell, t.d. (1983). the natural approach. oxford: pergamon kuh, g., kinzie, j., smith, j., & whitt, e. (2005). assessing condition to enhance educational effectiveness: the inventory for students engagement and success. san francisco, ny: merrill prentice hall levis, d. s. (1987). teachers personality. in m.j. dunkin (ed.), encyclopedia of teaching and teacher education (pp. 585-588). new york: pergamon. skinner, b.f. (1953). science and human behavior. upper saddle river, nj: merrill prentice hall. smith, p.k., cowie, h., & blades, m. (2003). understanding children’s development. uk: blackwell publishing englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2023. vol. 10, no.2, 243-254 online english speaking instruction in junior high schools: readiness and obstacles syafryadin*1, santiana2 1universitas bengkulu, indonesia 2universitas siliwangi, indonesia manuscript received september 17, 2022, revised december 13, 2022, accepted december 29, 2022, and published online may 7, 2023. recommended apa citation syafryadin, s., & santiana, s. (2023). online english speaking instruction in junior high schools: readiness and obstacles. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(2), 243-254. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.15043 abstract in the midst of a pandemic, teaching speaking online becomes one of the challenges. this study investigates whether or not english teachers were prepared to teach speaking virtually. consequently, the purpose of this study was to determine the english teachers' readiness and obstacles to teaching speaking online during the pandemic covid-19. the researchers utilized mixed research methods to conduct this study. the information was gathered via questionnaires and interviews. the experts have tested and validated these instruments. the data were then quantitatively and qualitatively analyzed. quantitative data were analyzed with the aid of spss statistical calculations. in contrast, qualitative data were analyzed using multiple steps, including data reduction, data presentation, and conclusion. the results indicated that the majority of english teachers were prepared to implement online speaking instruction during a pandemic, despite the fact that some teachers were not quite prepared due to several obstacles. as for the challenges encountered by english teachers, there were online speaking assessments, poor connections, low interaction, and a lack of learning devices. shortly, english teachers prepared to teach online speaking to students in order to improve the students' speaking ability, despite the emergence of certain obstacles. keywords: teaching speaking online; teachers’ readiness; teaching obstacles *corresponding author: syafryadin universitas bengkulu jl. wr. supratman, kandang limun, kec. muara bangka hulu, sumatera, bengkulu 38371, indonesia email: syafryadin@unib.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.15 online english speaking instruction in junior high schools: readiness and obstacles 244 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 1. introduction online learning is part of integrated technology in the educational environment that has not been separated over time (sharpe & benfield, 2005). indonesian government determines information, communication, and technology (ict) must be integrated into the teaching and learning process. moreover, the government of indonesia states that technology is a part of curriculum development for all education levels for the teaching and learning process in indonesia. this regulation is written in the act of national education system no 20 the year 2003, specifically in chapter x, article 36 which states the curriculum must be appropriate for the level of education in terms of science, technology, and the arts. it can be stated that the development of the indonesian curriculum must take into account technological advancements for all levels of education and all topics, including english instruction. where, during a pandemic, online learning in speaking and other skills needed to be implemented in the teaching and learning process because speaking is one of the important skills (goh & burns, 2012). this is based on the mandate of the ministry of education and culture circular number 4 of 2020 on the implementation of education in the emergency period of the covid-19 pandemic which is then strengthened by circular number 15 of 2020 on guidelines for the implementation of learning from home in the emergency of the spread of covid-19. in relation to this pandemic, the readiness of english teachers, especially in speaking skills is questioned because several teachers faced several obstacles during this implementation of online learning. waryanto and setyaningrum (2020) stated that learning readiness in online learning is one of the considerations for making teaching and learning successful. in relation to this condition, the researchers also observed and interviewed several english teachers in bengkulu city. the result of this interview showed that all schools have implemented online learning in teaching english, especially in speaking. however, they faced several problems, such as some teachers did not how to use online learning platforms. some teachers had problems with the internet connection. some schools were not facilitated with online learning systems. they were also difficult to increase the participation of the students in the online teaching and learning process because speaking needs participation or interaction in the online classroom. furthermore, several studies had analyzed teachers’ readiness and obstacles in teaching and learning english, but it is not specific to teaching speaking online. huang, et al. (2020) found obstacles in teaching and learning english during a pandemic, such as time consumption for preparing material and poor interaction during online learning. then, qismullah and zuraini (2016) and magdalena (2021) investigated the challenges in teaching speaking to efl learners. it happened to the teachers and learners during the implementation of online speaking classes. it showed that online speaking classes affects students’ speaking ability. yuzulia (2021) also found the obstacles to teaching online. the obstacles were lack of motivation, poor connection, being easily distracted, and being stressed. then, another study by thamarana (2018) only focused on the prospect and possibilities of teaching speaking online. he found that the prospect and possibilities syafryadin & santiana englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 245 depended on the teachers’ readiness in teaching online speaking. besides, the inadequate skills for being creative and active in teaching speaking were needed by the teacher. besides, the use of technology became one of the challenges in teaching speaking online to ensure the performance of english teachers in online speaking classes (sholihah, 2020). another study was conducted by churiyah, sholikhan, fiilianti, and sakdiyah (2020), sidqi (2020), and ngoc-phan and thao-dang (2017) who researched on the readiness of online learning, but it is too general for all subjects, not specific of speaking skill in english. they found that several teachers were ready and some were not ready to implement online learning. tiara and pratiwi (2020) found that teachers’ readiness for online learning was essential to be measured because it will have an impact on teachers’ and students’ abilities. based on the pre-observation and previous studies, the researchers needed to conduct research on teachers’ readiness and the teachers’ obstacles in teaching speaking online. it is because readiness is important to make sure the teachers’ ability to handle online speaking classes, in general, and anticipate the obstacles that happened during the implementation of the online speaking classes. the present study was also different from the previous studies because most previous studies just focused on teaching and learning english in general, not focus on online speaking classes. the objectives of this research were to find out the readiness and obstacles of english teachers during online teaching and learning speaking. 2. literature review 2.1. readiness of teachers to teach online saputri (2017), rollnick, mason, and butler (2010), and koo (2008) stated that teacher readiness in teaching online refers to the activities of teachers formulating learning objectives (formulating learning plans), implementing learning processes and learning assessments, and all of them are implemented online importance (attitude, readiness, confidence (ability) and knowledge. in terms of knowledge readiness, knowledge is a collection of facts, concepts, procedures, and metacognitive connected to ict challenges that can be used to create online learning programs. understanding basic computer operations, being able to use online collaboration tools (such as wa, email, google drive, dropbox), being able to create and edit videos, being able to access help desks/online resources for help, and being able to share open educational resources (e.g., learning websites, web resources, games, and simulations) are all part of this readiness. then, in terms of attitude readiness, the teacher's attitude is their reaction to the demands of online learning, which may include: (1) enjoying working on the demands of teaching online; (2) trying new things for more interesting online learning media; (3) being challenged to create media/tools/materials online despite the difficulty of doing so; and (4) using a variety of learning resources to develop materials online. next, in terms of ability readiness. the teacher's belief in his ability to use information and communication technology in learning which includes activities to (1) create an online online english speaking instruction in junior high schools: readiness and obstacles 246 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 learning orientation; (2) explain the objectives of online learning that can be measured; (3) design online learning that allows students to discuss; (4) create instructional videos; (5) have the ability to develop online quizzes and assessments; and (6) capable of managing wealth on the internet. 2.2. readiness factors emotional attitudinal readiness, cognitive readiness, and behavioral readiness are the three components of readiness. the first aspect is emotional preparedness, which is defined as the ability to accomplish a job, passion for a job, willingness to adapt to a job at any time, comfort and independence in performing duties, and reward for intrinsic value in a job. cognitive readiness is defined as having the cognitive skill and the ability to think critically about a job, being aware of one's own strengths and weaknesses, having established a link between the job done and real-world applications, being aware of one's own willingness to perform a job, and being capable of integrating concepts and instruments from various scientific disciplines. behavioral readiness includes the willingness to work in collaboration with coworkers and facilitators, as well as the ability to create goals and stick to them when performing these tasks (maddox, forte, & boozer, 2013). 2.3. obstacles in speaking online instruction teachers faced obstacles in teaching english speaking during a pandemic. those were facilities, internet connection, and lack of ict competence. apriani, et al. (2021) stated that some problems faced by english teachers were discipline, connection, and the materials. in this case, students sometimes were not attending on time in online speaking class. besides, most students and teachers had problems in terms of internet networks. their area did not have a good signal to connect to online platforms for learning to speak. furthermore, the teachers were difficult to upload materials and used online materials for speaking. 3. method 3.1. research design this research employed descriptive quantitative sequential mixed-method to gather the data with two phases (creswell, 2014). the first part involved creating a survey to collect and analyze quantitative data. the second step builds on the first by collecting and analyzing qualitative data through interviews. additionally, using a sequential explanatory design allows the researchers to explain and interpret the quantitative results by gathering additional quantitative data. this sequence would also be handy for delving deeper into any unexpected survey responses. the purpose of the survey was to provide a numerical description of the research participants' trends, readiness, and opinions. in this study, a survey approach will be used to identify and assess english teachers' readiness. syafryadin & santiana englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 247 3.2. population and sample the participants in this study were 48 english teachers from bengkulu city senior high school. this study used 48 english teachers as a sample. it signifies that the researchers sampled the entire population. as a result, comprehensive sampling was used to conduct this study. those english teachers ranged in age from 4 to 15 years of experience in the classroom. furthermore, their educational background was a bachelor's degree in english education, with 20 teachers having completed a master's degree. during the interview, the researchers opted for five teachers from the sample to speak with. the teacher made their selections with care, taking into account their prior expertise in english education. furthermore, they have prior experience teaching and learning online, either as a teacher or as a certified instructor, and so have a better understanding of the readiness in the teaching and learning process. 3.3. data collection to collect the data, the researchers used questionnaires to answer the research question regarding english teacher readiness in teaching speaking online. the indicators of questionnaires comprised emotive readiness, cognitive, and behavioral. the subindicators for cognitive are responsibility, enthusiasm, adaptation, comfort, and intrinsic values, while cognitive readiness involved critical thinking, awareness of strengths and weaknesses, and contextual. then, behavioral readiness comprised of partnership and time. the questionnaire was distributed to 48 english teachers via a google form. however, the questionnaire has been validated by experts and tried out by some teachers. then, to answer the research questions regarding problems faced by english teachers in teaching speaking online, the researchers used semi-structured interviews. the interview guideline was based on the indicators, such as knowledge, finances, network, media, and teacher and learners. the researchers interviewed 6 teachers as representatives. 3.4. data analysis the data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. quantitatively, the data were analyzed by using a simple calculation to find out the mean of the percentage from the questionnaire. then, to know the validity and reliability, the researchers applied spss to count them. qualitatively, the data were analyzed by using miles, huberman, and saldana’s (2014) data analysis approach. those were data collection, data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing. in this part, after collecting data from interviews, the data were reduced by the researchers based on the need to answer the second research question about the problems faced by english teachers. then, the researchers displayed the data in terms of the text and proves them by writing the part of the transcript of the interview. last, the conclusion was drawn by the researchers to know the final problems encountered by english teachers in teaching speaking online during the pandemic. online english speaking instruction in junior high schools: readiness and obstacles 248 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 4. findings the researchers distributed questionnaires to 48 english teachers to know their readiness in teaching speaking virtually. the result can be seen in table 1. table 1 the questionnaire result of teachers’ readiness in teaching speaking online. no statements sa a d sd 1 i teach online speaking english based on the curriculum 22.6% 71% 6.5% 0% 2 i have adequate english ability in teaching online speaking 19.4% 80.6% 0% 0% 3 i am enthusiastic to teach english speaking online based on the schedule 74.2% 25.8% 0% 0% 4 i like doing interaction with students during online speaking class, so the students are comfortable 48.4% 48.4% 3.2% 0% 5 i adjust communication strategy with a simple, short and clear strategy in online speaking class 64.5% 35.5% 0% 0% 6 i give clear online speaking material based on the students’ character 64.5% 32.5% 3.2% 0% 7 i follow and know the development of students in order to be easy in delivering online speaking material. 80.6% 19.4% 0% 0% 8 i make a lesson plan by imitating other teachers for an online class. 3.2% 35.5% 45.2% 16.1% 9 i find out by myself the additional material for online speaking 83.9% 16.1% 0% 0% 10 i used easy method for teaching online speaking 6.5% 93.5% 0% 0% 11 i am happy to get the critics and suggestion for my online teaching speaking 64.5% 35.5% 0% 0% 12 i use several ways and media to teach english speaking online to attract students’ interest and motivation 16.1% 74.4% 6.5% 0% 13 i evaluate students’ english speaking online 19.4% 80.6% 0% 0% 14 i answer students’ question with easy explanation 22.6% 77.4% 0% 0% 15 i formulate the problem in teaching speaking online and then it is easy to be solved 6.5% 90.3% 3.2% 0% 16 i use english when speaking to students during online class 12.9% 77.4% 9.7% 0% 17 i use mother tongue to give instruction to the students during online speaking class 32.3% 51.6% 16.1% 0% 18 one of methods that i use during online speaking class is total physical respond 6.5% 80.6% 12.9% 0% 19 i used song to teach speaking online 9.7% 77.4% 12.9% 0% 20 i asked the students to listen what i speak and asked them to imitate 32.3% 67.7% 0% 0% 21 i have strong intention to teach online speaking class 12.9% 80.6% 6.5% 0% 22 i want to be good role model for my students during online speaking class 38.7% 61.3% 0% 0% 23 i end my online speaking class based on the schedule 38.7% 61.3% 0% 0% mean scores 33.95% 59.75% 5,4% 0.7% table 1 shows that majority english teachers strongly agree and agree about those statements that showed their readiness in teaching speaking online. it is proved by looking at the mean scores namely 33.95% of teachers choose strongly agree and 59.75% agree, but 5.4% disagree and 0.7% strongly disagree. in detail, most english teachers chose all items for strongly agree and agree. however, several teachers chose statements 1, 4, 8, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 21. in item 1, four teachers chose 6.5% for disagree because some teachers did not teach speaking online based on the curriculum. in item 4, only two teachers opted to disagree (3.2%) because they did not like doing interaction during speaking online classes. in item 8, 20 english teachers (45%) chose to disagree because they made lesson plans without imitating other teachers’ lesson plans. for item 15, two syafryadin & santiana englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 249 teachers disagree (3.2%) because they did not expect the problem to happen, and not easy to solve the problem during the online speaking class. for item 16, 9.7% of english teachers disagree because some teachers did not use english in teaching online speaking. for item 17, 16.1% disagree about it because some teachers used their mother tongue to teach online speaking in the class. in item 18, 12.9% of teachers disagree because some teachers did not use tpr in teaching speaking online during the pandemic. for item 19, 12.9% opted to disagree because some teachers did not use songs to teach speaking online. for item 21, only 6.5% of english teachers chose to disagree because some teachers did not focus on teaching online speaking. in addition, only for item 8, some teachers (16.1%) chose strongly disagree because they never imitate other teachers to make online lesson plans for speaking. in short, based on the result of the questionnaire, the majority of english teachers in bengkulu were ready to teach online speaking during the pandemic. 4.1. obstacles faced by english teachers in teaching online speaking researchers interviewed six english teachers who had obstacles in teaching speaking virtually. the interview results can be seen in table 2. table 2 obstacles in teaching online. researchers teacher 1 teacher 2 teacher 3 teacher 4 teacher 5 teacher 6 what is your obstacle in teaching online speaking during this pandemic? i think my problem when i want to assess my students’ speaking virtually because i am difficult to give them feedback to be honest, i am getting trouble giving marks for speaking virtually because it needs more time, and sometimes their voices are unclear actually, the connection of my students was unstable during teaching and learning to speak online hmm…i have a problem assessing their pronunciation. besides, my students were not usually learning to speak virtually. i am difficult to trigger interaction during teaching and learning speaking online. several students did not have mobile phones or laptops. besides, several students were not active in the online classes. regarding the result of the interview, there were three main obstacles in teaching and learning speaking online. those were difficult online speaking assessments, unstable connections, poor learning devices, and a lack of online interaction. first, several teachers had problems in terms of assessment. the english teachers were not easy to do online speaking for speaking classes. it is proved by the statements of teachers 1, 2, and 4, “i think my problem when i want to assess my students’ speaking virtually.., i am getting trouble with giving mark for speaking.., i have a problem in assessing their pronunciation”. this problem occurred because the teachers did not know how to do online speaking assessments and need more time. second, the teacher had a bad connection in teaching online speaking, as teacher 3 says, “connection of my students was unstable”. online english speaking instruction in junior high schools: readiness and obstacles 250 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 the second problem happens to the students because some students were in a place in which having an unstable network. the third problem was online interaction. in this part, the english teachers did not have easy to do online interaction with the students, as teacher 5 said, “i am difficult to trigger the interaction during teaching and learning speaking online. it happens because the english teachers and students were not usual to do interaction virtually. then, teacher 6 said that some students did not participate in the online speaking class. the fourth problem was in available learning devices. some students did not have a mobile phone, laptop, or computer. it was because they did not have money to buy it. as teacher 6 said, “students did not have mobile phones or laptops”. 5. discussion regarding the research objectives of this study, the two main discussions of this research are teachers’ readiness of teaching speaking online and the obstacles to english teachers. first, based on the questionnaire result, the majority of english teachers were ready to teach speaking online. they were ready in terms of emotive attitudinal, cognitive readiness, and behavioral readiness. in emotive attitudinal, the english teachers were responsible in doing their task, independent in doing their task, willing to adapt, making students comfortable, and having good enthusiasm about teaching speaking online. in the questionnaire, it can be seen in statements 1 (i teach online speaking english based on the curriculum), statement 3 (i am enthusiastic to teach english speaking online based on the schedule), statement 4 (i like doing interaction with students during online speaking class, so the students are comfortable), and statement 5 (i adjust communication strategy with a simple, short and clear strategy in online speaking class) and statement 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12. in emotive attitudinal readiness, most english teachers chose strongly agree and agree with those statements because they think that they could be ready in terms of emotion in teaching speaking online. in terms of cognitive readiness, teachers would have a good ability in thinking critically, use methods, evaluate, and comprehend the materials. in the questionnaire, for instance, it can be seen in statement 2 (i have adequate english ability in teaching online speaking), statement 6 (i give clear online speaking material based on the students’ character), statement 7 (i follow and know the development of students in order to be easy in delivering online speaking material), statement 13 (i evaluate students’ english speaking online), statement 14 (i answer students’ question with easy explanation), and statement 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. in cognitive readiness, most english teachers choose to agree and disagree about those statements. it means that they were able to teach online speaking with their cognitive readiness. however, several english teachers did not agree about statements 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 21 because some teachers cannot use english during speaking online classes. besides, some teachers used their mother tongue in teaching online speaking. then, some teachers did not use songs and total physical response in teaching speaking and cannot solve the problems of speaking in speaking class. in terms of behavioral readiness, all english teachers opted to agree and strongly agree because they stopped syafryadin & santiana englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 251 teaching online speaking classes based on the time that has been given. this can be seen in statement 23, i end my online speaking class based on the schedule. it means that they finished their teaching on time. the first finding of this research is in accordance with the theory from maddox (2000) who told about the readiness of the teacher whether in teaching offline or online. the teacher can be ready in teaching if they have fulfilled the readiness of emotive, cognitive, and behavioral. this readiness is very important to support the english teacher in achieving their goals of teaching speaking online. however, this finding is not in line with sihmachalam (2018) who found that the teachers seemed not ready in teaching speaking online because of a technical problem. they saw that the majority of teachers in a certain area could apply online applications in teaching speaking online. ali, et al. (2012) stated that the application of technology needs to be explored in teaching speaking online and english teachers need to be ready in using it. in contrast, afolabi (2015) found that several students and teachers were not ready to do online learning because they do not have the inadequate ability in operating the applications of technology during online learning all skills. the second finding showed several obstacles that english teachers faced during the implementation of speaking online classes. those obstacles were online speaking assessment, unstable connection, learning devices, and low interaction. in online speaking assessment, several english teachers were hard to assess students virtually because they did not know the steps of doing it. besides, they were not usual to do online evaluations for speaking classes. in terms of connectivity, the teachers complained that some students did not have a good connection in learning online speaking because their location did not support the connection. it was the same for the teachers, some teachers also experienced poor connection in teaching online speaking. this affects the process of teaching and learning speaking online. in terms of learning devices, several students did not have mobile phones, laptops, or computers as devices for learning speaking online. this influences their achievement in speaking. the last is the low interaction problem. in online speaking classes, some teachers thought that the interaction for speaking class was not optimum because several obstacles happened during the implementation of speaking online classes. the interaction between teacher and students and students and students was not maximum. some students were not active in the online speaking class. this finding was different from the previous studies, qismullah and zuraini (2016) and mulyadi (2018) faced challenges in teaching speaking online, but the result showed that technology was a problem in teaching. it meant that the technology cannot be used by several teachers in teaching speaking online. apriani, et al. (2021) also found almost similar findings to this study, where they found that some problems were discipline, connection, and materials. besides, mattarima and hamdan (2011), and okinda (2014) found that several obstacles for teachers to teach speaking online were inappropriate online assessment and classroom management. in addition, louwrens and hartnett (2015), mahajan and kalpana (2018), sari, pramesti, online english speaking instruction in junior high schools: readiness and obstacles 252 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 and kusuma (2020), and rahayu (2020) showed several students and teachers gave negative responses on online teaching learning because the interaction of students was not maximum and effects on their understanding of the english materials. 6. conclusion based on the findings of this study, it can be concluded that majority english teachers in bengkulu city were ready to teach speaking online, even though some teachers needed to prepare several things before teaching english speaking. furthermore, several teachers faced a few obstacles in teaching online speaking during the pandemic covid 19 namely online assessment, poor connection, low interaction, and unavailable learning devices. this can be a suggestion for english teachers to be more ready in teaching online speaking. then, several english teachers must anticipate those obstacles by asking for help from other teachers who have more knowledge regarding online speaking assessment. the english teachers needed to create a good online atmosphere to increase the participation of students in online speaking classes. it is the same for poor connection and unavailability of learning devices should be anticipated by english teachers. references afolabi, a. a. 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(2021). the challenges of online learning during pandemic: students’ voices. wanastra: jurnal bahasa dan sastra, 13(1), 8-12. https://doi.org/10.35568/naturalistic.v5i1.977 https://eprints.uny.ac.id/24344/1/e-76.pdf englisia november 2017 vol. 5, no. 1, 8-16 maintaining the identity of bilingual individuals in multicultural/multilingual settings ika kana trisnawati universitas muhammadiyah aceh, banda aceh, indonesia ika.arraniry@gmail.com abstract this paper discusses the ways bilingual people are able to maintain their identity within any multicultural and multilingual environment. as today’s societies have shown to have more people with varied language/cultural backgrounds, it is interesting to learn how the bilinguals understand and identify themselves despite living in a totally different environment. data in this paper came from a number of multicultural/multilingual settings for comparison purposes. findings showed that there have been three major factors contributing to maintain the bilinguals’ identity in a diverse environment including language, family, and peer interaction. keywords: bilingual; identity; multicultural/multilingual settings introduction our world nowadays has developed more and more multicultural and multilingual settings. common causes for these trends are globalisation, migration, refugee, geographical and social mobility and also the spread of education from around the world (hamers & blanc, 2004). according to warttman (2005 in rivers, 2008), the number of people living outside their country of origin has doubled, increasing up to 191 million over the past 50 years. further, these multicultural and multilingual settings have resulted in the emergence of bilingual (and multilingual) ika kana trisnawati englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 | 9 individuals. the emergence of bilinguals is not an unexpected phenomenon since diverse languages of people from different places come into contact within multicultural and multilingual settings. with the process of assimilation, people living outside their home countries try to blend and socialize with natives of the new country. one of their efforts to assimilate is through the language of the new country. as a means of communication, language is seen as an act to show one’s identity (le page & tabouret-keller, 1985 as cited in wei, 2005). the use of language to refer one’s identity is because speakers of different languages are in contact in one environment, creating a unique society, and that they have the need to identify themselves from others who are not (or do not share) similar attributes with them (e. g. culture, ethnic). in relation to above discussion, this study, however, only focuses on the issue of how individuals with the ability to speak in both the language of their ancestry and the language of the new place (or bilingual) maintain their identity in multicultural/multilingual settings. as danièle juteau (1994 as cited in gérin-lajoie, 2005, p. 903) has stated that“... although minorities share common characteristics, namely the way they relate to the majority group, it would be a mistake to ignore the existence of categories specific to minorities, highlighting the diversity and specificity of hierarchical social modes that pertain to these groups.” in particular, it is interesting to see what efforts that these bilingual have in order to stand with their own identity in a place where national/cultural borders are rather blurry and susceptible to changes (rosenthal & cichello, 1986) due to the process of assimilation of a large number of speakers of different languages. problem and its context the main issue being the concern of this study is related to how bilingual (or multilinguals) individuals maintain their cultural/ethnic identity in the multicultural/multilingual settings. supporting evidence for this study is gathered from various relevant multicultural/multilingual contexts.thus, the context of this study is not limited to one particular country/setting, but it covers other similar settings which have multicultural/multilingual societies (e. g. the united states, canada, australia). it is understood that different societies will have different policies maintaining the identity of bilingual individuals in multicultural/multilingual settings 10 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 or considerations for bilingual/multilingual cases; however, the issue of maintaining identity of bilinguals living in multicultural/multilingual environments will have more or less similar answers regardless how different those societies are. literature reviews theories of social, cultural and ethnic identity although the term “identity” may be a simple word, it nevertheless involves a very complex understanding before an individual may refer him/herself to “what” or “which”identity. hamers and blanc (2004, p. 200) refers the concept of identity to “the psychological processes involved in the construction of the self with regard to group membership.” this concept is highly related to popular social identity notion developed by tajfel (1974) which is defined as “a part of an individual’s selfconcept which derives from his knowledge of his membership of a social group (or groups) together with the emotional significance attached to that membership” (p. 69). according to tajfel (1974), identity is associated with group membership where an individual wants his/her image to be represented in. further, tajfel (1974) mentions that an individual may choose to remain if the groups are able to offer him/her positive effects or to leave if the social groups do not satisfy his/her positive views. however, leaving the groups may not be possible for some reasons; therefore, an individual should change interpretations of what he/she views as unsatisfactory in the groups more positively or accept it as it is and engage in social situations for getting more desirable outcomes of the groups. tajfel’s (1974) descriptions of individuals’ self-identification are similar to what le page (1968, as cited in hamers & blanc, 2004) has stated, that the individual’s behaviour is based on the characteristics of the group where he/she prefers to be identified with. in addition, le page explains that this individual’s awareness is able to allow him/her to the extent that “(a) he can identify the groups, (b) he has adequate access to the groups and the ability to analyse their behavioural patterns; (c) his motivation to join the groups is sufficiently powerful and is either reinforced or reversed by feedback from the groups; and (d) he has the ability to modify his behaviour” (p. 201). ika kana trisnawati englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 | 11 a particular point can be made in terms of social identity and culture that, according to hamers and blanc (2004), the existence of social identity in the same society can help the individual to define him/herself “in relation to the roles and social groups in that society”; however, the individual will only be aware of his/her own cultural identity “to the extent that one becomes cognisant of the existence of other cultures inside or outside one’s own society” (p. 201). this cultural identity is a part of social identity consisting of diverse characteristics which includes, and not limited to, ancestry, territoriality, institutions, values, norms and languages. a close concept to cultural identity is ethnic identity. however, ethnic identity specifically refers to physiognomic features or common ancestry (hamers & blanc, 2004). ethnic identity is also a part of social identity and by definition, it can be said as “a subjective sense of belonging to an ethnic group and the feelings and attitudes that accompany this sense of group membership” (phinney, 1990 as cited in phinney, romero, nava & huang, 2001, p. 136). this attribution of ethnicity also plays a significant role for the individual’s self-concept of identity. for a clearer description, giles and johnson (1981 in hamers & blanc, 2004) depict that when individuals state that they belong to ethnic group a rather than b, it means that they want to be treated as a people not b, want that others interpret and judge their behaviours as a’s not b’s, and that they share systems of symbols and meaning, norms and rules, which are normatively associated with the community a. language and identity the relationship of language and an individual’s identity has been described by giles and johnson’s (1981) in their ethnolinguistic theory. still related to tajfel’s (1974) social identity theory, giles and johnson (1981, as cited in hansen & liu, 1997) propose the ethnolinguistic identity theory which claims that language is the prominent marker of group membership and social identity of an individual. in other words, the theory states that it is through language that cultural and ethnic identity can be identified. in addition, hamers and blanc (2004) provide two examples which use language as the core value in determining individuals’ cultural identity such as the flemings in belgium and the quebecois in canada, who had their national identity exclusively based on their linguistic rights. maintaining the identity of bilingual individuals in multicultural/multilingual settings 12 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 however, as language becomes an important marker for group membership, giles and johnson (1981) argue that the individual could have “linguistic adaptations that may result in subtractive bilingualism or even language erosion if a large number of members of a particular group assimilate into another to achieve a more positive group identity” (in hansen & liu, 1997, p. 568). this impact can easily be seen in situations where various cultures come into contact, like multicultural societies. however, as stated by hamers and blanc (2004, p. 203), the significance of language for determining identity should not be viewed as a static phenomenon and that it is flexible to the context where the identity is expressed. mostly, language is used as a group identity when there are intercultural and interethnic interactions. in these settings, giles and coupland (1991) mention four reasons for the salience of language consisting of “an attribute of group membership, a cue for ethnic categorisation, an emotional dimension of identity and a means of in group cohesion” (as cited in hamers and blanc, 2004, p. 204). being bilingual taking into account the role of language for defining an individual’s identity, it may not be difficult to consider oneself as a member of ethnic group a if he/she has the ability to speak language a if monolingual. examples of language as the core feature for a group’s identity has been shown like the flemings in belgium and the quebecois in canada (hamers & blanc, 2004). but, it will be different for individuals who have the ability to speak more than one language or those who are bilinguals. to which group should those individuals refer themselves to have been a concern faced by many bilingual individuals. the term “bilingual” used in this context is also used to refer to “multilinguals” although primarily, being bilingual is to describe an individual “with the possession of two languages” (wei, 2005, p. 6). being bilingual can also be understood from bloomfield’s (1933 in mackey, 2005, p. 22) notion of bilingualism which is to have “the native-like control of two languages.” however, this definition can be extended to having three, four and more languages in varying degree of proficiency as a multilingual (wei, 2005). a broader concept for bilingualism is proposed by haugen (1953) who stated that being a bilingual is being able to ika kana trisnawati englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 | 13 produce “complete meaningful utterances in the other language” (as cited in mackey, 2005, p. 22). then, diebold (1961) includes simple“passive-knowledge”of the written language or any “contact with possible models in a second language and the ability to use these in the environment of the native language” (as cited in mackey, 2005, p. 22). these varied definitions show that there is no definite notion of how to consider any individual as bilingual. mackey (1956, as cited in mackey, 2005) states that the concept of bilingualism is relative. this consideration is because bilingualism relates to the “degree” which an individual shows his/her proficiency in using the languages, to the “function” where he/she uses the languages to, to the “alternation” which shows how he/she changes from one language to another, and to the “interference” which shows his/her ability to control the languages he/she is using (p. 23). solutions and recommendation one of the important contributors in maintaining bilingual identity is language. giles, bourhis, and taylor (1977) state that “in-group speech can serve as a symbol of ethnic identity and cultural solidarity. it is used for reminding the group about its cultural heritage, for transmitting group feelings, and for excluding members of the out group from its internal transactions” (as cited in phinney et. al., 2001, p. 137). a study by imbens-bailey (1996) tried to find out the significance of being proficient in armenian on bilingual armenian-american children. the study showed that these bilingual individuals felt a closer affinity with the armenian community than monolingual of english. further, the study mentioned that to reinforce ethnic identity, it could be done by having knowledge of the ancestral language. similarly, a study conducted by bankston and zhou (1995) on first and second generation of vietnamese youth in new orleans indicated that there was a strong connection between language and ethnic identity and that the ethnic language could be an access to the ethnic community. in regard to this, portes and schauffler (1994) state that “retention of one’s ethnic language can be seen as a cultural resource” (as cited in phinney et. al., 2001, p. 138). however, the status of language can also maintaining the identity of bilingual individuals in multicultural/multilingual settings 14 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 affect bilingual people’s attitude towards their own identity within a society where one language is superior over another as the case in eidheim’s 1979/1994a findings. eidheim (1979/1994a) found that the sami who spoke lappish did not use their mother tongue whenever the local norwegians were present since lappish was considered “low” status compared to the superior norwegian (as cited in danbolt, 2011). nevertheless, language competence is still crucial to establish bilinguals’ identity since the status of the language also highly depends on the ability of bilinguals to maintain the language itself (danbolt, 2011). another important contributor for cultural identity maintenance is related to family. phinney et. al. (2001) consider parental attitudes to be an important factor to ethnic identity as can be seen from their armenian subjects living in the u.s. these armenian parents showed a high influence in preserving the identity of their children by enrolling them in armenian language schools. this also conforms the opinion of rosenthal & cichello (1986, p. 488) that “parents’ retention or rejection of the culture” can be viewed by their children as “a statement of the value of the group”; thus, this primary socialisation within a family can help bilingual individuals to develop a more positive sense to their ethnic/cultural identity.. social interaction among peers is also an additional contributor for cultural identity maintenance. alba (1990 in phinney et. al., 2001) states that social interaction of same-ethnic peers can strengthen ethnic identity. this proposition is supported by the research on three ethnic groups in los angeles, usa (armenian, vietnamese and mexican) conducted by phinney et. al. (2001) which showed that peer interaction in one’s own ethnic group was proved to have a significant relationship to ethnic identity more than the influence of their own ethnic language. the interaction among peers provides exposure to the different cultural experiences not found at home and also assists bilinguals to be more confident in being themselves (desai, 2013). conclusion ika kana trisnawati englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 | 15 bilingual individuals are clearly to have advantages due to their linguistic competence in more than one language. however, it may not be the case in terms of identification of their cultural or ethnic identity. being a bilingual who lives in multicultural/multilingual settings is perhaps a challenge to an individual’s identity. this is due to the fact that the bilingual individuals are exposed to the environments where one language may be dominant to another, and this can create a bigger concern if the individual’s ethnic language belongs to the minority group. as many studies have revealed, in the case where bilingual individuals need to identify their ethnic language while living in multicultural/multilingual settings, it is important to maintain their cultural/ethnic identity through several suggestions comprising developing their own ethnic language proficiency, parental guidance for their own ethnic/cultural maintenance, and interacting socially with their same ethnic peers. as discussed above, language is believed to be a prominent indicator for defining one’s identity, in this case the culture/ethnic; yet, language is not necessarily the only factor to maintain one’s identity in multicultural/multilingual settings. internal and external sources from family and peers are no less salient for keeping one’s identity stronger amidst blurry boundaries of multicultural identities. of all these recommendations, it is particularly useful to highlight that individual bilinguals need to develop their ethnolinguistic awareness for the sake of maintaining their identity within any multicultural/multilingual settings. references bankston, c., and zhou, m. 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(2005). dimensions of bilingualism. inl. wei (ed.), the bilingualism reader. new york: routledge. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2022. vol. 9, no. 2, 46-59 emergency remote teaching during covid-19 crisis: an analysis of efl students’ engagement in aceh fakhrurrazi m. amin * institut agama islam negeri langsa fakhrurrazi.amin@iainlangsa.ac.id zulfitri zulfitri institut agama islam negeri langsa zulfitri@iainlangsa.ac.id manuscript received d e cem b er 1 7 , 2021, revised january 28, 2022, first published may 1, 2022, and available online may 7, 2022. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i2.11722 recommended apa citation amin, f. m., & zulfitri, z. (2022). emergency remote teaching during covid-19 crisis: an analysis of efl students‟ engagement in aceh. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(2), 46-59. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.11722 abstract to prevent the spread of the coronavirus (covid-19) and its pandemic, emergency remote teaching must be implemented. this has brought significant problems and difficulties for students due to this unusual circumstance, efl students must learn to adapt their abilities. because of the widespread use of technology in education, the quick transition to complete online learning necessitates some adjustment. efl students must be able to handle online learning that is performed through technology integration and utilizing technological tools they have never used before in a short period of time. in response to emergency remote teaching, this study examined how engaged efl students are, as well as their perceptions of such engagement. one hundred ninetyone students from four state islamic universities in aceh filled out an online questionnaire adapted from mccolskey (2012). both descriptive and thematic methods were used to analyze the data. efl students demonstrated their level of engagement in all three categories of engagement: behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement. positive responses and feelings of satisfaction were shown during emergency remote teaching. it indicates that efl students have a better grasp of how to use technology in education. it is essential to constantly enhance their skills and have enough equipment and infrastructure to facilitate online learning. * corresponding author https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6622 https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.11722 fakhrurrazi m. amin & zulfitri zulfitri englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 47 keywords: emergency remote teaching; behavioral engagement; emotional engagement; cognitive engagement 1. introduction the increasing spread of corona viruses (covid-19) globally pandemic limited people‟s ability to move and meet each other, and seriously affected the teachinglearning process. initially, the teaching and learning process was conducted traditionally or face to face (offline), immediately switching to online. accordingly, applying technology in teaching is indispensable to facilitate educational activities (rayuwati, 2020), but this has brought significant problems and difficulties for students. these issues are tied to current technology, such as download failures, installation issues, and login issues, among others. as a result, students may perceive the teaching-learning process to be tedious and unengaging at times (dhawan, 2020). although student engagement is widely recognized as crucial in the learning process (harunasari & halim, 2019) and is regarded as the major indicator in the learning process and outcome (senior et al., 2018), research by duffy and elwood (2013) indicated that 15 focus groups of students who were participating in educational institutions were identified as disengaged. several experts have investigated students‟ engagement during emergency remote teaching (abou-khalil et al., 2021; jelińska & paradowski, 2021; khlaif, salha, & kouraichi, 2021; schutte, 2021). the study on students‟ engagement links with emergency remote teaching focuses on topics such as the effects of the emergency transition to remote teaching on student engagement (perets et al., 2020), effective students‟ engagement strategies (abou-khalil et al., 2021), and technology acceptance perspective in emergency remote teaching (xu, jin, deifell, & angus, 2021). initially, research conducted by senior et al. (2018) also focuses on the rule of students‟ engagement and motivation to improve the quality of learning. more recently, studies have investigated learners‟ levels of engagement (suharti & suherdi, 2021; oraif & elyas, 2021). due to several previous research concerning emergency remote teaching and students‟ engagement, subjects‟ perspectives, including their reasons and ability to adopt technology and their problems in using it, which lead them to disengagement, were less thoroughly analyzed. as emergency remote teaching is a shifting of instructional delivery trough integrating technology to facilitate learning temporarily. therefore, this study emphasizes students‟ engagement as a research object in the practice of emergency remote teaching. in this article, students‟ engagement is examined in terms of (1) categories of engagement and (2) causes for their engagement. students‟ engagement suffers when technology is used for emergency remote teaching. in other words, the goal of this study is to examine students‟ engagement in online learning through integrating technology during emergency remote teaching. this article departs from the premise that a sudden transition in learning delivery to a technology-based environment does not necessarily benefit students in terms of emergency remote teaching during covid-19 crisis: an analysis of efl students’ engagement in aceh 48 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 learning; rather, it may raise new challenges that must be taken into account. technology integration into education must be accompanied by ongoing reflection on the distinguishing qualities of technology in order to be utilized to its full potential (cloete, 2017). it thus requires students to learn to adjust, which leads to the development of new issues for them. 2. literature review 2.1. emergency remote teaching the massive transition to fully online delivery system in education has brough about new term to distinguish carefully planned delivery process from the unexpected or unplanned content delivery of fully online due to crisis. hodges, moore, lockee, trust and bond (2020) defined emergency remote teaching as a temporary shift of instructional delivery to an alternate delivery method owing to crisis conditions. schools and universities closing due to the covid-19 pandemic in indonesia, the quick switch from a face to face to online learning can be considered an ert mode. responding to a such condition, currently the teachers perform the teaching with minimum sources in hurry. emergency remote teaching should be considered as a temporary solution to an immediate problem (bozkurt & sharma 2020; toquero 2020). since emergency remote teaching uses computer networking technology, mainly over the internet to convey information and instructions. so, applying technology become an integral part of teaching-learning interaction. as a result, using technology has become an essential component of the teaching-learning process. such options include replacing chalkboards with interactive digital whiteboards and studying during class time using students' own smartphones or other devices. furthermore, the "flipped classroom" approach, in which students view lectures on their computers at home and use classroom time is regarded for more interactive. however, the need for technology integration in emergency remote teaching has created a new issue. according to research from becta (2004) many teachers believe they are incompetent owing to their lack of technology skills. some of them are described as "technophobic." other challenges in introducing ict in schools in some developed countries include a lack of access to technology resources, overburdened teachers, technical issues, and certain attitude and belief hurdles (including unsupportive belief and negative assumption about the presence of ict in classroom). the similar conclusion was demonstrated by shim and lee (2020) that network instability, unilateral interactions, and decreased focus were causes of students' concerns. using technology in education necessitates time, effort, and commitment from lecturers and institutions in order to deploy ict effectively, reconceptualize teaching, and establish communication and interaction with students. so, such understanding is also expected to recognize how to teach with ict (schutte, 2021). therefore, teaching in emergency remote teaching which delivering content through online learning is not fakhrurrazi m. amin & zulfitri zulfitri englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 49 only required teacher‟s clear instruction but also good access to the internet. liang and chen (2012) stated that online learning is useless and non-existent if the learners do not have access to the course learning materials through technology. and it has previously observed that students also have issues including shortage of discipline, adequate teaching resources or a healthy learning atmosphere when they are at home alone (bao, 2020). despite the limitations, suharti and suherdi (2021) recommend that universities to implement online learning since it leads to increased student engagement. to this end, teachers must be more innovative in order to successfully teaching online (schutte, 2021). institutions implementing emergency remote teaching should consider support that is easy to access, effective, and addresses distance learning factors such as interactions with students and their parents or guardians, required infrastructure, and the personnel's ability to operate emergency remote learning (shim & lee, 2020). 2.2. engagement it is not avoidable that students‟ engagement has a significant role towards instructional quality and outcome. engagement has been identified as influential moderator (virtanen et al, 2015). it is proven by deschaine and whale (2017) that student engagement towards instructional process lead to a positive change in students behavior. moreover, students‟ engagement at school plays a critical role in their learning and career achievement (suharti & suherdi, 2021). students' engagement is described as their level of attention, curiosity, enthusiasm, optimism, and passion when studying or being taught, which extends to their level of motivation to learn and develop in their studies (deschaine & whale, 2017). furthermore, wong and chong (2018) defined learner engagement as the investment of time, effort and other relevant resources by both students and their institutions intended to optimize the student experience and enhance the learning outcomes and development of students, and the performance and reputation of the institution. students' engagement is defined as their level of participation and effort in learning (pan, cheok, mueller, & zhang, 2015), which would improve students' academic achievement (alrashidi, phan, & ngu, 2016). it is critical to keep pupils engaged in an emergency remote teaching situation. the reason for sustaining student involvement is because it may promote retention, performance, and perseverance (bergdahl, nouri, fors, & knutsson, 2020; bond, 2020). furthermore, students‟ engagement and participation are regarded as having a significant influence on learning and performance, particularly in online learning. previous research findings emphasize the significance of engagement in reducing dropout rates, student isolation in the online environment, and retention (ansong, okumu, bowen, walker, & eisensmith, 2017; fraysier, reschly, & appleton, 2020; martin & bolliger, 2018). anderson (2017) ) said that students‟ engagement and its effect on learning is a difficult component in learning performance that should be examined using data from the online learning environment. emergency remote teaching during covid-19 crisis: an analysis of efl students’ engagement in aceh 50 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 tao, zhang, ka, and lai (2018) discovered that achievement, happy learning, and amount of effort are important determinants in students' engagement in online learning environments. although engagement is relatively diverse in terms of definition and scope, there has been an agreement among scholars that engagement construction is multidimensional and it includes different aspects such as behavior, emotional, and cognitive engagement. behavioral engagement is concerned with learning and participation, which includes participation in academic, social, or extracurricular activities (mccolskey, 2012). the level of positive (and negative) emotions to instructors, classmates, academics, or school is the subject of emotional engagement (mccolskey, 2012). while cognitive engagement is defined as the degree of investment a student has in learning. it comprises students' attitudes toward their school activities as well as how much they value academic work. it refers to the desire to put out effort in order to grasp complicated topics (bergdahl et al., 2020; goldspink, winter, & foster, 2008; martin & torres, 2012; zimmer, 2012). in evaluating students‟ engagement towards online learning, this study focus on those three subconstructs behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement as described by mccolskey (2012). accordingly, students‟ success in learning online, those engagement considered as benchmarking for evaluating (zimmer, 2012). in this study, students‟ engagement is defined as students‟ behavioral, emotional, and cognitive response to emergency remote teaching activities and participation in learning activities. 3. method 3.1. research context and design this study overall goal is to investigate students' engagement in emergency remote teaching. a case study approach is used, and the data is collected qualitatively from several groups of students conducting emergency remote teaching in different college settings situated in different locations throughout aceh, indonesia. a descriptive research was conducted in order to describe an intervention or phenomenon in the context of a real-life situation in which it occurred (creswell, 2012). for purposes of this study, the occurrence involved a mandated shift from traditional face-to-face instruction to emergency remote teaching in a short period of time with no prior preparation. the research was undertaken approximately six months following the start of an emergency remote education program in aceh, indonesia. 3.2. participants subject of the study is included 191 (one hundred ninety-one) of second semester of english foreign language students at five islamic universities in aceh. choosing those subjects due to student are currently experiencing the significant impact of immediate switching of learning process from traditional (offline) to online mode. fakhrurrazi m. amin & zulfitri zulfitri englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 51 table 1 participants home university. no subject of research number of subjects percentage 1 iain langsa 69 36.10% 2 iain lhokseumawe 58 30.40% 3 iain meulaboh 36 18.80% 4 uin ar-raniry banda aceh 28 14.70% 191 100% 3.3. data collection the main data which collected via an online questionnaire through applying google form were distributed to students. these questionnaires using likert scale with 4 responses (always, usually seldom and never) are used to collect information about students‟ engagement (behavioral, emotional and cognitive). it is a closed-ended questionnaire was distributed to each group of participants to explore students‟ respond covering those three kinds of engagement which occurred among students‟ during emergency remote teaching. this questionnaire was written in bahasa to help english language students better understand the questionnaire. in addition, this instrument had also been validated previously by several other researchers and experts in this field, before it is distributed electronically to participants. table 2 the scaling of efl students‟ engagement. no percentage category 1 0% 25% disengagement 2 26% 50% 3 51% 75% engagement 4 76% 100% 3.4. data analysis descriptive statistics were employed to analyze the questionnaire data considering the research questions and current literature about students‟ engagement in emergency remote teaching. the results of questionnaire data analysis were finally displayed and discussed in detail to give answers on each research question as follows: (1) how do efl teachers engagement in emergency remote teaching during pandemic covid-19 in aceh, indonesia? (2) what are the reasons for engagement or disengagement in emergency remote teaching during covi-19? to ensure the validity of this research, methodological triangulation was employed by carrying out the interviews after the questionnaire had been responded by all the participants (miles & huberman, 2014). emergency remote teaching during covid-19 crisis: an analysis of efl students’ engagement in aceh 52 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 4. findings and discussion the current paper was addressed to describe efl students‟ engagement among four different group of students-participant in emergency remote teaching during covid19. the results were presented based on three criteria of engagement which cover to answer the research problem. the first research problem was about efl students‟ engagement. it explores participants‟ behavioral engagement which covers learning participation, emotional engagement includes positive and negative reactions toward learning and cognitive engagement which cover feelings about school activities in emergency remote teaching during covid-19. 4.1. behavioral engagement even though emergency remote teaching completely different from traditional or offline learning and may occurred several problems as mentioned by khlaif et al.(2021) in his research findings that most of efl students‟ engagement during covid-19 in palestine reported that online learning has broaden digital inequality and threaten their digital privacy which negatively influence their engagement almost the same problems also occurred in the study from atmojo (2021) who analyzed efl teachers‟ online professional development experiences amidst the covid-19 pandemic that the finding stated that the problems mentioned such as (1) instability internet connection; (2) time limited; (3) shortage of internet quota; (4) lack of interaction; (5) and limited facilities and infrastructure. but efl students in aceh to be found themselves were no difficulties in learning through employing technology during emergency remote teaching. it proven by the data in table 3 that efl students were generally provided a response to be engaged (71.73% 86.92%) on the category of behavioral engagement when the learning through technology during emergency remote teaching. it means that the efl students involved regularly in a course. as the result of the study by shim and lee (2020) that students noted some positive features of emergency remote teaching such as comfortable educational environments, smooth interactions, and efficient time utilization. those positive features can be considered as reasons for efl students to be engaged in emergency remote teaching. table 3 descriptive data for the students‟ behavioral engagement. no category items engaged disengaged a u % s n % 1 behavioral engagement participate actively and regularly in online learning 40 97 71.73% 31 23 28 2 actively involved in discussion during online learning 75 89 85.86 18 9 14 fakhrurrazi m. amin & zulfitri zulfitri englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 53 3 completing all task of online learning 113 53 86.91 17 8 13 4 studying seriously during online learning 91 59 78.53 28 13 21 students‟ behavioral engagement can be as an implication that efl students in aceh showed their eagerness and having sense of needing to succeed and getting deeper understanding to the subject. efl students‟ engagement in online learning during emergency remote teaching also stated in the interview. due to covid-19 pandemic there is no other alternative we can do except online learning. we engaged regularly as the lesson delivered was useful for us (p21). the finding proven that students take part in online learning and value the learning as a beneficial thing for them to deeper understanding on the lesson caried out. 4.2. emotional engagement on the category of emotional engagement, majority of efl students from each group chose „always‟ and „usually‟ toward given statement. the respond on „seldom and never‟ gained a small number of percentages. table 4 descriptive data for students‟ emotional engagement. no category items engaged disengaged a u % s n % 1 emotional engagement finding ways to make the course material relevant to my life 61 61 63.87 35 34 36 2 finding ways to make the course interesting for me 88 63 79.06 26 14 21 3 thinking about the course between class meetings 82 83 86.39 19 7 14 4 really desiring to learn the material 122 40 84.84 17 12 15 it can be seen in table 4 that 61 efl students stated, “always finding ways to make material relevant to their life”, and “61 efl students stated usually finding ways to make the course relevant to their life”. meanwhile there were only 35 students stated seldom and 34 efl students stated never finding ways relevant to their life. achieving high percentage in engaged 63.87% indicate that the efl students emotionally engaged in emergency remote teaching. it was surprising on the criteria of desiring to learn the material, there were 122 efl students stated always and 40 efl students stated usually really desiring to learn the material. it means that 84.84% of efl students stated that really desiring to learn emergency remote teaching during covid-19 crisis: an analysis of efl students’ engagement in aceh 54 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 material in online learning during emergency remote teaching. the efl students‟ desiring to learn the material in online learning can be traced from efl students‟ statement in the interview. “i am more curious towards online learning. i find myself accessing online learning and materials improve” (p 12). i made an effort to attend every session, and i liked the instructors' methods of instruction. thus, at least for me, the learning of new concepts was made easier, and the lecturer allowed every one of us to express our thoughts and views (p 84). 4.3. cognitive engagement the data for students‟ cognitive engagement which deal with students‟ feeling towards emergency remote teaching can be seen in table 5. participant had both positive and negative feeling towards emergency remote teaching. from the data it showed that 39.27% of students provide “somewhat satisfied” response in emergency remote teaching and 75 respondent or (28.80%) of respondent gave a positive response that they put their satisfied towards emergency remote teaching during covid-19. it is only 31.94% respondent stated “not satisfied” with emergency remote teaching during covid19. table 5 descriptive data for students‟ cognitive engagement. no category variables category n % 1 cognitive engagement feeling about attending english classes virtually satisfied 61 31.94 somewhat satisfied 75 39.27 not satisfied 55 28.80 efl students had both satisfied and not satisfied feelings about online learning during emergency remote teaching. in other studies, negative feelings affect performance and health (bolton & houlihan, 2009). for those who had negative feeling all participating students reported that the students felt stressed out, frustrated, overwhelmed, bored, and pressured. it was to be expected that such negative feelings should increase in an emergency remote teaching situation considering the uncertainties in education and life at large brought about by the pandemic (hodges, 2020). they attributed those feelings to the number of assignments, the lack of computer and/or internet access, boring classes, and lack of understanding and learning. the problem occurred during online felt by the participant stated in interview: “we are facing the difficulties during online learning, they were not only related to the uncertain time, but fakhrurrazi m. amin & zulfitri zulfitri englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 55 it is also difficult to understand the explanations about material presented due to shortage of facilities and connection” (p 98). the results of this study contradict those of a previous study on emergency remote teaching, in which students claimed that problems with course scheduling, dropping out of the class, network instability, unilateral interactions, and reduced concentration were among the reasons for their complaints (shim & lee, 2020; sintema, 2020). it has been stated that instructors do not use technology to promote student learning since it takes time to explore, assess, and utilize technology's tools and resources (francom, 2020). the finding of current study demonstrated that students showed positive respond of having a feeling satisfied to integration of technology onto education during emergency remote teaching. students‟ satisfaction during emergency remote teaching can also be traced in the interview. meaningful learning experiences and interesting discussions are very influential for us. we are using online learning applications and having discussions with colleagues which make us familiar with the applications. interactions and communications are also important. i always communicate with my colleagues immediately to ask about something which i do not understand. my colleagues also contact me to ask something which they do not know. so, we communicate and share knowledge with each other (p 37). a high degree of online learning engagement is associated with positive responses and feelings of satisfaction with online activities, tasks, and conversations, as well as a heightened ability to participate, perform or express emotions online. as stated by baloran, hernan, and taoy (2021) that student satisfaction in online courses is a crucial element in student engagement in online learning, meaningful development of technology-based knowledge is critical for all learners in order to optimize their learning potential (ahmadi, 2018). the rapid change of teaching system onto online learning can be potential to stimulate students and teacher development particularly in technology. nonetheless, technological competence and effective technology integration in education takes times and do not happen in one day and one night. they come with barriers, such as time, training and technical support, access, teacher belief/motivation, and other factors (francom, 2020). students‟ engagement in online learning through technology integration requires teachers to always improve their competence both in the form of joint and personal training. however, this must also be supported by adequate facilities and infrastructure. 5. conclusion as integration of technology increase in education, new conditions for engagement emerge. thus, we identified that the efl students in four universities in aceh, indonesia was relatively engaged in all the criteria of engagement (behaviour, emergency remote teaching during covid-19 crisis: an analysis of efl students’ engagement in aceh 56 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 emotional, and cognitive engagement) in online learning during emergency remote teaching. it indicates that they face no difficulties of technology integration into education. efl competence and abilities are adequate and sufficient for online learning during emergency remote teaching. event, the efl students showed their satisfaction when it comes to integrating technology to the course. this latest research had limitation with relation to several aspects. the small numbers of participants may increase the limited information. therefore, the greater scale of participants needs to take place to look at a wider view, particularly concerning to the integration of technology into education, and efl engagement in online learning and its effects. multiple instruments were highly recommended to obtain the deeper understanding on the issue, such as interview and observation when teachers and students are on the sessions. references 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(2012). handbook of research on student engagement. in handbook of research on student engagement. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-46142018-7 microsoft word fadlia 40 53.docx englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2022. vol. 10, no.1, 40-53 developing esp based-digital learning materials support students’ needs at indonesian vocational schools: perceived quality fadlia fadlia*1, surya asra1, evi zulida1, made hery santosa2 1english education department, universitas samudra, indonesia 2universitas pendidikan ganesha, indonesia manuscript received january 11, 2022, revised march 6, 2022, accepted april 8, 2022, and published online november 7, 2022. recommended apa citation fadlia, f., asra, s., zulida. e., & santosa, m. h. (2022). developing esp based-digital learning materials support students’ needs at indonesian vocational schools: perceived quality. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(1), 40-53. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.12166 abstract the purpose of incorporating digital learning materials into vocational school english instruction is to assist students in acquiring specific competencies. additionally, prepared digital learning materials are intended to assist teachers in developing instructional materials that follow the principles of english for specific purposes (esp) in vocational high schools (smk). the research used the qualitative research and development (r&d) method. the stages of developing this teaching material model are adapted from thiagarajan, semmel, and semmel's 4ds model (1974), which consists of four stages: define, design, develop, and disseminate. as data sources, the participants were two teachers from two different vocational schools with a combined enrolment of 115 students. this research's results are a model for developing digital-based teaching materials (prepared digital learning materials). furthermore, it was discovered that using the prepared digital learning materials greatly aided teachers in teaching english to achieve specific competencies. from the students' perspective, they admitted that it was also exciting because they perceived learning as distinct from traditional learning materials due to digital materials usage. keywords: esp; digital learning materials; vocational schools *corresponding author: fadlia english education department, universitas samudra jl. prof. dr. syarief thayeb, meurandeh, langsa lama, langsa, aceh, 24416 indonesia email: fadlia@unsam.ac.id fadlia, surya asra, evi zulida, & made hery santosa englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 41 1. introduction this research is a follow-up to previous research that discovered difficulties in learning english in vocational schools. the study discovered that the process and content of english learning in vocational schools are still general (ge) and do not address the specifics of english learning. it found that the syllabus for english learning in vocational high schools (smk) is not aligned with vocational school majors and that there is a lack of examples of english learning content (esp) (fadlia, zulida, asra, rahmiati, & bania, 2020). however, the specifics of english learning materials can still be designed and taught to vocational students, for example, reading and vocabulary skills. students will no longer read general texts but rather texts that correspond to their specific competencies. many studies supported those problems found in vocational high schools, such as a study conducted by nuhamsih and syahrial (2017) which found that the topics of the textbook used at vocational high school are not related and not emphasized enough to the programs in vocational high school, even the reading materials are still too general. another study found that there was a need of integrating english reading materials with the materials of the content subjects due to achieving the vocational school targets (azizah, inderawati, & vianty, 2020). therefore, the concern in teaching materials specified for vocational high school students is still a priority to be studied. the specific competencies such as a reading materials or conversations related to hotel for vocational students majoring in hospitality expertise programs and tourism services are competencies that are really needed by vocational students to face the challenges of the future world of work. the learning materials, especially english learning materials should be focused on the students’ needs to support their future career after the school, especially in finding the suitable jobs (azizah, inderawati, & vianty, 2020; rhahima, inderawati, & eryansyah, 2021). as vocational school students, especially in hospitality expertise programs and tourism services, they are expected to become skilled workers in the fields of front office, housekeeping, and food and beverages services. they are expected to be able to compete globally. therefore, they must also be equipped with global skills, one of which is the ability to speak english. if they do not have a good proficiency in english, then they will face a difficulty to overcome the challenges of the future job. however, they do not acquire the ability to use english during studying at vocational high school due to english learning only focusing on fulfilling curriculum obligations without adjusting to the challenges of the 21st century learning. another challenge in teaching english in vocational schools is incorporating 21st-century learning, ict, into esp learning (luna, 2018). numerous prototypes and esp learning models based on ict have been developed. however, ict-based esp learning models have not been fully integrated into the indonesian vocational education system. it has not even been translated into a policy for vocational education curricula. thus, this study attempts to address those concerns. developing esp based-digital learning materials support students’ need….. 42 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 recent research on esp in vocational schools also discovered a dearth of a systemic approach integrated into the vocational school's official curriculum (oktarin, syahrial, & harahap, 2019; poedjiastutie & oliver, 2017; syakur, zainuddin, & hasan, 2020). there is no specific model or textbook based on the needs of vocational schools that english teachers can use to teach english specifically for vocational high schools, making it extremely difficult for teachers to provide teaching materials that match their expertise in vocational schools. as a result, it is critical to developing an esp learning materials model. additionally, to support the development of 21st-century learning that incorporates ict into esp learning and the directorate of vocational development's recommendation to develop innovative educational approaches that assist students in effectively utilizing digital materials and technology, this study created a materials model of digital-based esp learning to support the achievement of specific competencies through english learning. additionally, this study will determine whether or not prepared digital learning materials can assist students in acquiring specific competencies and how teachers and students view the use of these prepared digital learning materials. 2. literature review the purpose of communication in english is critical when learning the language. this concept is consistent with long (2007), who suggests that english instruction should focus on target discourse. it can be related to the teaching and learning process in vocational high school and should be designed and implemented to prepare students with the language skills necessary to succeed in the future workplace. school, universities, vocational school, and educational institution keep changing the curriculum as the foundation of teaching and learning process in order to prepare the better future for the students (gibbs, 2012; habiburrahim, 2021; knight & yorke, 2004). this notion also supported by government to facilitate the educational institution to provide the layer of policies on this effort. therefore, the continuous improvement and evaluation is needed on the process in adapting curriculum to the needs of the student (darling-hammond, 2010, marwan, 2009; poedjiastutie & oliver, 2017). to provide the stakeholder with the analysis of how current curriculum can be suited into student needs and future workforce. the general english implemented at current curriculum in vocational school is seen to have the urgency to be adapted to have more english for specific purposes (fadlia, et. al, 2020; poedjiastutie & oliver, 2017). baskturmen (2006) emphasized the importance of developing students' knowledge skills in their field of study or employment to develop target performance competence. in this case, the specific competence of the student, his or her future job competence, becomes the target competence to be included in english learning materials. as a result, there is a need for customizing the english curriculum in fadlia, surya asra, evi zulida, & made hery santosa englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 43 vocational high school to each specific competence. the teaching of general english is considered insufficient to meet the students' needs in vocational high school and their future employment (fadlia et al., 2020; pudjiastuti & olliver, 2017). dudleyevans (1998) elaborated on the key stages of esp to substantiate this notion. they are as follows: (1) need identification and analysis, (2) esp program syllabus design, (3) teaching and learning process content, including organizing and sequencing material. (4) evaluation and final evaluation. in terms of content, integrating technology into english language learning materials has focused on efl areas. it demonstrated that digital learning materials have a beneficial effect on efl teaching and learning practices. however, some studies have highlighted the slow adaptation and lack of awareness of esp teachers regarding using technology and ict pedagogy (luna, 2018). as such, this study aims to acclimate vocational english teachers to the use of digital audio-visual material in the classroom. additionally, rather than focusing on general purposes, the english content should be tailored to the specific competencies of each class. digital content effectively promotes learning success (asra & irafadilah, 2020; demirkan, 2019; isda & imran, 2021; moro, 2018; yokota & teale, 2014; sargeant, 2015). it adds interest to the learning process for students. additionally, digital content meets the student's uptodate ness because it incorporates current technology (demirkan, 2019). the digital material can take the form of a video, a digital presentation, an online textbook, or any other online platform that enables students to learn independently (moro, 2018). westerfield (2010) outlined the steps that teachers must take to connect the learner's needs and technology. first, teachers should understand the learning objective and how technology can assist in meeting that objective. second, teachers should know the current learner's language level skills to achieve what they need to acquire in their target language. third, teachers have to be informed on what technological environment they have, for example the availability of computer and network. then, these steps are adapted to build the model for this study. additionally, utilizing digital content, such as video, entails the use of audiovisuals. utilizing audio-visual media in language learning entails promoting four-skill learning through listening, reading, speaking, and writing in a single activity. the esp units can be integrated into the activity through the use of audio-visual materials. for instance, the learning activity of managing hotel check-in and check-out via video has highlighted several points, including the uniqueness of esp, the value of learning four skills in one activity, and the value of technology-based learning. 3. method this study employs a qualitative approach and the research and development (r&d) method. the stages of developing this teaching material model are based on the 4ds model by thiagarajan, semmel, and semme (1974) consisting of four stages: developing esp based-digital learning materials support students’ need….. 44 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 define, design, develop, and disseminate. this model was chosen because it is a feasible technique (irawan, padmadewi, & artini, 2018). prior research has been conducted on the defined stage by analyzing the needs of vocational students (fadlia et al., 2020). the design stage involved format selection, which included creating the form of digital materials that meet the needs of 21st-century learners, as well as the creation of learning outcomes grids (adopted from the smk skl document). the development stage involved consulting experts in english education at vocational high schools (specifically, the head of the english mgmp at vocational high schools) and testing teaching materials in two classes that were not the study's target class. finally, the dissemination stage took place as the teacher received the tested and revised teaching materials to use in the classroom. the classroom observations were performed to answer the research questions. the discussion in this study is limited to the final two stages, namely, develop and disseminate. 3.1. source of data the data sources of this study consisted of two teachers from two different vocational schools and four classes that were cared for by these two teachers, which consisted of 115 students. the four classes consist of two classes from hospitality expertise programs and tourism services, and two classes from fishing vessel engineering skills program (tkpi). these participants were selected based their future jobs which need to master english as their communication tools. as the hoteliers deal with the tourism industry, whereas the vessel engineers deal with traveling abroad. 3.2. instrument the data in this study were collected through expert checks, classroom observations, teachers' teaching material checks and semi-structured interviews with teachers, and students' questionnaires and fgd. class observations were carried out four times. interviews and questionnaires were conducted at the end of the lesson. 3.3. data collection and analysis the data is analyzed qualitatively using a checklist and a percentage. the checklist is used to document observations in class. the percentage is used to measure a teacher's assessment of the practicality of utilizing prepared digital learning materials and to gauge student responses when teachers utilize prepared digital learning materials. 4. findings and discussion the process of teaching english subjects in vocational schools still faces many challenges. one of them is the difficulties in preparing the learning materials following the special skills of the vocational high schools. therefore, this study aims to solve those problems by developing a model for english teachers. the model is developed fadlia, surya asra, evi zulida, & made hery santosa englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 45 based on english for specific purposes (esp) to achieve vocational students' special skills. 4.1. developing esp based-digital learning materials 4.1.1. initial stage a model of teaching materials was developed in this stage by adapting nunan notions (1989) of task-based learning (tbl). he explained that tbl requires integrating listening, speaking, reading, and writing in one activity. this approach is based on the principle that language learning should be a daily use of language. in this context, the daily activities can be implied as the students' need to be communicated on their specific need for communication. this initial model can be seen below. figure 1. the initial model of digital learning materials following the development of this model, teaching materials were created using powerpoint media with the theme of soliciting and providing feedback for the hospitality and tourism services expertise program and describing things for the vessel engineering expertise program (tkpi). the teaching materials are organized according to the esp principle, that is, by subject area of expertise. the teaching materials for the hospitality and tourism service expertise program include video check-in/check-out, reservation handling, and baggage handling. the teaching materials for the fishing vessel technical expertise program (tkpi) include videos of ship components, the structure of seafarers' positions, and communication between seafarers. after that, experts are consulted on the model and teaching materials. 4.1.2. expert’s stage an expert was asked to make a review of the early-stage models and teaching materials. the expert is the chairman of mgmp (the english teacher union), kota langsa. from this review, several inputs were obtained, as shown below. developing esp based-digital learning materials support students’ need….. 46 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 table 1 aspects of expert’s suitability check. suitability aspects yes no the suitability of teaching materials with core competence/basic competence (ki/kd) √ the suitability of teaching materials with specific competencies √ there are audio-visual media in teaching materials (digital media) √ teaching materials have an opening activity (pre activity) √ teaching materials have a closing activity (post activity) √ teaching materials are developed from authentic sources (authentic materials) √ teaching materials motivate learners to acquire language skills √ source: adapted from harmer (2007) in general, the expert suggests two essential things, namely the addition of pre and post activities. revisions were made based on expert advice to create a development model for stage 2. the revision model incorporates the pre and post activities. this revision model is depicted below. figure 2. the revision model of digital learning materials the above model was used as the final model of digital learning materials for the next stage, testing. a revision of the teaching materials followed the model revision. by developing pre-exercises on vocabulary and grammar focuses, pre-activities were fadlia, surya asra, evi zulida, & made hery santosa englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 47 added to the teaching material. teachers' or peers' feedback was included in the postactivity. 4.1.3. testing stage testing was conducted in two classes from the two vocational schools that served as the research targets, but in different classes than the research target class. two different teachers teach these two classes, and the teacher is the target of the study. one class was explicitly taken from the hospitality and tourism services expertise program, and the other was explicitly taken from the vessel engineering expertise program (tkpi). the revision began with the testing results in class, based on teacher input and student responses requested after learning to test. some inputs have been submitted, but they do not change the structure of the model. first, the teaching materials are incomprehensible to them since students' english skills are still poor. students appear befuddled and unable to follow the conclusion of the learning process. second, pre-activity activities must be expanded, for example, by increasing the number of activities related to vocabulary and grammar development in order to prepare students to participate more fully in core activities. in summary, the results of this revision stage produced an esp teaching model that vocational english teachers could use to develop teaching materials based on specific skills in vocational high schools. 4.2. implementing esp based-digital learning materials 4.2.1. class observation four classes from two different vocational schools were used to implement prepared digital learning materials. each vocational high school had two classes chosen at random. two classes are taken from the expertise program in hospitality and tourism services, and two classes are taken from the expertise program in fishing vessel engineering (tkpi). the same two teachers teach each vocational school's two classes. throughout the learning process, the students were seen to be very enthusiastic and happy. they are interested in learning through the use of digital media. they are also pleased when they enter the material section because it is closely related to their expertise program. they also actively asked the teacher about the videos they watched. they volunteered to be in front of class as models for practicing conversations. during playing a video, they also asked to pause the videos in the purpose of they wanted to comprehend the terminologies used by the actors in the videos. on teachers’ sides, the teachers look enjoying their teaching process. they taught with confidence since they had studied the prepared materials. they felt very helpful in carrying out learning when the digital learning materials have been prepared and adapted to the specific competencies of each class. they believed that they could begin preparing to teach right away. they were no longer required to seek out and developing esp based-digital learning materials support students’ need….. 48 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 prepare teaching materials. even the teaching materials were designed to meet the needs of students who will be doing practical work. from the class observation, it could be seen that both students and teachers were in a good mood to teach and to learn. the prepared digital learning materials had a good impact in teaching and learning especially in vocational high schools. 4.2.2. teacher’s response the interviews revealed that the teachers could continue to develop the instructional materials they had been using to achieve specific competencies. along with interviews, teachers were asked to complete a questionnaire to assess the usefulness of the prepared digital learning materials. the practicality criteria are adapted from nieveen (1999), and they include the following: the teaching materials are simple for teachers to use, the teaching materials are well-structured, the teaching materials can accomplish goals, the teaching materials have appropriate tasks, and the teaching materials are developed using authentic resources. a likert scale ranging from 1 to 10 was used to assess teachers’ perception on teaching materials practicality. the diagram below illustrates the results of the practicality assessment. diagram 1. criteria of learning materials practicality based on the diagram above, teachers believed that the prepared digital learning materials were simple when teaching english subjects, particularly when encouraging students to participate actively in the learning process. the prepared digital learning materials followed a logical progression from receptive to productive skills (listeningspeaking; reading-writing). besides, it included sufficient tasks to accomplish learning objectives and is made from authentic materials. therefore, it is suited with current issue and workforce needs. fadlia, surya asra, evi zulida, & made hery santosa englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 49 from interviews with teachers, they argue that teaching materials need to be adjusted to the level of students' abilities. for instance, learning does not begin with a video; instead, it begins with a vocabulary introduction, an introduction to the learning context, and background knowledge about the video. one teacher said that: “the video is good, but we usually start with the introduction of vocabulary in such a simple-easy lists for students.” teachers stated that they did not adapt their english instruction to languagespecific competencies because they believed ge evaluated students. as a result, they concentrate on teaching english to prepare students to pass the national evaluation assessment standards. on the interview teacher said: we can not make our english lesson specified into each class future profession, because what is scored is final examination (un), which is formed in general english. although the un score is not become the indicator student pass to graduate. but still it is the burden for teacher to have their student n the higher examination score. this notion also found in marwan (2009), who studied the challenge of english teacher in vocational school. he found that the mismatch between the reality and expectation was existed. parallel with the current studies that teacher is expecting students have better level on english proficiency, so vocational teacher can continue to teach on esp matter. what is on the reality, the students’ english proficiency background is not sufficient, marwan (2009). class observation found that teacher had to back again to simple grammar when they teach more advance level in english in specific matter. some other challenges found in teaching practise. teacher admits the students’ learning motivation, lack of english resources and heavy workload also becomes the main challenges faced by english teacher in vocational school (marwan, 2009; poedjiastutie & oliver, 2017). 4.2.3. student’s response one hundred fifteen (115) respondents completed questionnaires regarding their perceptions of the use of prepared digital learning materials. however, the questionnaire analyzed contained only 60 respondents, 15 from each of the four classes. this questionnaire contains five statements related to nieveen's (1999) practicality criteria and employs a likert scale with responses of strongly agree (ss), agree (s), disagree (ts), and strongly disagree (sts). the questionnaire data were then tabulated to determine whether each statement item received respondents' positive or negative responses. the following table summarizes the findings from the questionnaire data analysis. developing esp based-digital learning materials support students’ need….. 50 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 table 2 analysis of student’s response. criteria of response mean category perception difference of learning materials 3.7 high positive difference of learning media used 3.6 high positive learning materials related to expertise program 3.3 high positive learning materials improved specific competence 3.3 high positive tasks used 3.3 high positive according to the table above, all questionnaires on students' perceptions of using prepared digital learning materials received positive responses. as a result, it is possible to conclude that students have a favourable opinion of the use of esp-based prepared digital learning materials in their classrooms. the fgd was held to supplement the data from the questionnaire. according to the findings of the focus group, students believed that learning english that was tailored to specific competencies was highly beneficial to their learning. the student [se] said that: “that is good, ma'am. we learned about hospitality right away. as a result, when we practice, we already understand the terminology.” another student [ga] stated that: “english through video is very interesting because it is not boring, and we immediately know about the check-in and check-out process from the video”. this finding is related to what rhahima, inderawati, and eryansyah (2021) found that most of the students in vocational high school are motivated when learning uses the media electronic. besides, according to the findings of the fgd, students responded positively to the use of digital learning materials based on esp because they believe that learning english has been tailored to their specific needs. the student also realized that they need english to improve the life opportunities. this finding is in line with poedjiastutie (2017) study that students tend to relate their life opportunities will be more opened when they mastered english on their specific skills. furthermore, some students realized that they need english to support their learning matter, such as reading some specific sources. a student stated that “i need english to understand in some reading about hotel, because most of the terminologies are in english”. this can be translated as the needs to support students in reading ability and to help them to understand specific terminology in their vocational competence. this finding is also corroborated with poedjiastutie (2017) research on the student response in esp needs. students tends to realize they needs and demands in english, however sometimes this is not supported with learning resources, guidance from english teacher, and the curriculum itself. fadlia, surya asra, evi zulida, & made hery santosa englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 51 5. conclusion the prepared digital learning materials can attract students’ eagerness to learn english. they experienced a more interested learning in digital form by a specific topic related to their competencies. at the same time, the teachers admitted being greatly assisted by the prepared digital learning materials as they did not need an effort to prepare their own teaching materials. a model for developing digital-based teaching materials is effective to help teacher in preparing their learning materials based on esp needs on their another teaching session. the use of digital learning materials in teaching english is inevitable. digital learning materials can level up the ways of teachers in teaching and the ways of students in responding to their learning. on the other hand, the prepared teaching materials can be a breakthrough for teaching in facing their problems to prepare the teaching materials specified to programs in vocational high schools. the esp experts in collaboration with english teachers can develop specified learning materials to be directly used by the teachers in their classrooms. it will help the teachers in saving their time and energy related to preparing learning materials and the teachers can focus on how to deliver the materials in their best ways of teaching. however, it is also expected that the teachers in the future can develop their own teaching materials specified to programs they taught in vocational high schools. the model for developing digital-based teaching materials (prepared digital learning materials) can guide the english teachers to develop their learning materials since the students think the learning is completed with their specific needs. in brief, the prepared digital learning materials had a positive influence to boost teachers’ and students’ interest in teaching and learning english. it can be a suggestion to a decision-maker to make a policy that stipulates that learning english in vocational high schools must be following their specific competence, no longer general english (ge). it can be a basis for teacher to implement the prepared digital learning materials based on esp in their classes. aside from teaching based on esp, the assessment of learning english in vocational high schools must also be changed according to specific competencies. it will be miss-evaluation if they are assessed with general english standards. the students need to be assessed related to their ability in using four english skills. therefore, the assessment based on esp needs to be developed. in other words, when students study with esp-based materials, they must be assessed with esp-based assessment. references asra, s. & irafadillah, d. 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(1974). instructional development for training teachers of exceptional children. minneapolis, minnesota: leadership training institute/special education, university of minnesota. retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed090725.pdf westerfield, k. (2010). an overview of needs assessment in english for specific purposes. best practices in esp e-teacher course, oregon: university of oregon, pp. 1-6. yokota, j., & teale, w. h. (2014). picture books and the digital world: educators making informed choices. the reading teacher, 67(8), 577–585. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1262 englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2022. vol. 10, no.1, 107-126 the challenges of online assessment amidst covid-19 pandemic disruption: the voice of efl lecturers mariadi, soni mirizon * , margaretha dinar sitinjak master’s program in language education, faculty of teacher training and education, sriwijaya university, palembang, indonesia manuscript received june 21, 2022, revised august 17, 2022, accepted august 29, 2022, and published online november 7, 2022. recommended apa citation mariadi., mirizon, s., sitinjak, m. d. (2022). the challenges of online assessment amidst covid-19 pandemic disruption: the voice of efl lecturers. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(1), 107-126. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.13704 abstract since the rapid spread of the covid-19 pandemic, the government of indonesia through the ministry of education and culture has shifted the assessment mode from face-toface into online assessment following the policy of online teaching and learning process. this conversion can essentially encourage the lecturers in higher education to reflect on and improve their assessment methods that are novel, stimulating, and practical for them. on the other hand, various kinds of challenges are likely to encounter by lecturers in carrying out the online assessment. this study aims to find out the challenges of online assessment in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic disruption, and the solutions to meet these challenges. qualitative method in a case study design was used to achieve the objectives of this study. the data were collected through in-depth interview and observation from two efl lecturers at a state university in palembang as the participants. the data were analysed by using thematic analysis. the findings revealed five primary challenges of online assessment: uneasiness, technical problems, time-consuming process, late submission, and academic dishonesty. each of the challenges in the findings was followed by the solutions to deal with those challenges done by the participants. keywords: challenges of online assessment; online assessment amidst covid-19 pandemic; the voice of efl lecturers * corresponding author: soni mirizon associate professor, faculty of teacher training and education, sriwijaya university, palembang jl. masjid al gazali, bukit lama, kec. ilir bar. i, kota palembang, sumatera selatan 30128, indonesia email: smirizon@unsri.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.13704 the challenges of online assessment amidst covid-19 pandemic disruption: the voice of efl lecturers 108 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 1. introduction the whole world was shocked by the sudden pandemic of the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) in late 2019. this pandemic has forced the indonesian government to issue a policy for the enforcement of community activity restrictions (ppkm) in order to minimize the spread of covid-19 in society. moreover, the ministry of education and culture responded well to this by issuing circular letter no. 3 of 2020 which contained a policy of learning from home through online learning due to nationwide school and college closure throughout indonesia. this policy proclaims that to minimize the spread of covid-19 pandemic, all teaching and learning activities, including assessment should be carried out online through the use of information technology. even until now, the daily cases of covid-19 in indonesia are still increasing over time. therefore, educational institutions are recommended to carry out online teaching and learning activities and assessment as well. responding to the policy, conducting online assessment during the covid-19 pandemic disruption is crucial thing to do because teachers and/or lecturers have a responsibility to monitor the progress of their students learning and also the achievement of educational objectives. mulyasa (2018) points out that “assessment conducted by the teacher is used to measure the students’ attitude improvement in which based on the national standard of education and on the regulation of minister of education and culture number 23 of 2016” (p. 170). hence, all educators need to regularly carry out classroom assessment as part of their duty to improve student learning (mirizon, 2021). moreover, the 2013 curriculum in school and kkni-based curriculum in higher education require both teachers and lecturers to have an expertise in assessing their students either in assessment for learning or assessment of learning in order to help them be able to develop themselves. advantageously, with the development of technology in this digital era, both teachers and lecturers are assisted so that they have bigger opportunities to carry out both teaching and learning activities and assessments relatively easy through an online learning environment. converting assessment administration from traditional to online mode can actually inspire lecturers in higher education to reflect on and improve their assessment methods that are novel, stimulating, and practical for them. moreover, various advantages of online assessment are revealed in several studies. khan and khan (2019) state that using online assessment might save the lecturers’ time and reduce their burden to assess large student number. moreover, the online assessment provides accessibility and flexibility for students to have the exams. this helps the students, especially in remote areas, to do exam in their location without coming to class, and they may take exam whenever they are ready as long as before the due date (alruwais et al., 2018; crisp, 2011; osuji, 2012; weleschuk et al., 2019). besides, online assessment provides immediate feedback comparing to paper test, which helps lecturers to improve the quality of feedback for their students in any different format like written, audio, or even video (weleschuk et al., 2019; westhuizen, 2016). mariadi, soni mirizon , & margaretha dinar sitinjak englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 109 apart from the potential advantages of the online assessment being discussed above, various kinds of challenges are likely to be faced by lecturers in conducting online assessment. yulianto and mujtahid (2021) assert that online assessment consumes a lot of internet data, which has an impact on internet connection limitations, especially in remote areas. besides, kumar and sajja (2020) argue that carrying out online assessment makes lecturers feel uncomfortable due to the new adjustment of the current technological tools. furthermore, direct feedback from the lecturers to their students is also missing since they are no longer grading students’ assignment (kearns, 2012; khan & khan, 2019). at last, the online assessment might raise a new challenge for lecturers when it comes to maintaining students’ academic integrity as students are free from exam supervision so that they can cheat and/or plagiarize from the internet (adzima, 2020; mellar et al., 2018; perwitasari et al., 2020). in regard to the explanation above, it can be assumed that the implementation of online assessment which is categorized as novel in schooling may present lots of challenges compared to its benefits. in consequence, a number of researchers have investigated the area of the challenges of online assessment in various countries, such as in united kingdom (alruwais et al., 2018; timmis et al., 2016), in oman (al-maqbali & hussain, 2022; guangul et al., 2020), in saudi arabia (alsadoon, 2021), and in united arab emirates (ali & al-dmour, 2021). these studies highlight that it is critical to classify the challenges teachers and lecturers encounter when implementing online assessments and to draw attention to effective assessment practices they have applied to overcome these challenges. in the indonesian secondary school context, similar findings were also found (aburumman, 2021; perwitasari et al., 2020; widiastuti et al., 2021; yulianto & mujtahid, 2021). in relation to that, there has been much research on the challenges of online assessment in the indonesian secondary school context. however, the one related to the higher education context is still limited. therefore, this study was aimed at; (1) exploring the challenges of online assessment administration in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic disruption in higher education context, and (2) exploring the possible solutions to overcome these challenges. hopefully, this research would be beneficial for lecturers in higher education as their reference in implementing the online assessment. they can get some information about the challenges that are most often faced by lecturers, and the appropriate follow-up actions in responding to challenges so that the similar challenges can be prevented. 2. literature review 2.1. types of assessment assessment is a central part of teaching and learning process, as it determines whether or not the goals of teaching and learning are met. popham (2017) defines assessment as a procedure used by the teacher to obtain information that includes the measurement of students’ achievement (the knowledge and/or skills students acquired by students) and students’ effect (the attitudes or performances in learning). the challenges of online assessment amidst covid-19 pandemic disruption: the voice of efl lecturers 110 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 additionally, harlen (2013, as cited in erwin & muhsin, 2020) asserts purpose of assessment is keeping track, checking-up, finding-out, and summing up. keeping track means the teacher collects information on students’ progress through varied assessment techniques. checking-up means the teacher checks the achievement of students’ abilities during the learning process and whether students have mastered the material or not. finding-out means the teacher finds out students’ weaknesses in the learning process and provides alternative solutions. summing-up means the teacher determines and reports the level of students’ competencies. two main types of assessment: formative and summative are commonly conducted in the process of learning (brown, 2003). formative assessment, typically considered as assessment for learning, refers to evaluating students in the process of forming their competencies and skills with the goal of helping them to continue that growth process and is typically done during the teaching and learning. douglas (2014) argues that “assessment for learning is used to provide learners with information about their progress which they can use to guide their continuing learning or to provide teachers with information which they can use to guide course development and lesson planning” (p. 72). in the same view, mirizon (2021) asserts that assessment for learning focuses on providing feedback for student improvement that helps students recognize what they can or cannot do so that teacher can anticipate what best to do. meanwhile, summative assessment, typically considered as assessment of learning, refers to measurement of what students have understood, and typically occurs at the end of a course or unit of instruction. this assessment of learning focuses on formal assessment to evaluate the learning achievement (brown, 2003). moreover, “assessment of learning does not emphasize on providing feedback for student achievement but rather focus on rating or comparing students’ achievement” (mirizon, 2021, p. 125). in other words, summative assessment evaluates and measures what students grasp in the learning situation after a learning period. to put it briefly, formative assessment is generally understood as interaction and feedback that is ongoing and that contributes to learning expertise, while summative assessment occurs at critical and designated points in the learning process and is usually attached to a grade. the following table 1 below compares formative and summative assessment. table 1 summative and formative assessment. formative assessment summative assessment grading usually not graded usually graded purpose improvement: to give feedback to lecturer and students about how well students understand specific material judgment: to derive a grade, and to allow students to work intensively with course material focus very focused on whether students less focused on specific skills or mariadi, soni mirizon , & margaretha dinar sitinjak englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 111 have acquired specific skills or information information; instead, allows students to demonstrate a range of skills and knowledge effort requires little time from lecturer or students; simple; done in class requires more time from lecturer and students; complex; done outside of class (conrad & openo, 2018, p. 17) 2.1.1. online assessment traditionally, assessment is often in the form of a paper-based format, which is typically done in the face-to-face classroom during the regularly scheduled class time where students take the test with paper and pencil/pen while the lecturer monitors them during the test period. unlike traditional assessment, online assessment refers to technology-based assessment which is typically done in a fully online environment supported by digital technologies such as laptops and/or computers. according to weleschuk et al. (2019), online assessment is considered to be any means of evaluating student achievement and providing feedback in a fully online credit course. this assessment can be direct online exams or online submission only. in broader terms, online assessment means the use of digital devices such as computers, laptops, smart mobile phones, or other portable communication devices, to assist lecturers in the construction, delivery, storage, reporting, grading, and giving feedback on student assessment tasks in online (crisp, 2011). crisp (2011) further argues that online assessment can use a multitude of formats, including text documents or portable document formats, and multimedia formats such as sounds, videos, or images. in the same view, benson and brack (2010) define online assessment as the ways of implementing assessment practices in the online environment. they further provide four categories of the use online assessment that are available for both formative and summative assessment in table 2 below. table 2 uses of the online environment for assessment. categories examples 1. submission of items for assessment  essays: discursive, descriptive, analytical  reports: case based learning, problem based learning  reviews: critical, analytical  media: image, audio, video, presentation 2. automated assessment  quizzes  multimedia  multiple choice  short answer  calculation  matching  fill blanks the challenges of online assessment amidst covid-19 pandemic disruption: the voice of efl lecturers 112 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022  true/false  matching  drag and drop  simulations 3. online discussions  forums: case analysis, project development  debates  allocated roles: lead, summarize, provoke  role plays 4. web publishing  e-portfolios  webpages: blogs, wikis  shared documents: google documents (benson & brack, 2010, p. 126) 2.2. online platforms for online assessment to foster online assessment successfully, lecturers are required to have readiness and willingness to use and adapt to different online platforms. online platforms are defined as digital services that facilitate interactions between lecturers and their students via the internet. in indonesian higher education context, there are numerous popular online platforms recurrently used by lecturers for online teaching and learning, including assessing their students. predominantly, whatsapp has become a popular platform which is widely used in the online learning process in universities, especially during covid-19 pandemic (coleman & o’connor, 2019; faizah et al., 2021; tauhidah et al., 2021). the use of whatsapp aims to create easy communication between lecturers and their students so that they can give the information and direction of the assessment, and also provide students to submit their works instantly (khaleyla et al., 2021; mpungose, 2020). following whatsapp, zoom is the second most preferred platform, with google classroom and google meet coming in third and fourth (basilaia, 2020; ratnawati & nurhasanah, 2021; tauhidah et al., 2021). finally, lecturers use the learning management system (lms) platforms which are designed and developed by their own college for conducting online assessment in synchronous and asynchronous, as well as submitting the tasks (febliza et al., 2021). 2.3. challenges of online assessment regardless of the prospective advantages of online assessment above, there are also reported numerous considerable challenges. first and foremost, the limitations of internet connection, particularly in remote areas, predominantly make online assessment activities disrupted and less effective. likewise, the online assessment consumes a lot of internet data. as a result, most students will complain and experience less enthusiastic in doing the tests because of the lack of internet connection (alruwais et al., 2018; perwitasari et al., 2020; widiastuti et al., 2021; yulianto & mujtahin, 2021). additionally, kumar and sajja (2020) point out multiple challenges of online assessment as follow: (1) uneasiness, many teachers who are not familiar with the current technologies, feel uncomfortable operating the online assessment; (2) mariadi, soni mirizon , & margaretha dinar sitinjak englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 113 scepticism, many teachers are sceptical/doubtful about the set standards of the available online assessment instruments (validity and reliability) in the internet; and (3) dishonesty and plagiarism, since students can accomplish the online assessment anywhere without face-to-face teacher supervision, the number of dishonesty and plagiarism increases. in addition, with the implementation of the online assessment, students may perhaps experience the emergent disconnection between the teachers and them because the teachers no longer grade their coursework so feedback is missing (khan & khan, 2019; perwitasari et al., 2020). besides, some studies (adzima, 2020; mellar et al., 2018; perwitasari et al., 2020; yilmaz, 2017) found that the online assessment causes a new challenge for lecturers when it comes to maintaining students’ academic integrity. compared to traditional exams, the main problem faced in online exams was the cheating problem that could not be controlled. this can be meant that students may possibly copy and paste things they get from the internet, or copy each other’s answers in the assignments and projects, or even take tests together in pairs or groups. at last, alruwais et al. (2018) summarize that the implementation of the online assessment in the educational institution may perhaps emerge some challenges as reported above when both teachers and students are not experienced/skilled with the technological devices and the process of the online assessment. 3. method 3.1. research design this study employed qualitative method in a case study design. according to creswell (2013), “qualitative method is the study of research problems inquiring into the meaning of individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem” (p. 44). furthermore, yin (2009, as cited in creswell, 2013) defines a case study as the study of a case within a real-life, contemporary context or setting. this case may be a concrete entity, such as an individual, a small group, an organization, or a partnership. at a less concrete level, it may be a community, a relationship, a decision process, or a specific project. in addition, morrow (2007) states that “a qualitative study is useful when trying to deeply understand a participant’s lived experiences, the significance of those experiences, and potentially a phenomenon that the experiences illustrate” (p. 209). a qualitative method in case study is considered as the appropriate design for this study because it explores the activities of participants or lecturers in their classes, and describes the phenomenon happening at the present time. 3.2. research site and participants research site defines as the location where this research will be held (creswell, 2012). this study took place in english education study program a state university in palembang due to the accessibility and familiarity with the site. moreover, this study program also carried out online teaching and learning activity, including online the challenges of online assessment amidst covid-19 pandemic disruption: the voice of efl lecturers 114 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 assessment during covid-19 pandemic disruption. there were two lecturers of english education study program a state university in palembang being the participants of this study. these two participants were selected based on some considerations: (1) role as the resident lecturers, (2) referral from the head of study program, (3) willingness to the involvement, (4) teaching experience level as the junior lecturers, and (5) experienced in conducting online assessment. 3.3. data collection and analysis to attain the objectives of this study, the data of the study were collected using interview and classroom observation. firstly, in-depth interview with semi-structured format of questions was used as the primary data collection to explore the apparent challenges faced by the two efl lecturers during the implementation of online assessment in their teaching and learning process. the questions were adopted from the practice of online assessment in higher education (benson & brack, 2010; conrad & openo, 2018) and the challenges of online assessment (adzima, 2020; kumar & sajja, 2020; perwitasari et al., 2020). the interview was conducted virtually with two efl lecturers through zoom as the online platform. secondly, online classroom observation was conducted to see whether what efl lecturers reported in the interview really emerged in the implementation of online assessment. this observation was conducted for six times during two months period of data collection. the data obtained from in-depth interview and online classroom observation note were analysed using thematic analysis through vivo coding. saldana (2013) defines “vivo coding as a code refers to a word or short phrase from the actual language found in the qualitative data record, and used by participants themselves” (p. 590). this means that what words or phrases in the data record from transcriptions of the interview and notes of online classroom observation that the researchers select as codes are those that seem to stand out as significant or summative of what is being said. towards the end, the researcher presented the results of the data analysis into description in findings section. to check and ensure the consistency of the analysis, transcriptions of the interview were given to the participants in order to confirm their answers and to keep the trustworthiness of the study. they could see the interview transcription in order to recheck the originality of the answers and avoid the ambiguity or uncertainty of the interview results. in short, triangulation of the data obtained from in-depth interview and online classroom observation was carried out to get the credible and accurate conclusion. 4. findings the following are findings that answered the two research questions: (1) what challenges do the efl lecturers encounter in the implementation of online assessment mariadi, soni mirizon , & margaretha dinar sitinjak englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 115 in the midst of covid-19 pandemic disruption?, and (2) how do the efl lecturers cope with the challenges of online assessment? 4.1. challenges of online assessment and solutions to meet these challenges based on the results of thematic analysis, five themes related to the challenges of online assessment emerged, namely uneasiness, technical problems, time-consuming process, late submission, and academic dishonesty. further, each of the challenges was followed by the solutions to cope with those challenges done by the two efl lecturers in english education study program at sriwijaya university. 4.1.1.uneasiness during the covid-19 pandemic disruption, the efl lecturers in english education study program a state university in palembang were demanded to carry out the assessment process online by utilizing technological advances, particularly devices and online platforms. this demand forced them to adapt to recent technological advances. however, the lack of familiarity with technology made lecturers uneasy in adapting technology to their assessment process. regarding this first aspect of challenges on online assessment, the participant 2 of this study admitted that she was still digitalilliterate with the online platform since she was unfamiliar with its features, as indicated in the following quote. so, the challenge is preparing the quiz especially in the new platform. when i am not familiar with its features, i must read and learn how to use the features one by one, and then do some trials and errors in doing the quiz. [lecturer 2] to cope with this challenge, the lecturer 2 used youtube for finding out the easy way to make a quiz in the online platform. not only that, she certainly needs to be digital literate with the feature of online platform before using it. so, that’s why i found out the easy way for making quiz on youtube. there is a quiz generator and its tutorial. so, you just click the website and sign up, after that you just copy and paste the bank of the questions and choose what type of question you want, then the platform will generate them into quiz…. for the quiz, you have to be very digital literate with the feature of the online platform so that you can use it well. [lecturer 2] at last, the lecturers had never attended to a seminar or even workshop related to the online assessment field. moreover, they also questioned the limited numbers of workshops and seminars on online assessment offered by the institution. i joined open massive course outside, but not specifically about online assessment itself. it is a training specifically related to technology used. [lecturer 1] the challenges of online assessment amidst covid-19 pandemic disruption: the voice of efl lecturers 116 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 as far as i remember, i haven’t joined any kind of seminar or even workshop in this faculty, hmmm, ya not yet! [lecturer 2] to cope with this issue, the lecturers took individual initiative to learn the online assessment practices with their teaching fellow. for that, i learn more from my experience and based on what i have studied, and also learn and share together with my teaching fellow only like that. [lecturer 2] interview excerpts above revealed that actually one of the lecturers realized that conducting online assessment with various online platforms was not comfortable to do due to unfamiliarity with the online platform and its features. lecturers were aware to improve their online assessment literacy in order to be skilled to conduct online assessment effectively. however, lack of training programs about online assessment from the institution forced them to take individual initiative to improve their own literacy of online assessment practices by themselves. 4.1.2. technical problems this second aspect of challenges on online assessment during covid-19 pandemic disruption outlines technical problems as the kinds of individual hindrances experienced by students which had no link with the facilities or funds from the institution. they are regarding bad internet connection and electricity problem, as revealed in quotes below. another problem when students do the online assessment is usually about internet connection. therefore, they sometimes disappear or leave the zoom meeting. [lecturer 1] you know, students sometimes say that they cannot do the quiz and other assessments because they have bad signal and the electricity is off. [lecturer 2] the results of the interview above were in line with the results obtained from observation. it was found that some students had trouble with their internet connection so they could not speak clearly especially when they delivered their ideas to the material and questions given by the lecturer. as a result, they were disconnected and removed from the online platform. this problem encountered by students was serious and might grow exponentially if not properly addressed. therefore, to overcome this problem, the lecturers suggested the following ways. when some students get unstable connection, i ask them to turn off their webcam because it is usually helpful. and if they leave the platform, i usually ask them to wait till the connection is stable and rejoin the meeting. [lecturer 1] mariadi, soni mirizon , & margaretha dinar sitinjak englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 117 i know how it felt when the electricity is off, and i know the signal is gone when the electricity is off. so, i just assume if it is the truth. so, if they request for the extended time, i will extend the time as long as they do the assignment and quiz. [lecturer 2] furthermore, the lecturers also faced technical problem during the use of online platform, as shown by interview quote below. actually e-learning has videoconference feature called big blue button, for us to conduct online assessment, but my students and i do not like it because the system is not really good. sometimes students cannot unmute mic and turn on webcam. sometimes they cannot share the ppt. and sometimes the website is under maintenance so we cannot access it. [lecturer 2] the result of the interview above was cohered with the result obtained from observations. it was revealed that the videoconferencing feature called big blue button (bbb) in e-learning sometimes did not work properly. both lecturers and students occasionally had trouble logging in, turning on and/or turning off their webcam, muting and/or unmuting their microphone, and sharing their powerpoint. furthermore, both lecturers and students could not access e-learning because it was under maintenance. to cope with this problem, the lecturers had to shift to the other online platform such as google meet and zoom, as indicated in the following quotes. we used big blue button in e-learning as the online platform in the beginning, but due to some technical problems so i decided to switch to use zoom because it is easier to use and it has many features especially the breakout room, polling, etc. [lecturer 1] so that’s why i change the platform. i always use google meet because it is very simple, easy, instant, and free. [lecturer 2] the results of the interview and observations above indicated that both students and lecturers confronted common technical problems that appeared during the activity of the online assessment, particularly during the covid-19 pandemic disruption. these technical problems were related to the unstable internet connection, and problems with the electricity and the online platform (under maintenance) which frequently disturbed lecturers in conducting the test and students in accomplishing the test. to cope with these technical problems, the lecturers reallocated the activity to other preferable online platforms (zoom and google meet). and then, they also asked students to turn off their webcam in order to get a stable internet connection or asked them to rejoin the meeting. in the end, the lecturers gave an extended time for students to do the assignments and quizzes. 4.1.3. time-consuming process regarding this third aspect of challenges on online assessment during covid-19 pandemic disruption, it was apparent that the two efl lecturers also faced difficulty the challenges of online assessment amidst covid-19 pandemic disruption: the voice of efl lecturers 118 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 preparing the assessment instruments, especially quizzes on the online platforms they used because the preparation process took a lot of time. actually, one of the most challenging jobs in carrying out online teaching and learning as well as the assessment is in the preparation part. it’s so timeconsuming because you have to prepare many platforms in order to give various assessment activities. [lecturer 1] in terms of preparation, i’d say that it is not easy to do because it takes long time in some other parts like in designing the quiz especially in the elearning. i must do it one by one, i mean you must type the questions and answers manually cannot copy and paste, and i must be very digital literate with all features. [lecturer 2] to solve this problem, the lecturers used other online platforms (kahoot!, quizizz, and moodle) which they thought were easier and faster to prepare and use, especially in designing quizzes. there are various online platforms that i use during the online assessment, but i do like using kahoot! and quizizz just like what you see in my class because they are quite easy to use. [lecturer 1] so, that’s why i found out the easy way for making quiz on youtube. there is a quiz generator called moodle and its tutorial. so, you just click the website and sign up, after that you just copy and paste the bank of the questions and choose what type of question you want, then the platform will generate them into quiz. [lecturer 2] similarly, the results of observations also showed that both efl lecturers constantly used similar online platforms for quizzes after teaching and learning activities. based on online classroom observations, lecturer 1 frequently used kahoot! and lecturer 2 used moodle when they conducted online quizzes. the results of the interview and observations indicated that preparing the assessment instruments, especially quizzes on several online platforms was considered a time-consuming process because the lecturers had to type the questions and answers on the platform in sequence. therefore, selecting an online platform that had simple features for designing quizzes could be an alternative solution to help lecturers in solving assessment preparation problems, particularly reducing time spent on platforms. 4.1.4. late submission this fourth aspect of challenges on online assessment during covid-19 pandemic disruption outlines that the two efl lecturers confronted was that there was a delay in submitting assignment that must be submitted before the due date, as reported in the following interview excerpt. mariadi, soni mirizon , & margaretha dinar sitinjak englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 119 some students do not submit their assignments on time based on the due date given. they sometimes have various reasons such as no quota, blackout, and many assignments from other lecturers. [lecturer 1] there are a few students who are not punctually submitting their assignment. they ask for more extended time for the assignment submission. they always need time. [lecturer 2] to address this issue, the lecturer was actually very to kind to the students by giving an extension of time to do the assignment. like it or not, i have to give additional time and days for them to submit their assignments. and usually i give them maximum three days to do that. otherwise, they will not be given any scores. [lecturer 1] it will be my bad and i feel very cruel if i let my students miss the assignment and quiz. so, if they request for the extended time, i will extend the time as long as they really do assignment and quiz. [lecturer 2] the above quotes revealed that there were often delays in the submission of assignments done by students due to some excuses such as running out of internet data, blackout, etc. this made lecturers had to give extended time to students in order to finish and submit their assignments. this result of the interview was in line with the result of observations which revealed that the two efl lecturers in every meeting asked students whether they had submitted their assignments (both individual and group assessments) or not. if there were several students who had not submitted their assignments, the lecturers gave them an additional day to finish and submit their assignments in e-learning. otherwise, they would not get a score as a consequence. 4.1.5. academic dishonesty this last aspect of challenges on online assessment points out that the two efl lecturers in english education study program a state university in palembang experienced that students often committed academic dishonesty such as plagiarism and cheating in doing the assignments, as seen below. you know because everything is really easy to be browsed in google, so the students often copy paste the question and find the answers. ya i think it is about plagiarism since it always happened because they do it at home and we cannot supervise them directly. [lecturer 1] i am afraid the students cheat during the test because i cannot control them working from their homes. i do not know whether during the assessment they find the answers by themselves or they chat via wa group to cooperate to answer the questions. [lecturer 2] i cannot avoid cheating. i believe they only copy paste their answers from the internet. they type the question and find the answer, because i believe the challenges of online assessment amidst covid-19 pandemic disruption: the voice of efl lecturers 120 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 that they can find anything in the internet and i cannot control everything since they are at home. [lecturer 2] to cope with this issue, the lecturers used some ways such as reformat the question items, give motivation, and use plagiarism checker, as reported below. to avoid cheating and plagiarism, i usually prepare set of questions. i reformat the open-ended questions with personal experience based questions. so, the students have to tell and explain their own experience related to the questions given…… to minimize plagiarism, i usually use online plagiarism checker in google. if i find too many similarities, i will decrease the score. [lecturer 1] i give students motivation every time i give them quiz and assignment. i always say that; (learning is a process, learning is not instant, the grade is only a bonus for you. if you do not do it by yourself, if you are not honest with yourself, then it is your loss not my loss. so, it is useless that you get 100 if you know nothing what you are doing). i always give them this motivation in case it will influence them to do the assignment and quiz by themselves. [lecturer 2] another solution for dealing with this challenge is i give them a time quiz. this can be useful for limiting cheating and copy paste activities. so, they have no time for research the answer in the internet and they will be in rush…… generally, i use www.plagiarismchecker.co for detecting plagiarism in my classes. i copy and paste their work on the website and the website tells me the percentages of plagiarism and uniqueness of the copiedpasted texts. [lecturer 2] interview excerpts above revealed the common challenge encountered by the two efl lecturers during the implementation of the online assessment was academic dishonesty. this occurred since the assessment process in the midst of covid-19 pandemic disruption was done by students virtually at home, not face-to-face. this result indicated that the lack of supervision during the online assessment process caused students to commit cheating where they answered the questions together with their gadget and/or friends, and commit plagiarism where they simply copied and pasted the answers found in the internet. hence, to diminish this academic dishonesty, the efl lecturers gave motivation to build up student integrity awareness, modified the format of questions, and applied plagiarism checker. 5. discussion referring to the findings of the first objective of this study, it is reasonable that the two efl lecturers at a state university in palembang confronted several challenges in the process of assessing their students in an online environment because they had just adapted to the implementation of online assessment since the disruption of the covid-19 pandemic in the last three years. as it was reported, they were admitted that they were initially unaccustomed with the online platform and its features. moreover, they lacked mariadi, soni mirizon , & margaretha dinar sitinjak englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 121 of training programs such as workshop and seminar about online assessment from the institution. this affected uneasiness or discomfort in carrying out online assessment. this finding was in line with previous studies reporting that many instructors felt uncomfortable utilizing the current technology tools during online assessment process, especially in the midst of covid-19 pandemic due to their unfamiliarity and lack of understanding of the online assessment practices (alsadoon, 2021; kumar & sajja, 2020; yulianto & mujtahid, 2021). the following hindrance that participants met was the technical problems. these technical problems were related to the poor internet service, electricity failure, and maintenance of the learning management system (lms) which kept students disconnected from completing assignments in the process of assessment. this finding was in line with some studies reporting that the limitation of internet connection also took apart to make assessment activities less effective. as a result, students were less enthusiastic about doing online assessment (alruwais et al., 2018; yulianto & mujtahid, 2021). subsequently, the technical problems above also triggered the emergence of another hindrance in terms of assignment submission. the lecturers complained that many students sometimes used these technical excuses with the purpose of submitting their assignment that exceeded the due date of submission. this finding was in line with perwitasari et al. (2020) who found that many students did poorly on assignments or did not collect them on time. besides, preparing various kinds of assessment activities and instruments on online platforms was also assumed as the most challenging task to be done by lecturers. it was time-consuming in designing the assessment instruments, especially quizzes, as lecturers had to input the items of the quiz in sequence. moreover, a variety type of quizzes should be applied in the online environment assessment, i.e., multiple-choice, short answer, matching, fill blanks, true/false, calculation, drag and drop, and simulations (conrad & openo, 2018). as a result, lecturers are demanded of their workload and time management. the following challenge that participants faced was related to the assessment supervision. the ease of accessing online assessments, where students worked on assigned tasks remotely like at home, made lecturers unable to supervise student activities one by one while doing and completing assignments. this challenge occurred due to the lack of supervision feature like cctv on the online platform used during the exams. therefore, lecturers were worried if their students committed acts of cheating such as looking for answers via the internet and doing assignments with friends or family. this finding cohered with previous studies reporting the assessment activities carried out online are not able to measure the actual ability of students because the teacher cannot control how students do assignments, whether they are actually able to do the assignment or be done by someone else (perwitasari et al., 2020; tuah & naing, 2021). moreover, several studies (abduh, 2021; adzima, 2020; kumar & sajja, 2020; perwitasari et al., 2020; yilmaz, 2017) reported lecturers’ dissatisfaction with the integrity of online assessment. compared to traditional assessments, the main challenge the challenges of online assessment amidst covid-19 pandemic disruption: the voice of efl lecturers 122 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 faced by lecturers in online assessments was the cheating and plagiarism problem that could not be controlled. in regard to the findings of the second objective of this study, various practical techniques were applied by the two efl lecturers in overcoming the apparent challenges of online assessment. first and foremost, to deal with the hindrance in terms of uneasiness in which the lecturers lacked of familiarity and understanding of online assessment practices, they did some efforts to broaden their knowledge of online assessment practices by joining training programmes such as workshops, seminars, webinars, and many more. hence, the educational institutions should provide training programmes for lecturers to increase their capabilities in the implementation of online assessment, and to improve their abilities in using information technology (alruwais et al., 2018; kearns, 2012; kumar & sajja, 2020). this is essential because lecturers should always renovate their knowledge and skill, so the online assessment can be done more varied and applicable. in the second place, the technical problem was one of the challenges that lecturers faced which is beyond their control. to confront poor internet connection during online assessment, the lecturers asked students to turn off their webcams in order to get a stable connection. however, this sometimes did not work, so they were asked to log out from the online platform and re-joined. likewise, to deal with lms maintenance, the lecturers shifted to the other online platforms such as zoom or google meet which was practical to use. in relation to that technical problem, students used internet connectivity as an excuse for their inability to complete assignment and submit it on time. this challenge forced lecturers to give extended time so that students could submit their assignment and got grades. however, students sometimes made this as a habit. therefore, it is crucial to implement penalties for late submission so that students are aware not to repeat it and becomes time disciplined. speaking about time-consuming assessment preparation, it would be efficient for lecturers to design varied tasks in the appropriate online platform which had simple features for designing the assessment tasks based on the needs and objectives of learning. besides, to reduce students committed academic dishonesty such as cheating and plagiarism, various techniques were applied by the lecturers as followed: (1) giving motivation to make students be aware of academic integrity, (2) modifying written exams from open-ended questions to personal experience-based questions, (3) applying plagiarism checker to detect the level of similarity of students’ works. this finding was cohered with previous studies (cahyadi et al., 2021; holden et al., 2021) that the use of written exams in online assessment should be minimized, especially in certain subjects with high theoretical content. if written exams cannot be avoided, turnitin and plagiarism check can be an option to detect the level of similarity of students’ test results. 6. conclusion the findings of this study revealed that the efl lecturers at a state university in palembang encountered several challenges in conducting online assessment. at first, mariadi, soni mirizon , & margaretha dinar sitinjak englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 123 they lacked of understanding about the use of technological tools and systems, especially online platforms used for online assessments. accordingly, it created other hindrance in relation to assessment preparation because lecturers spent a lot of time when they did not understand the practical use of the systems. referring to these hindrances, lecturers are obligated to broaden their knowledge of online assessment practices by joining training programmes such as workshops, seminars, webinars, etc. besides, numerous critical issues arose by students in accomplishing online assessments, such as poor internet connection and sudden power outages that made them unable to do and submit assignments punctually. to deal with this issue, the lecturers give time extension of assessment submission and implement penalties for late submission to make students disciplined. furthermore, lack of online supervision during assessments, especially where students often turned off the camera and the absence of a cheating detection feature in the online systems, made them felt free to commit academic dishonesty such as cooperating each other in completing tasks and copying answers from the internet. various ways applied by lecturers to reduce this challenge such as giving motivation of academic integrity awareness, modifying written exam questions, and applying plagiarism checker. as a final point, it is recommended that the authorities in the higher educational institutions are aware of the challenges encountered by lecturers in conducting online assessments by providing sufficient support so that similar challenges can be prevented. references abduh, m. y. m. 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(2021). online assessment during covid-19 pandemic: efl teachers’ perspectives and their practices. journal of english teaching, 7(2), 229-242. https://doi.org/10.33541/jet.v7i2.2770 englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2023. vol.10, no.2, 105-118 the semiotic and modern hermeneutic review of the online covid-19 public service advertisement texts i gede astawa*, ida bagus gede upadana, a.a. sagung ayu srikandi putri denpasar academy of tourism, denpasar, indonesia manuscript received september 11, 2022, revised october 26, 2022, accepted november 13, 2022, and published online may 7, 2023. recommended apa citation astawa, i.g., upadana, i.b.g., & putri, a.s.a.s. (2023). the semiotic and modern hermeneutic review of the online covid-19 public service advertisement texts. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(2), 105-118. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.15005 abstract the indonesian government works closely with other agencies to intensely campaign for the movement against the virus corona in various ways, one of which is through public service advertisements (psas). psas have verbal and non-verbal elements that contain meanings, both explicit and implicit meanings. this article aims to analyze three samples of psas concerning covid-19 retrieved from three online website media, namely (1) the website of the ministry of education, culture, research and technology of the republic of indonesia; (2) republika online; and (3) kompas.com. this research was conducted using qualitative descriptive methods referring to the semiotic theory developed by roland barthes and charles sanders peirce, and the modern hermeneutics theory developed by paul ricoeur. the analysis of the psas in this study was focused on verbal texts, while non-verbal texts were not analyzed deeply. from the three psas analyzed, the study found that the explicit meanings lying in the psas were to fight the coronavirus by complying with health protocols. meanwhile, implicitly, the psas imply that the indonesian people are under threat of death, the coronavirus is not a lie, nor is it a conspiracy. keywords: public service advertisements; covid-19; semiotics; modern hermeneutics *corresponding author: i gede astawa denpasar academy of tourism, denpasar jl. tukad balian no.15, renon, denpasar selatan, kota denpasar, bali 80239, indonesia email: gedeastawa@akpar-denpasar.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.15005 the semiotic and modern hermeneutic review of the online covid-19 public service advertisement texts 106 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 1. introduction the presence of coronavirus disease 2019 (known as covid-19), which has spread worldwide, has caused a global economic downturn. since the spread of this virus to indonesia, this deadly virus has devastated the economy massively. the lockdown policy and the implementation of restrictions on community activities resulted in massive layoffs between employees and companies/industries that provide job opportunities. therefore, the unemployment rate has increased sharply, especially among those who work in private companies. it is indeed a difficult choice made by the government considering the chain of the spread of covid-19 still cannot be overcome optimally. amid the government's efforts to break the chain of the spread of covid-19, negative issues have developed in society, in which covid-19 is a fabrication and conspiracy. the presence of social media which is growing rapidly in society provides fast access to both actual news and unactual news. it is undeniable that this kind of condition can be used as a tool by government opposition groups to form negative opinions that are easily spread on online social media. with the development of issues that doubt the existence of covid-19, the government is aggressively campaigning for awareness of the coronavirus through various media(hoed, 2014)one of which is through public service advertisements (psa). in general, these psas use verbal and visual language. psas are considered capable of mobilizing community solidarity when facing a social problem (tinarbuko, 2017). there are some relevant studies conducted by previous researchers (e.g. al-ghamdi & albawardi, 2020; leone, 2021; lestari, simarmata, sitorus, & sidabutar, 2021; nuraryo, 2020; putri, 2020; riaz, 2020; sulatra & eka pratiwi, 2020; trisnayanti ni made desi, desak putu eka pratiwi, & komang dian puspita candra, 2021). in general, the studies done by the previous researchers revealed denotative and connotative meanings implied in the texts. mostly, the meanings lying in the texts tell us about togetherness in fighting covid-19, staying at home to prevent the spread of covid-19, fear of facing covid-19, reducing the spread of covid-19, radical cultural change, etc. theoretically, the semiotic theory developed by roland barthes and charles sanders peirce has close to the modern hermeneutic theory developed by paul ricoeur (hoed, 2014). by combining semiotic and hermeneutic theories in the analysis of the psas text under investigation, the study is able to uncover hiding meanings more deeply. the inclusion of hermeneutic theories is to enrich the understanding of the hidden meanings lying in the texts under investigation. thus, this inclusion of hermeneutic theories, in this study, becomes a theoretical gap. the theoretical gap is the type of gap that deals with the gaps in theory with prior research (müller-bloch & kranz, as cited in miles, 2017). in this study, the texts contained in psas are not only interpreted from their denotative meanings but also interpreted from their hidden meanings lying behind the texts. thus, this present study aims at finding explicit and implicit meanings lying in the i gede astawa , ida bagus gede upadana, & a.a. sagung ayu srikandi putri englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 107 three psas analyzed using the semiotic theory developed by barthes (1957); peirce (1940); and the modern hermeneutic theory developed by ricoeur (1982). 2. literature review 2.1. advertisement advertising is a means of information that has elements of art. therefore, advertising design always uses certain techniques to achieve its goals, namely (1) selling ideas that are the mainstay of the implementation of a product or service for the long term; and (2) dissemination of ideas regarding the benefits of the communicant when receiving the idea as recommended by the communicator, in the form of the use of the suggested goods or services, as well as the enjoyment derived from the use of the said goods or services (tinarbuko, 2017). furthermore, djamereng (2018) states that the presence of advertisement is not only promoting a product but also indirectly presenting and offering an imagination. promoting the product is also based on an ideology attached to the advertisement. in general, advertisements are divided into two types, namely commercial advertisements and public service advertisements. a commercial advertisement is an advertisement that conveys a commercial message whose main goal is to make a final profit. unlike commercial advertisement, public service advertisement is a message that is conveyed with a social purpose, or not for profit. the principle behind a psa is that it owes parallel information that should benefit the general public, only to the interest of the beneficiary. in this sense, its content must be of public interest and must provide unbiased and motivational information that helps people to react to particular public problems, to the preservation of the environment (mandell, as cited in mohamed, larouz, & yachoulti, 2019, p. 22). kasali, (as cited in tinarbuko, 2017) states that in public service advertisements, social messages are presented to raise public awareness of the number of problems they must face. psas are used by the government to disseminate its programs. seeing its function as a media in the social field, psas contain messages about national awareness, humanity, health, education, and the environment. furthermore, psas, in particular, in the form of messages about avoiding the risk of being exposed to covid-19 became the focus of the research. this is based on the reality that psas contain signs and messages, both verbally and nonverbally (visually). 2.2. semiotics semiotics views that facts are not everything; behind the fact, there is something else, namely meaning. this view is a contradiction from the perspective of natural science which states that facts are everything. semiotics is the science of signs (hoed, 2014; kridalaksana, 2011; van lier, 2004). furthermore, hoed (2014) states that signs involve all things, both physical and mental, both in the world and in the universe, both in the human mind and the biological systems of humans and animals, which are interpreted by humans. thus, a sign can be said to be a sign if it has meaning for humans. semiotics the semiotic and modern hermeneutic review of the online covid-19 public service advertisement texts 108 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 provides an understanding of cultural values in the communication process (mikhaeil & baskerville, 2019). in the semiotic text, barthes (1957) sees a text as a sign that must be seen as having terms of expression (e) and content (c). thus, (1) a text is an entity that has linguistic elements; (2) as a being in understanding it must rely on the rules in the language of the text; (3) is part of a culture so that it cannot be separated from its cultural context and spatiotemporal environment, in the sense that it must consider the factors of producing and receiving texts. according to pierce (1940), the universe consists of signs. this is a pan-semiotic view of our universe. humans interpret natural, social, and cultural phenomena through a process that occurs in their cognition, namely semiosis. signs are seen as a structure depicted in cognition, but as a semiotic process, namely, a three-stage cognitive process of meaning that departs from something that can be sensed or thought. therefore, peirce's semiotic model is also called pragmatic semiotic because it departs from the external form of signs that can be sensed by humans (representamen). peirce's model is triadic because it sees humans giving meaning to signs through a three-stage cognitive process of meaning called semiosis. the stages are (1) the perception of the representamen (r), namely the external form of the sign that is directly related to the human senses (often equated with the meaning of the sign); (2) the “spontaneous” representation of the representamen on the object (o), which is a concept that is known to the sign user in his cognition and is related to the representamen; (3) further interpretation by the sign user, which is called the interpretant (i) after the representamen is associated with the object. 2.3. modern hermeneutics hermeneutics is a discipline whose main attention is devoted to clear rules of text interpretation. in other words, hermeneutics is a text-oriented interpretation (ricoeur, 2005; thomson, 2005). in the modern era, there are new trends in the area of language research that culminated in the presence of a philosophy of language analysis which views all philosophical studies as having to depart from linguistic observations and their functions. on the other hand, hermeneutics also deals with texts, while language is a form of text. thus, hermeneutics also views linguistic issues as important (thalib, 2018). thus, the search for meaning in a text from a hermeneutic perspective is also important to uncover hidden meanings in the text. in analysing the text of psas, based on ricoeur's hermeneutics, there are five meanings involved in the analysis process, namely (1) the meaning of the elements of text formation (language); (2) the meaning of the text based on the background of the text producer; (3) the meaning of the text based on the text's environment (including pictures and atmosphere as well as the target group; (4) the meaning of the text based on its relation to other texts; and (5) the meaning of the text based on the text's dialogue with the reader; i gede astawa , ida bagus gede upadana, & a.a. sagung ayu srikandi putri englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 109 all of which are seen in a synchronic and diachronic perspective will support as a method of interpreting the text (hoed, 2014). 3. method this research used a descriptive qualitative approach. the method of providing data in this study applied an online search method, namely conducting data browsing through online media such as the internet or other network media (bungin, 2007). data sources in this study were three psas concerning the covid-19 issue retrieved from three online website media, namely (1) the website of the ministry of education, culture, research and technology of the republic of indonesia; (2) republika online; and (3) kompas.com. the data collected in this research were continued by applying an advanced technique in the form of note-taking (mahsun, 2006), namely recording several forms that are relevant to the research from the use of written language in the covid-19 psas. the focus of this psa study was on the language element, while the nonverbal element (image) was not the focus of the analysis. the selected data were analyzed using two theories, namely semiotic theory and hermeneutic theory. in semiotic analysis, the writer referred to the theory developed by barthes (1957) and peirce (1940). meanwhile, in hermeneutic analysis, the writer referred to the modern hermeneutic theory developed by ricoeur (1982). 4. findings and discussion this study only focuses on the analysis in terms of the language used in public service advertisements, while images (nonverbal) that support verbal texts are not included in the complete analysis. analysis of the language used in psas is to find both explicit and implicit meanings from semiotic studies (roland barthes and charles sanders peirce) and modern hermeneutics (paul ricoeur). 4.1. the analysis of psa 1 4.1.1. roland barthes and charles sanders’ semiotics figure 1. public service advertisement 1 (https://bersaahadapikorona.kemdikbud.go.id/iklan-layanan-masyarakat-covid-19/) in the primary system of barthes theory, public service advertisements in [psa1] pakai masker ‘wearing masker’, harga mati ‘fixed price’ ga pakai marker ‘not wearing a https://bersaahadapikorona.kemdikbud.go.id/iklan-layanan-masyarakat-covid-19/ the semiotic and modern hermeneutic review of the online covid-19 public service advertisement texts 110 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 mask’ bisa mati ‘can die’ illustrate that the statement of this public service advertisement message is a government agency, in this case, the ministry of education, culture, research, and technology of the republic of indonesia regarding the necessity of wearing masks for everyone. this is the expression (e) and content (c), while in the secondary system, it can be interpreted that the indonesian state is under great threat of massive death due to the presence of the coronavirus in most parts of the world. therefore, to anticipate this, readers are required to wear masks. educated people or those who are directly involved with the world of health will have a better level of understanding of the content of the message conveyed. this is different from the case with ordinary people, who get different understandings and often get understanding from gossip sources through the word-of-mouth process, some even do not believe that covid-19 exists or is just a political conspiracy. furthermore, from the perspective of peirce's theory of semiosis, pakai masker, harga mati. ga pakai masker bisa mati ‘wearing a mask, is fixed price. ‘not wearing a mask can die’ is a sign (representamen) that refers to an object, namely a public service advertisement containing an appeal on how to avoid the spread of the coronavirus. at the interpretant stage, it can be said that one of the interpretations is that if you want to avoid death due to the coronavirus, the reader must wear a mask. if you don't use a mask, death can threaten anyone because this virus does not recognize social status, gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion, and others. based on the interpretation of the text used, wearing a mask is the most important part of avoiding death. at the bottom of the text, "3m (mencuci tangan, ‘washing hands, memakai masker ‘wearing masker’, dan menjaga jarak ‘social distancing’) is written in letters that are smaller than the words above. the meaning of 3m is not clearly explained because the text producers assume that the abbreviation 3m (washing hands, wearing masks, and social distancing) has been very popular among readers since the covid-19 pandemic. 4.1.2. ricoeur's hermenetic analysis hermeneutic understanding of the text must further ask who made the text, what thoughts were behind the making of the text, how the thought of the text maker developed until the text was produced, and so on (hoed, 2014). in the process of ricoeur's hermeneutic analysis, broadly speaking, the analysis of public service advertisements in [1] can be described as follows. 4.1.2.1. meaning of the text elements the meaning of the text elements used in psa 1 is shown in table 1. table 1 meaning of the text elements. language elements meaning i gede astawa , ida bagus gede upadana, & a.a. sagung ayu srikandi putri englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 111 pakai masker, harga mati ‘wearing a mask, is fixed price’ telling that the order must be carried out and is non-negotiable (conative). ga pakai masker, bisa mati ‘not wearing a mask, can die’ if you violate the order, your life will be threatened (referential). protokol kesehatan 3m ‘health protocol 3m’ informing readers about health protocols by wearing masks, washing hands, and maintaining distance during the covid-19 pandemic (referential). regarding the meaning of the text elements in table 1 above, the text producer of the psa 1 tries to convey a message that there are two choices for the readers, alive or dead. to avoid death, the readers must obey the health protocol determined by the government appropriately. 4.1.2.2. background of the text producer this public service text advertisement about the appeal to wear masks was made by the ministry of education, culture, research, and technology of the republic of indonesia. judging from the producer of this ad text, the main targets of this ad are students, teachers, lecturers, and education staff to always wear masks to avoid cases of death due to coronavirus infection. because the producers of the text know that the target audience for the advertisement text delivered is mostly students and college students, the choice of words is adjusted to the communicative language that is not too formal, and there is even the use of non-standard words, such as "ga" to replace the word "tidak’ ‘not’". 4.1.2.3. environment of the text the text environment in [image1] consists of several types, namely: (1) a photo of a handsome young man wearing a mask. the selection of a handsome young man's photo as the model used is to attract the attention of the ad's target audience, which is mostly students and college students; (2) photos of health workers with complete ppe (personal protective equipment) burying corpses that died due to exposure to covid-19 in a mass grave specially provided for the victims of covid-19. the photo on the grave gives an illustration to the readers that this coronavirus has claimed the lives of victims on a large scale; (3) in the upper right corner there is a logo "remember mother's message" and the logo of a government agency. the logo containing the words "remember mother's message" depicts the love of a mother who always reminds her child to wear a mask, while the agency logo describes the producer of public service advertisement texts; (4) the text is communicated more targeting educational community groups who are well acquainted with the existence of covid-19. the semiotic and modern hermeneutic review of the online covid-19 public service advertisement texts 112 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 4.1.2.4. relations to other psa texts the relationship between the larger and smaller printed text in this public service advertisement is interpreted as the main text that becomes the most important concern for the readers of the text. in addition to being printed larger, the main text is also given a striking colour contrast so that it can be the focus of being read by the target advertisement. this text is also related to public service advertisements about covid-19 in various media, both print media and online media. there are many similar texts whose essence is to break the chain of the spread of covid-19. 4.1.2.5. dialogue with the psa readers there is a cultural convention that dominates the readers of this public service advertisement text. first, the readers are convinced that the coronavirus exists (even though it is not visible), and is deadly. second, there are some people who still ignore the call for wearing masks because they are not sure that the virus exists, or is just being exaggerated. this dichotomy raises public awareness of the importance of wearing masks. 4.2. the analysis of psa 2 4.2.1. roland barthes and charles sanders’ semiotics figure 2. public service advertisement 2 (https://www.repulika.co.id/berita/qhcmb9283/) psa 2 begins with the question sentence “menang perang tanpa senjata?” ‘win the war without weapons?’. here, the producer of the text reduces the element of the sentence whose origin is “bisakah kita menang perang tanpa senjata? ‘can we win the war without weapons?’ next, the text producer answers with one word “bisa” ‘can’. the text producer again gives the command “pakai maskermu” ‘wear your mask’. based on the semiotic analysis developed by barthes, the primary element (denotation) of the psa text above is the message conveyed by president joko widodo (jokowi) to the indonesian people to always wear masks in order to fight the widespread coronavirus that has hit the world through public service advertisements. while the https://www.repulika.co.id/berita/qhcmb9283/ i gede astawa , ida bagus gede upadana, & a.a. sagung ayu srikandi putri englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 113 secondary elements (connotations) can be understood differently by text users. connotatively, it can be interpreted as a major threat to human life, which at any time could be threatened with death. here, jokowi uses the metaphorical phrase “win the war without weapons?” which illustrates that covid-19 is an invader (enemy) and we are at war against the virus without using weapons. we can win the war if we always wear masks. based on the semiotics developed by peirce, the phrase “win the war without weapons? can. wear your mask” is a sign (representamen) referring to jokowi's message to avoid the deadly threat of covid-19 (object). at the interpretant stage, it can be interpreted that if we want to survive the threat of covid-19, we must protect ourselves with masks. 4.2.2. ricoeur's modern hermeneutic analysis starting from the semiotic view developed by barthes and peirce above, if the analysis is based on the modern hermeneutics developed by ricoeur, the psa text “win the war without weapons? can. wear your mask,” can be outlined as follows. 4.2.2.1. meaning of the text elements the meaning of the text elements used in psa 2 is shown in table 2 below. table 2 meaning of the text elements. language elements meaning menang perang tanpa senjata? ‘win the war without weapons? the producer of the text asks the reader whether he wants to succeed in fighting the threat of covid-19 which worries the hearts of all people. bisa ‘can’ the producer of the text convinces the reader by highlighting the information that the readers of the text can be free from the threat of death due to covid-19 (reference). pakai maskermu ‘wear your mask’ the producer of the text tries to suggest that readers wear masks to be free from the deadly threat of covid-19 (conative). regarding the meaning of the text elements in table 2 above, the text producer of psa 2 tries to convey a message to the readers that the spread of the coronavirus can be overcome by wearing masks. the figurative language menang perang tanpa senjata? ‘win the war without guns?’ represents that the horror issue of the coronavirus can be prevented by obeying health protocols, one of which is wearing maskers. the text producer, in this case, strives to make an emotional connection with the readers. the semiotic and modern hermeneutic review of the online covid-19 public service advertisement texts 114 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 4.2.2.2. background of the text producer this text is a public service advertisement text created by president jokowi to influence the indonesian people to always wear masks to protect themselves from the deadly threat of covid-19. as a head of state and public figure, jokowi has more ability to influence the indonesian people, especially his supporters. this is also based on jokowi's experience in his political career, starting from being the mayor of solo, and the governor of jakarta, to becoming the president of the republic of indonesia, which can attract people's attention. jokowi's influence can be a means to influence the people, especially his supporters, to comply with the health protocol. 4.2.2.3. environment of the text the text in this public service advertisement comes because of the prolonged covid19 pandemic situation that has claimed tens of thousands of lives in almost all parts of indonesia. not only is it life-threatening, but covid-19 has also ravaged the indonesian economy, unemployment has risen sharply everywhere and has caused psychological threats to the people because deaths occur massively everywhere. judging from this public service advertisement, at the bottom of the main text, the name “joko widodo”, “president of the republic of indonesia” is written to assure the readers of the text that the message was officially delivered by the head of state. along with the writings of the president of the republic of indonesia, it is written "republika" as the identity of the media that publishes the public service advertisement. 4.2.2.4. relations to other psa texts this text is closely related to the presence of other texts that preceded it, such as texts that increase the number of deaths exposed to covid-19, texts of people's economic downturn, texts on violations of health protocols, and other texts related to the spread of covid-19 in indonesia. 4.2.2.5. dialogue with the psa readers the dialogue of the text with the reader is seen from the identity of the reader of the text of the public service text delivered by jokowi. in this case, there is the possibility of self-identification as commoners who are more easily influenced by the content of the text, intellectual groups who study more deeply the contents of the text, and opposition groups that tend to be a priori to the content of the text because the existence of covid19 is considered a conspiracy so that the people no need to be overly afraid of covid-19. i gede astawa , ida bagus gede upadana, & a.a. sagung ayu srikandi putri englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 115 4.2. the analysis of psa 3 4.3.1. roland barthes and charles sanders’ semiotics figure 3. public service advertisement 3 (https://megapolitan.kompas.com/read/2020/11/03/12024381/kasus-covid-19) psa 3 above uses an affirmative sentence “corona itu nyata !!! ‘the corona is real!!!’ created by the producer of the text to emphasize to the public that the coronavirus really exists and has claimed millions of lives in a very short time. based on the semiotic analysis developed by barthes, the primary (denotative) element of the text above is the producer's confirmation that the coronavirus really exists. the secondary (connotative) meaning of the text above is the existence of a group of people who doubt or do not believe in the existence of the coronavirus. on the other hand, the rise of buzzers on social media from government opposition groups is able to lead to public opinion as if the coronavirus is an exaggerated political conspiracy. these buzzers are able to hegemonize the community which causes public distrust of the government in fighting the existence of this coronavirus. based on the semiotic theory developed by peirce, "corona is real" is a sign (representation) that refers to an object, namely a public service advertisement containing an affirmation that the issue about the corona is not a rumour, but a fact. at the interpretant stage, it can be interpreted that there are concerns that text producers will increase the death toll due to the covid-19 pandemic due to public distrust of the existence of the coronavirus. 4.3.2. ricoeur's modern hermeneutic analysis based on modern hermeneutics developed by paul ricoeur, the text on psa 3 can be interpreted as follows. 4.3.2.1. meaning of the text elements the meaning of the text elements used in psa 3 is shown in table 3 below. https://megapolitan.kompas.com/read/2020/11/03/12024381/kasus-covid-19 the semiotic and modern hermeneutic review of the online covid-19 public service advertisement texts 116 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 table 3 meaning of the text elements. language elements meaning corona itu nyata ‘the corona is real’ the text producer, in this case, emphasizes the information function to the text reader that the coronavirus really exists and threatens anyone's life (referential function) regarding the meaning of the text elements in table 3 above, the text producer of the text tries to convey a message that coronavirus is invisible but it exists and threatens human’s life. the text producer convinces the readers that the coronavirus is not a rhetorical issue but a factual condition. 4.3.2.2. background of the text producer the writing of this psa cannot be separated from the background of the distrust of some people in the existence of covid-19. this condition is caused by the many issues that mislead their understanding of the existence of this covid-19 pandemic, especially the massive information circulating on social media. there are certain groups who attribute this condition to political interests; trying to carry out hegemony to the community, so that the covid-19 issue is only considered as a lie, a manipulation, and even a conspiracy. 4.3.2.3. environment of the psa text the text of this public service advertisement is written in larger letters to make it easy for readers to read. judging from the structure, the sentence used in this psa is not a command sentence, but a news sentence that has a referential function. the use of three exclamation marks behind the sentence is not intended to command the reader (command sentence) but is information in the form of a news sentence. the three exclamation marks affixed at the end of the sentence are intended to emphasize to the reader that there is still rumours in the community regarding the distrust of some people towards the existence of covid which is being intensively fought by the government. the visual element in the form of an image of two armed soldiers illustrates to the reader that we are at war with covid-19. 4.3.2.4. relations to the other texts this psa text appears because there is a connection with other texts that have developed in the mass media and social media, stating that covid-19 is a lie, manipulation, and even a conspiracy. misleading issues need to be addressed with a notification to the public so as not to become hegemony in society. i gede astawa , ida bagus gede upadana, & a.a. sagung ayu srikandi putri englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 117 4.3.2.5. dialogue with the psa readers this psa text is a dialogue to readers on issues that are developing in society that covid-19 is a lie, fabrication, and even a conspiracy. the sentence “corona is real!!!” is the text producer's answer to the distrust of some people in the existence of covid-19 which has claimed many lives. 5. conclusion this study found explicit and implicit meanings lying in the psa texts which were used as data in this study, both in terms of semiotics and modern hermeneutics. explicitly (denotatively), the three psas aim to invite the public to jointly break the chain of the spread of covid-19 which is very threatening to human life, either by using masks, not underestimating the existence of the coronavirus, and not even to be provoked by narratives from certain groups that lead public opinion on conspiracy issues. implicitly, the texts of the three psas can be interpreted that the indonesian state is in great threat of death as a result of the prolonged covid-19 pandemic. covid-19 is a fact that has taken millions of people's lives in various regions in indonesia. the existence of covid-19 is not 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(2021). discovering hidden messages in covid-19 advertisement “stay home save lives”: a semiotic analysis. retorika: jurnal ilmu bahasa, 7(1), 25–31. retrieved from https://doi.org/10.22225/jr.7.1.3137.25-31 van lier, l. (2004). the ecology and semiotics of language learning: a sociocultural perspective. new york, boston, dordrecht, london, moscow: kluwer academic publishers. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2022. vol. 9, no. 2, 17-31 enhancing efl students’ reading learning process in covid-19 pandemic through nearpod emmas mas pupah * yogyakarta state university, indonesia emmasmaspupah@gmail.com umi sholihah yogyakarta state university, indonesia umi.sholihah24@gmail.com manuscript received july 30, 2021, revised august 30, 2021, first published may 1, 2022, and available online may 7, 2022. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i2.10400 recommended apa citation pupah, e. m., & sholihah, u. (2022). enhancing efl students’ reading learning process in covid-19 pandemic through nearpod. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(2), 17-31. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.10400 abstract this research aims to enhance students’ reading learning process using a genre-based approach during the covid-19 pandemic through nearpod. action research with four stages was applied as a research design. the qualitative data were collected through interviews and teacher’s field notes, while the quantitative data were obtained by students’ reading pre-test and post-test. the qualitative data were analyzed by assembling the data, coding the data, building interpretations, and reporting the outcomes. meanwhile, the quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive quantitative analysis. findings demonstrated that students learned how to determine the main idea, make an inference, and distinguish detailed information from the texts. they also considered nearpod as an accommodating and encouraging tool in learning. the teacher addressed how to reinforce the students’ reading learning process by deep consideration, preparation, and reflection to ensure that nearpod worked properly. the statistical report of students’ scores for the pre-test and post-test showed improvement from 64.7 to 84.8. the average students’ post-test score was greater than the pre-test. this study revealed that the nearpod program successfully supported the reading learning process for students because of its user-friendliness and it enabled teachers to monitor students’ progress during the teaching process. keywords: covid-19; genre-based approach; nearpod; reading learning process * corresponding author https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6622 https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.10400 enhancing efl students’ reading learning process in covid-19 pandemic through nearpod 18 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 1. introduction the deadly and infectious virus in 2019, namely covid-19, has affected all aspects around the world. this pandemic has also shaken up the education sector and this distress increases across education globally (dhawan, 2020). the covid-19 outbreak enforced schools and colleges to close temporarily. educational units are struggling to face solutions in challenging situations. shifting from offline education to online is an alternative way to run the teaching and learning process. the concept of online learning as an alternative was conceived as more innovative and flexible it makes the students learn autonomously (dhawan, 2020; putrawangsa & hasanah, 2018). in online teaching and learning english, teachers are encouraged to teach reading comprehension skills. reading comprehension is an active process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language (samad, jannah, & fitriani, 2017). varita (2017) pinpoints that the purpose of teaching reading is to develop students' ability to be effective and efficient in reading. therefore, students should have a good understanding of all aspects of reading. in reality, many difficulties appear in the online teaching and learning process. from the preliminary observation and a test at the beginning of the semester, the third grade junior high school students of this action research had difficulties determining the main idea, choosing the supporting details in each paragraph, getting implicit conclusions, and comprehending the whole text due to limited vocabulary. during the online learning, the teacher used whatsapp, google form, and youtube. however, on the preliminary interview with the teacher, she considered another platform to improve students’ reading learning process. teachers should select an appropriate platform to meet students' needs, situations, and conditions. the researchers and teacher chose nearpod as a learning tool for teaching reading since it serves numerous engaging features and activities. nearpod not only presents slides but also changes the way lessons are delivered (delacruz, 2014). consequently, the research question of this study was "how can the implementation of nearpod enhance the students’ reading learning process?”. this research is expected to become a reference for the english teacher to improve teaching reading quality and help the students in the learning process. 2. literature review 2.1. reading comprehension skills reading activity involves the cognitive and linguistics processes in recognizing the words (habók, magyar, & hui, 2019), comprehending the meaning, and engaging the readers with the text (aprizani, 2016). these processes are divided into lower-level and higher-level abilities (grabe, 2009). lower-level ability includes specific syntactic and morphological processes, phonological awareness, word recognition, and semantic process. higher-ability is a process by which the readers consciously get the meaning from the passage, such as finding the main idea, integrating meanings across sentences, emmas mas pupah & umi sholihah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 19 inferencing, comprehending, and achieving the goal of reading. furthermore, in the higher-level ability, metacognitive competencies such as readers' thought, control, and reflection on the text are used to accomplish their particular aims (habók et al., 2019). the object of the reading activity for junior high school students in indonesia is reading for comprehension. reading comprehension focuses on understanding the content of the text. this active thinking process depends on readers' level of knowledge and comprehension skills (sahardin, mukarramah, & hanafiah, 2015). reading comprehension skills include determining the main idea, distinguishing details information, making inferences, and mastering vocabulary (komariah, ramadhona, & silviyanti, 2015; mikulecky & jeffries, 2007; nasir, sofyan, & haqqini, 2019; sahardin et al., 2015; sari, fitriani, & emafetery, 2019). 2.2. nearpod in teaching nearpod is an education web browser that provides features to deliver learning materials and operate and evaluate the learning process. teachers can share their materials by sharing a unique code or link to start the session. nearpod is used either for synchronous or asynchronous teaching. the learning materials are delivered to zoom, so the teacher and students are engaged in a live interaction. during the learning process, the teacher can see the number of active students making the learning session and students' engagement monitored (sanmugam, selvarajoo, ramayah, & lee, 2019). měkota and marada (2020) state four fundamental steps of teaching by using nearpod. first, downloading and creating an interactive multimedia presentation. the teachers can make a standard presentation slide and enter interactive tasks such as polls, quizzes, drawing, filling the gap, or open-ended questions. second, sharing the presentation with the learners and controlling during the lesson. by using live participation, the students can only see the slide that the teacher shows. it makes students work systematically during learning. third, presenting to the class and providing engaging interaction. at last, monitoring and checking students' works which are not time-consuming because they will appear automatically to the teachers. these steps are created to design interactive educational presentations and involve the learners in the lesson. 2.3. genre based to teach reading comprehension hammond (1992) based on sritrakarn (2020) developed the cycle of genre-based approach into four parts: building the knowledge of the field (bkof), modeling of the text (mot), joint construction of text (jcot), and independent construction of text (icot). those four cycles are still used in recent teaching. all english skills such as listening, speaking, writing and reading can be taught by a genre-based approach (angraini & rozimela, 2020; ningsih, 2015). to succeed in teaching reading, the teachers need to keep attention to the nature of the reading process, the relevant reading activities, and suitable classroom management. over the past years, many researchers enhancing efl students’ reading learning process in covid-19 pandemic through nearpod 20 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 have suggested this approach to support students' needs in different educational contexts to meet the expectations of the potential readers (derewianka, 2003; huang & zhang, 2019). in teaching reading comprehension using the genre-based approach, the first stage is bkof. in this stage, the teacher provides students with building the cultural context, sharing the experiences, discussing vocabulary, and presenting grammatical patterns about the text. the primary aim of this stage is to gather information concerning the topic's content (enli, 2015). the second step is mot, the teacher begins to introduce a text model to the students and discuss the purpose or social function of the text. in this stage, students are shown the model of text and read the model of text as well as input texts to learn social function, the structure of a text, and the language feature. the third stage is jcot. it allows students to (1) explore the link between the topic of the field to the purpose of the genre, (2) put up knowledge of the field in the development of the text, (3) deliberate with the teacher and other students related the most appropriate organization of knowledge about the topic into a written text, (4) reflect on knowledge of the schematic structure and linguistic features of the genre and (5) widen an understanding of some of the differences between spoken text and written text. however, the stage in this study will be modified to make the student understand more about the structure of the text, the language features, as well as practice more about reading comprehension. the last stage is icot. in this stage, students are engaged to comprehend the text and to answer the questions related to the text. 3. method 3.1. research context and design this research was an action research; kemmis and mctaggart's (2014) model was applied to find the problems during the online teaching and learning process of reading and to discover the solution for solving problems. there are four stages in conducting this study: preliminary study, planning, action and observation, and reflection. these steps answered whether or not the actions were successful in an attempt to enhance the students' reading learning process. 3.2. setting and participants there were 26 students in grade ix in one of islamic junior high school in yogyakarta participating in the research. among those students, there were 16 males and 10 females. their ages were around 14-15 years old. most of the students in the class are from yogyakarta while some of them are from central java. all of them are native speakers of indonesian language. 3.3. data collection the data of this research were both qualitative and quantitative. the researchers collected the data through the interview, observation, field notes, and reading test emmas mas pupah & umi sholihah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 21 performances. the teacher was interviewed before and after conducting the research and the students were interviewed as a reflection after the teaching and learning process. the questions were related to the classroom activities (brown, 2007; harmer, 2007), the teacher’s teaching (harmer, 2007; nunan, 1989), students’ attitudes and reading abilities (graves, 1999; nunan, 1989), materials and instructional media (brown, 2007; hashim, md. yunus, amin embi, & mohamed ozir, 2017), assessment to evaluate learning process (brown, 2004), and the used of nearpod in reading learning process (delacruz, 2014; sanmugam et al., 2019). the final data was students' scores on the pre and post-reading tests. the result of these tests was considered as starting data and supporting data in evaluating the teaching-learning process. 3.4. data analysis the qualitative and quantitative data were analyzed differently. the qualitative consisting of interviews transcript and field note data were analyzed by employing (burns, 2010) frameworks that assemble the data, code the data, compare the data, build meanings, and report the outcomes. meanwhile, the quantitative data were analyzed using the spss program to determine the progress of students’ learning. 4. findings and discussion 4.1. reading learning process using nearpod application 4.1.1. preliminary study in this preliminary study, an interview with the teacher was conducted to identify problems during online learning. the teacher said that the students' reading score was still low at the beginning of the semester. it indicated that they had difficulties in understanding text. the students still found difficulties determining the main idea, finding the supporting details in each paragraph, getting implicit conclusions, discovering correct references, and comprehending the text due to limited vocabulary. moreover, these problems are also reported in previous studies (erdiana, kasim, & juwita, 2017; gani, yusuf, & susiani, 2016; komariah et al., 2015; sahardin et al., 2015; yusuf & fauzan, 2016) that efl learners in indonesia are challenged with all reading problems. at the beginning of the semester, sometimes some students did not join the learning process. their online learning presence was not quite good and made their achievement low. these problems made the teacher try harder to find the best solution to overcome them. furthermore, the teacher still found difficulties selecting appropriate media to teach reading. the media used during online learning was google form, whatsapp group, and youtube. although the teacher taught reading by creating some videos and uploading them on youtube, sharing the materials on whatsapp group, and assessing their reading using google form, all proposed solutions were still far from expectation. considering the problems identified, in this stage, the researchers had the intention to enhance the online reading learning process that would increase the students’ reading enhancing efl students’ reading learning process in covid-19 pandemic through nearpod 22 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 comprehension skills. reading comprehension focuses on understanding the content of the text, and this active thinking process depends on readers' level of knowledge and comprehension skills (sahardin et al., 2015). 4.1.2 planning in this stage, the researchers and the teacher discussed the solution to overcome the problem. nearpod was agreed to be used to reach the goal due to a relevant study (delacruz, 2014) conducted using nearpod to teach reading. the teacher used a genrebased approach with some modifications. the activities were, for instance, vocabulary activity, reading comprehension practice in a group, and oral discussion about procedure text. the materials were taught by giving text to the students and giving activities related to a social function, structure text, and language features. the issues faced by the students in reading were difficulties to determine the main idea, find the supporting details in each paragraph, get implicit conclusions, discover correct references, and comprehend the text due to the limited vocabulary. to solve the issues and make the activities more engaging, the researchers and the teacher applied nearpod. reading activities can be designed in nearpod in poll questions, videos, slides, and quizzes (delacruz, 2014). the activities would be designed through all of those features mentioned, except the poll questions. slides were used to provides all of the materials and activities during the reading learning process in nearpod. in the bkof and mot stage, videos were applied to explain procedure text, the structure of a text, language features, and a sample of text. the students continued to do some quizzes related to the structure of a text. since the quizzes offered various kinds of questions, in the jcot stage, the researchers employed matching pictures to give exercises about vocabulary, action verbs, steps in cooking, and also memory games. then, open-ended questions, true/false questions were presented in the icot stage. 4.1.3. action and observation the action was applied based on a lesson plan. the teacher applied the genrebased approach (gba) to teach reading since gba in elt promises real benefits for learners pulling together language, content, and context (kusumaningrum, 2015). genre-based approach stages were implemented during three meetings. the first meeting was begun with the bkof and continued to the mot. in the bkof stage, the students were prepared to get into the topic and share experiences. they were asked about their favorite food and how to cook them. this activity aimed to activate their schemata about the recipe which was one of the examples of procedure text. the materials were in a form of video in nearpod. the video explained procedure text, its definition, where to find one in everyday life, the language features, the structure of the text, and the sample text. mot stage familiarizes the students with the genre discussed (kusumaningrum, 2015). in the mot stage, students were given an example of the recipe "how to make pizza". the text is used as a model and input to teach social emmas mas pupah & umi sholihah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 23 function, language features, and structure of procedure text. to check whether the students understood, they had activities related to the structure of text and language features. all of the meetings began with sharing the nearpod link to the whatsapp group to let the students join the class and all activities. in the second meeting, jcot was implemented with some modifications. in the jcot, the teacher guides the students into the joint construction with questions that focus on the stages of the genre (istiqomah, winimurti, & prawestri, 2018). activities in this meeting were guided by giving pictures in each task as support. this meeting was focused on their practice after they learned the genre. to start the second meeting, students were asked to reflect on what they have learned in the previous meeting by answering the open-ended question about what procedure text was. the second activity was a vocabulary game. the students were asked to match pictures with the right action verbs. the next activity was the memory test which was considered as a fun activity for students to find the same picture on the steps of "making bread". the fourth activity was matching the right steps of "making pan cake" with the picture. to give various activities to students, while it was still arranging steps of procedure text, the students had to complete the task in a different way in which they had to draw a line from the pictures on the left side to the steps on the right side. in each meeting, the teacher wrote field notes to reflect during the reading learning process to see the obstacles and what should be improved in the next meeting. from the field noted in a previous meeting, some of the students found difficulties in understanding the instruction. therefore, a voice note in the indonesian language was added to each activity. afriyeni et al. (2013) state that teachers' roles in teaching reading are as an educator, motivator, and facilitator utilizing effective teaching so that the students are trained well. on the other hand, teachers are expected to be creative to motivate, stimulate, and facilitate them in teaching and learning. the chats of students and parents below are evidence that teacher is a facilitator for solving the students’ problems: some students and parents chat me on wa, “assalamu’alaikum miss, i’m sorry, my son doesn't understand on how to do the task, i can’t open the task on my smartphone, perhaps it’s because the internet data runs out.” (s1), “ma’am, i don’t get this (send a screenshot of an activity).” (s2), “how about this activity, miss?” (s3), “miss, i get confused with this activity. should i circle all of these three numbers?" (s4) the statements above showed that the students and parents told the teacher about their learning obstacles. on the other hand, it was revealed that students put their effort into engaging in the learning process. some students are highly engaged, they pay attention or do assignments seriously, while others do not engage in learning activities. it can be seen from appendix 1 that they were eager to complete the activity although they found difficulties in understanding the instruction. therefore, they consulted the enhancing efl students’ reading learning process in covid-19 pandemic through nearpod 24 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 teacher to overcome the problem. this study supports evidence from previous observation (e.g. biggs, 2012) that a variety of engagement in the classroom can be solved by the teachers. take into consideration the importance of students engagement for their current future success, maintaining student engagement is essential (quin, 2017) and how teachers communicate with students on a day-to-day basis could be influenced (jang, kim, & reeve, 2016; nguyen, cannata, & miller, 2018; quin, 2017). it is a complex and challenging task for teachers to engage students while simultaneously teaching a subject and maintaining classroom management (centsboonstra, lichtwarck-aschoff, lara, & denessen, 2021). the last meeting was the stage of icot. the lesson began with giving a new text "making a grilled cheese sandwich". they were asked to read the text carefully and circle the correct answer to each question. the first activity was emphasized finding detailed information from text. similar to the purpose of the previous activity, in the second activity, the students were given a new text "how to make photo journal" then answered three true or false questions. using the same text in the previous activity, students learned to find the main idea of the text, detailed information, and the purpose of the text in the last activity. the activities in the last meeting were considered formative assessments in reading comprehension since it is the goal of standard competence. in the icot stage, the students worked autonomously with the text and their performances were taken as achievement assessments. the action stage was together with observation. the teacher was aware of her role as a guide and facilitator of the learning materials of reading. she also provided feedback to the students after class. the media used, nearpod, was user-friendly, so the students were flexible to access the lesson and help them to improve their reading learning process. the students showed great attention to join the lesson, they tend to ask and discuss with the teacher if they had questions about the lesson. sometimes, the students had difficulties handling nearpod due to their less attention to the instruction of each task. 4.1.4. reflection mostly, students were engaged in the reading learning process through nearpod. most of them participated and completed the task in nearpod. they showed an interest during the class. student engagement has been defined as how involved students are in the learning experience and how associated they feel with their classes (axelson & flick, 2011). emotional engagement is explained as students’ emotional response to classroom activities, such as the expression of positive influence (van-uden, ritzen, & pieters, 2014). banna et al. (2015), britt et al. (2015), and meyer (2014) claim the importance of student engagement to online learning because they believe student engagement can be represented as a witness of students’ considerable effort necessary for their cognitive improvement and their given ability to create their knowledge, emmas mas pupah & umi sholihah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 25 leading to a high level of student success. those statements were also supported by the students’ statements in the excerpts below: researcher : what do you think about the activities? student1 : i enjoy the activity in class but sometimes i get the connection issue so that it’s difficult for me to complete the activity. student2 : it’s an understandable miss. the tutorial helps me a lot. furthermore, to make the students enjoy the reading learning process, the activities in nearpod are completed with matching pictures and memory games. those activities were important to attract students' attention and proved that nearpod provided some features to develop materials for teachers. therefore, teachers should be creative in utilizing media to support the teaching and learning process. online teachers should be critical in selecting material and content when they wish to engage students more in their courses (martin & bolliger, 2018). using nearpod also allowed instructors to deliver presentations, observe students’ progress, and instantly share the results of submitted activities with students. the statements in the interview in the reflection stage are as follows: researcher : do you think the students enjoy the activities? teacher : yes, they enjoy the activities. they will consult the teacher if they have difficulties completing the activities. researcher : concerning the reading practice, how do you feel about it? teacher : i feel good meeting by meeting, although there are many things to improve in the next cycle. researcher : is there still any problem we should deal with? teacher : sometimes the students found difficulties filling the nearpod activity because of the unstable internet connection, and some of them found difficulties in understanding the instruction. then, i found the idea to improve the next meeting. researcher : which part indicates some failures and improvement? teacher : the part that indicates failures is when the students could not complete activities well because they didn't understand the instruction. on the other hand, the students showed improvement in the last meeting when they did the reading comprehension test, they showed good results. from the result of the interview in the reflection stage, the teacher said that the students showed improvement when they did the reading comprehension test. it is implied that the students showed enthusiasm when they found it difficult, they consulted with the teacher. when the students had difficulties, the teacher took these in the field notes and she would modify the next lesson in nearpod to overcome the problems. teele (2004) emphasizes that the goal of all readers should be able to understand what they read. küçükoğlu's (2013) research shows that good readers are actively involved enhancing efl students’ reading learning process in covid-19 pandemic through nearpod 26 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 with the text and they are aware of the processes they use to understand what they read. using nearpod may seem challenging for teachers since they need to prepare a presentation, which is time-consuming, and they must create some activities for it. the scaffolding of the lesson must also be suitable for the application. it means that the teacher must restructure the curriculum (mcclean & crowe, 2017). if the teachers are aware of all these barriers and try to create a lesson in nearpod and teach with it, they appreciate the dynamics nearpod provides to the lesson. the teacher then can adjust the learning materials to students’ needs (audi & gouia-zarrad, 2013). 4.2. result of pre-test and post-test from the meetings before starting the first meeting, the students were given a pre-test to determine their basic reading comprehension skills. in addition, at the end of the meeting after applying the nearpod application for the teaching reading process by using a genrebased approach, all students were given a post-test to know their reading skills progress. the test consisted of ten questions covering all reading comprehension skills. the quantitative data were analyzed with spss 25 (ibm corp, 2017). the result of the students in the post-test was considered as the last result of the teacher's action in teaching reading using nearpod. after the pre-test and post-test results were analyzed, the calculated result of the tests revealed positive improvements. the average pre-test score was 64.7, while the average score for reading text in the post-test was 84.8. therefore, the reading learning process by using nearpod for junior high school increased the students' scores on the reading test. figure 1. the mean of pre-test and post test scores figure 1 shows the differences between students' result tests in reading pre-test and post-test. the result from the post-test was higher than the result of the pre-test. this means that the use of nearpod in the reading learning process can enhance students' scores in the reading test. it was found from the test that the students were able to determine the main idea, select supporting details, understanding the implicit 0 20 40 60 80 100 pre-test post-test test result test result emmas mas pupah & umi sholihah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 27 meaning of a text, and comprehend the procedure text. the finding of this study is inline with delacruz's (2014) statement that the nearpod framework is used for the reading learning process since it is user-friendly and can interact and manage students' improvement. it indicates a significant rise in students’ learning experiences using the nearpod application. the finding from this study is comparable to the result of shehata et al. (2020) who reveals that the use of nearpod increases students’ involvement in the classroom and has a positive effect on academic achievement. thus, the nearpod’s application features give a positive impact on students' reading comprehension skills. 5. conclusion this study improves the reading learning process by using the nearpod application. the research did take place at one of the islamic junior high schools in yogyakarta, indonesia, during the covid-19 pandemic. to achieve the aim of this research, the plan, action, and reflection were designed and applied in the teaching and learning process. current findings indicate that the characteristics of nearpod features involve students in learning activities in the classroom. in addition, the way nearpod manages materials allows teachers and students to more easily perform learning tasks during the teaching period. furthermore, the nearpod method of controlling the learning experiences to engage all students in the class and organize learning materials helped improve the students’ reading comprehension skills. the research findings show that the nearpod encourages active learning and students can engage in the learning approach process during classes. it was identified that various activities in nearpod made students enjoy the reading learning process. moreover, the teacher confirmed that nearpod supported her teaching and improved the students' reading test average score, 64.7 in the pre-test to 84.8 in post-test. the above results have practical implications for teachers to introduce successful teaching in learning environments. we believe that by knowing the capabilities of these dynamic learning tools, it may be easier to design classroom experiences that lead to improvement in the teaching and learning process. however, the teacher's role needs to be changed from being a distributor of information to being students’ facilitator. this research is one of the initial attempts to thoroughly examine the implementation of nearpod using a genre-based approach in the reading learning process. however, the limited time to conduct the action is a weakness of this research. for further research, it is suggested to conduct action research on teaching reading using nearpod in long-term action on a larger number of students. references afriyeni, y., mukhaiyar., & hamzah. 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(2016). efl students’ difficulties in comprehending english reading texts. proceedings of english education international conference. retrieved from http://www.eeic.unsyiah.ac.id/proceedings/index.php/eeic/article/view/99 englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2022. vol. 10, no.1, 217-231 understanding students’ activities in wi-fi coffee shops in aceh: a survey and narrative interview report zamzami zainuddin 1* , muhammad shujahat 2 1 university of malaya, malaysia 2 essex business school, the university of essex, united kingdom manuscript received september 2, 2022, revised october 10, 2022, accepted october 27, 2022, and published online november 7, 2022. recommended apa citation zainuddin, z., & shujahat, m. (2022). understanding students’ activities in wi-fi coffee shops in aceh: a survey and narrative interview report. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(1), 217-231. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.15167 abstract this study attempts to investigate and comprehend more in-depth information about students' daily lives in the wi-fi coffee shops, specifically in aceh, a province of indonesia. the study explores how the wireless internet in coffee shops relates to college students' activities. the surveys of 619 students were conducted as a preliminary report. an in-depth phenomenological interview was employed to collect data from three university students who regularly spent many waking hours in coffee shops. findings from the preliminary survey revealed that more male students visited coffee shops than women, with an average time of more than three hours daily. accessing information through the internet was not the primary purpose of visiting the coffee shops by most students instead of gaming, meeting up with friends for a chat, and enjoying the coffee. qualitative interviews reported that students often visited coffee shops for various purposes, including completing homework, meetings with friends, and finding freelance online market jobs. wi-fi coffee shops are essential for those who do not have internet access at home, particularly young people and recent transplants with low incomes but high educational capital. although the internet in coffee shops can have both negative and positive effects on students, if users or students can access these facilities rightly, they will acquire many benefits to support their education and future * corresponding author: zamzami zainuddin university of malaya jln. profesor diraja ungku aziz, seksyen 13, kuala lumpur, wilayah persekutuan kuala lumpur, 50603, malaysia email: zamzami@um.edu.my https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.15167 understanding students’ activities in wi-fi coffee shops in aceh: a survey and narrative interview report 218 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 career. however, if misused, it may negatively affect their lives. suppose the internet in the coffee shop is used properly for educational purposes. in that case, it will push for greener and healthier information practices for students who may favor low-tech environments or lack personal infrastructure or resources. keywords: wi-fi coffee shops; college students; internet access; aceh; internet for education 1. introduction indonesians have a long-standing custom of consuming coffee as part of their daily routine. one of these groups is the populace of the indonesian province of aceh, which is found at the northern tip of sumatra island. as a religiously conservative region, aceh is also known as the "land of a thousand coffee shops." coffee consumption and socializing in coffee shops have been integral parts of acehnese culture for a significant amount of time (tucker, 2011). coffee shops in this area provide the experience of drinking coffee and furnish freedom of expression in public space, which helps promote cultural values that are meaningful to the local community. the coffee shops have become a zone where people from different communities can meet, discuss their interests, and exchange information. coffee shops rarely fail to address important topics, whether decades-old debates or current events. issues such as politics, social phenomena, football, and information sharing related to business and agriculture are among the common topics of discussion that can be found among coffee customers in coffee shops. in the same way, coffee shops in the rural areas of aceh also serve as a gathering place for the villagers, making it easier for them to obtain information (samuels, 2012). however, a cultural shift occurred in this coffee shop's presence around the same time that globalization and digitalization occurred. students now utilize its space not only as a place to socialize with coworkers over a cup of coffee or for other similar activities, but also as a place to connect to the internet for various academic and other purposes. in addition, the traditional aesthetic of coffee shops has given way to a more contemporary aesthetic as society and the economy have advanced. as a result, today's coffee shops are outfitted with contemporary conveniences such as high-speed internet access, international tv channels, comfortable rooms, and round-the-clock service. according to samuels (2010), the wi-fi coffee shop is a product of post-tsunami aceh, and it has since become a lifestyle spot for people of all ages to congregate and socialize with one another. "facilities" refers to everything that can be made available to ensure the happiness of coffee shop patrons. the quality of the coffee shop in aceh can be evaluated based on its different amenities: wi-fi connection, meeting room, praying room, television, fan, and communal television viewing. the number and quality of available facilities factor into calculating a facility's total score. according to asmawaty (2011), "there is a direct correlation between the product component, prices, locations, zamzami zainuddin & muhammad shujahat englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 219 promotions, and physical facilities of the consumer's decisions in using the services of a business." asmawaty also noted that "there is a direct correlation between the product components, prices, and locations" (kasimin, 2017). nowadays, the province of aceh attracts a wide variety of people, including members of the law enforcement community, political figures, academics, officers, workers, farmers, tourists, and students, among others, to visit and talk over a cup of coffee (sarmini et al., 2017). to add insult to injury, the introduction of wi-fi coffee shops has rendered the internet kiosks in this area obsolete. as a result, the vast majority of students now go to coffee shops in order to connect to the internet. as a result, the sight of a large group of students, each with their electronic device (for example, a laptop or a smartphone), has become increasingly common in the city's coffee shops. they bring their laptops and other electronic devices and spend countless hours, days, and even nights, working in coffee shops. the debate gains a new facet when ubiquitous wireless networking is considered. from a scholarly perspective, it is time to focus on the topic because of the expanding changes made possible by the widespread adoption of the wireless internet. the observation that hampton and gupta (2008) made of people using wi-fi in coffee shops demonstrates that people's communication patterns are affected when people use wi-fi in public places. users of wi-fi networks typically communicate with others who are co-located with them and whom they meet while working in public spaces. this fact lends credence to the notion that widespread wi-fi use may have an impact on the structure of social networks and how people interact. students seek a change of scenery or escape from traditional study locations such as the library or their homes' frequent coffee shops that offer wireless internet access (sanusi & palen, 2008). therefore, working or studying in public places with wi-fi access is expected. in addition, previous research indicates that using wireless internet in public places such as coffee shops increase the likelihood of chance encounters (hampton & gupta, 2008; sanusi & palen, 2008). however, it is still being determined whether using the internet in coffee shops will facilitate or decrease face-toface interactions with existing social contacts and whether this will negatively or positively impact students' lives. in addition, not much is known about why students spend so much of their waking time in wi-fi coffee shops or the types of websites that most of these people access the most frequently. as a result, the purpose of this study is to investigate and comprehend more in-depth information about students' daily lives in coffee shops through the use of surveys and personal semi-structured interviews and, in particular, to respond to the following two research questions: what are the purposes and benefits students obtaining from spending hours in the coffee shops that offer wi-fi? in addition, the purpose of the current study is to clarify controversial issues and perceptions held by the people in this region. for example, some of these individuals believe that people who spend significant time in coffee shops are lethargic and without understanding students’ activities in wi-fi coffee shops in aceh: a survey and narrative interview report 220 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 jobs. on the other hand, this research hypothesizes that people who are very productive, like writers, bloggers, online business owners, or web designers, have a great time in coffee shops. 2. method a survey and a phenomenological approach were employed in collecting the data, focusing on the commonality of a lived experience within a particular group of people. this study explores how the wireless internet in coffee shops relates to students' daily activities with survey data from 619 students. in addition, students' attitudes regarding internet use in the wi-fi coffee shops were investigated. besides, a phenomenological interview was employed to collect data from three university students who regularly spent many waking hours in coffee shops. creswell and poth (2017) mentioned that phenomenological research is a qualitative method used to describe how human beings experience a particular phenomenon. since phenomenology uses various qualitative methods in collecting the data, such as interviews, conversations, and participant observation (van manen, 2016), this study employed personal interviews to collect information from college students' lived experiences in coffee shops. in this study, we interviewed three undergraduate university students who regularly spent many waking hours in coffee shops. we chose male students as the sample for the study, given that most coffee shops' customers are males. the interviewees were selected based on their average time in the coffee shops, with more than five hours per day being the minimum. all participants names in this study were pseudonyms (fictitious names), aiming to provide confidential personal information. the first interviewee was jamal, a third-year undergraduate university student who claimed he spent more than ten hours/day in the coffee shops. the second was amir, a last-year undergraduate university student who claimed he spent approximately eight to ten hours per day on finally, the last student was farid, a firstyear post-graduate student who spent around five to eight hours per day in the coffee shops. the interview activities took place in three different coffee shops around banda aceh city, the capital of aceh, and the characteristics of the coffee shops were similar; all were equipped with internet access and crowded with university students. the data for this study was collected from april to december 2021. the data analysis process for the survey employed descriptive statistics, while the qualitative interviews were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis. this is a process of coding the data without trying to fit it into a preexisting coding frame or the researcher's analytic preconceptions (azungah, 2018). the steps for the thematic analysis were conducted via several steps: familiarize with the data; create initial codes; collate codes with supporting data; group codes into themes; review and revise themes; and write a narrative report (tuckett, 2005). zamzami zainuddin & muhammad shujahat englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 221 3. findings 3.1. survey reports the report reveals that the questionnaire surveys were responded by 619 students, with 414 male and 205 female students making up the total number of respondents. five questions were asked regarding the frequency of visiting coffee shops per day, gender, purposes of visiting coffee shops, devices used to access the internet in the coffee shops, and the most popular website types accessed by students in the wi-fi coffee shops. according to the study's findings (figure 1), 66% of male students and 18% of female students went to wi-fi coffee shops daily. additionally, the average time spent in the coffee shops daily was more than three hours (figure 2). figure 1. students visited wi-fi coffee shops daily based on gender figure 2. average time spent per day in the wi-fi coffee shops in terms of their purpose for visiting the wi-fi coffee shops, the students could select up to three answers in the questionnaire survey. according to the findings, the three most common reasons for visiting coffee shops were to drink coffee, meet up with 407 114 7 91 0 100 200 300 400 500 male -yes female yes male no female no n u m b e r o f st u d e n ts gender and responses (yes and no) students visited wi-fi coffee shops everyday by gender 14 23 88 102 392 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 less than one hour one hour two hours three hours more than three hours n u m b e r o f st u d e n ts average time spent daily average time spent per day in the wi-fi coffee shops understanding students’ activities in wi-fi coffee shops in aceh: a survey and narrative interview report 222 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 friends, and play a game (figure 3). unsurprisingly, those students visiting coffee shops for learning purposes, accessing e-information, and reading a book were less popular than those playing video games. however, witnessing youth playing an online game in coffee shops has become a common sight in the province. figure 3. purposes of visiting coffee shops more students (356) used their smartphones to access the internet in the wi-fi coffee shops, followed by laptops (247 students) and tablets (15 students). an e-reader like the amazon kindle was unfamiliar among students, and only one reported using this device in wi-fi coffee shops (figure 4). figure 4. devices used to access the internet in the wi-fi coffee shops in terms of the most popular website types accessed by students in the coffee shops, they were allowed to select up to three types of websites that were regularly 512 413 21 75 114 43 120 139 278 138 0 200 400 600 to drink coffee to meet-up with friends to read a book to find entertainment to fill in time to be oneself to get information from the internet to access learning materials to gaming to run a business number of responses purposes of visiting coffee shops laptop 40% smartphone 58% tablet 2% e-reader 0% devices used to access the internet in the coffee shops zamzami zainuddin & muhammad shujahat englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 223 accessed. it shows that the three most popular websites visited were social media, games, and youtube. figure 5. most popular website types accessed by students in the wi-fi coffee shops 3.2 qualitative interviews we observed that almost all college students were in groups and carrying laptops and smartphones in the three coffee shops. although they were seated in a group, most appeared preoccupied and oblivious to their surroundings. some students appeared to be playing online games, while others accessed social media sites, primarily facebook, twitter, and youtube. we discovered that only a small number of students read online newspapers and articles, accessed learning materials, and watched educational or training videos. nevertheless, amir acknowledged in the interview that internet access has become his primary need and that he cannot live without it as a source of information and social interaction. a typical answer was: ... because it is easy to access the internet. i can access the internet the whole day with a cup of coffee. i don’t need to buy internet data. all information can be accessed with a price of a cup of coffee and my phone. jamal, a third-year undergraduate claimed the same thing about himself, stating that he frequently visited coffee shops to access the internet. moreover, he acknowledged that using public wi-fi to access the internet in locations such as coffee shops could help him save a substantial amount of money, which he would otherwise spend on purchasing personal internet data. he argued that students who lived a significant distance from their families were required to find ways to save money whenever possible. jamal's strategy included going to any public location or coffee shop with an unrestricted internet connection and using it. as a student who spent more than 95 128 369 12 58 110 128 94 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 blogs youtube social media (facebook, twitter,… internet forum lmss (moodle, google classroom, etc) internet news sites games education sites number of students most popular website types accessed by students in the coffee shops understanding students’ activities in wi-fi coffee shops in aceh: a survey and narrative interview report 224 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 ten hours per day in the coffee shop, jamal observed that the coffee shops had become a second home or a second university for some people. due to the availability of internetbased learning resources, this is the case. jamal spent over 10 hours per day in the coffee shop. then, he stated that the coffee shops provided internet access that was significantly faster than what was available at his residence or college, and that the locations were also more comfortable. he declared that: there is no need to spend much money; we can access the internet 24 hours. the coffee shop is like my second home or my second college. i spend most of my time here [coffee shop]. i don't need to spend much money to buy expensive food, just a cup of black coffee. so, many positive things can be accessed with my laptop or gadget, and the most important thing is that the internet speed here [coffee shop] is faster than on my campus or library. following this notion, beavis et al. (2015) conducted a study in which they discovered that young people frequently spend time in lan cafés. most home and university internet connections are too slow for students to access social media or play online games. the initial conclusion that can be drawn from the findings of the two students is that coffee consumption and social interaction are not the primary reasons why members of today's generation (digital natives/generation z) frequent coffee shops. this is very different from how their ancestors have done things for a long time. in the meantime, generation x, comprised of individuals born between the early 1960s and the early 1980s, continues the culture of coffee drinking, socializing, and interacting with one another. some members of generation x prefer to frequent nonwi-fi coffee shops, also known as traditional coffee shops, rather than the internet cafes frequented by the younger generation. this finding suggests, on the one hand, that the availability of technology in coffee shops has resulted in positive outcomes. this is because it enables students to access an infinite amount of information from educational websites and makes it simple for them to be information or knowledge seekers. when asked about the meaning of social interaction and antisocial behavior, the informants confirmed that social interaction activities occur not only physically, as older adults believe, but also digitally. this statement reveals how digital technology and the globalization era have strongly influenced the thoughts and perspectives of native digital students concerning the term "social." however, the third interviewee in this study, farid, a post-graduate student who appeared older than the previous two interviewees, stated that the internet was not the primary reason he frequented coffee shops because he could easily access the internet at home via mobile internet or a usb internet modem. instead, he asserted that socializing with friends over a cup of coffee is an essential activity. he declared: the internet is not the main factor in visiting the coffee shop because i have my own internet data connection on my phone. the important zamzami zainuddin & muhammad shujahat englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 225 thing is socialization with friends. the coffee shop in aceh has become a place to meet people, talk, share information, and exchange thoughts. as a graduate student, this interviewer's response appears more diplomatic than the other candidates. we assume he attempted to portray himself as a mature student who utilized his time in coffee shops rationally and effectively. in addition, when asked about the websites he accessed most frequently in coffee shops, jamal, an undergraduate student, confidently stated that he primarily visited social media sites and occasionally played online games. similarly, based on our observations, we discovered that most students spent most of their time on social media sites like facebook, twitter, instagram, and youtube, as well as playing online games. jamal said in the interview that he used the internet for about five hours a day and five hours a night at different coffee shops. he acknowledged that internet access and social media should not always be viewed negatively. however, he claimed that the x generation needs to become more familiar with many positive social media sites, such as interacting and discussing online businesses in groups or updating information such as scholarship or internship openings. in addition, he claimed that social media access would enable him to earn a substantial amount of money through the google adsense program. he also posted articles on a blog and videos on his youtube channel, which helped him make money from the online business program. yes, i am accessing facebook, chatting with my friends, and updating my fb status. when i get bored, i play an online game. not all social media is negative, as many assume. i joined a group on social media about online business, and i can discuss and share more information related to business projects. i can also earn money from social media and google adsense. these are positive aspects. i also receive information about scholarships on social media. likewise, amir also reported a similar response, stating that he mainly accessed social media sites such as facebook, twitter, and youtube. however, he did not clarify the term "positive sides" of social media. instead, he said he liked watching some of the most popular videos on youtube and other videos related to a stand-up comedy show to entertain himself and have some free time. many internet users spend their time on facebook, including me. i spend the majority of my time in coffee shops, either on facebook, instagram, tiktok, or twitter, or playing online games. so, we can post our ideas and find new information on social media, including up-to-date news and comments. however, only farid claimed that he used the internet in the coffee shop for academic purposes. in the interview, he mentioned that he usually accessed the internet understanding students’ activities in wi-fi coffee shops in aceh: a survey and narrative interview report 226 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 to complete homework, download journal articles, enroll in an online course, and search for scholarship information. besides this, farid declared that he could also meet friends in the coffee shop to discuss homework. when asked about academic sites usually accessed, farid could explain several learning sources such as ted-ed, coursera for massive open online courses (mooc), and google scholar for searching academic articles. farid also declared that he spent most of his time watching some learning sources on youtube and ted-ed. farid claimed he wanted to improve his english listening and speaking skills through these sources. nevertheless, the two other undergraduates in the interviews could only notice a few academic sites on the internet. amir, for instance, only mentioned the name of an online local news site, while jamal alluded to google scholar. the students made a number of suggestions and recommendations during the interviews and surveys. in order to maintain the success of their businesses in the face of intense competition, students generally advised coffee shop owners to make their establishments spacious, comfortable, and aesthetically pleasing on the inside, as well as easily accessible. every coffee shop service provider should strive to ensure that their customers are completely satisfied with the products and services they receive. to achieve this objective, coffee shop providers employ a variety of strategies, including the following: offering product diversification; providing dependable service; setting prices commensurate with customers' income; designing promotions and distribution systems; and constructing coffee shops in strategic locations until the supporting wi-fi is super-fast, allowing customers to easily access any information they need while sitting and drinking. finally, we recommend that coffee shop owners provide customers with a comfortable area where they can relax and feel at home. it is suggested that the coffee shop provide a non-smoking area as well as a private, comfortable learning area for customers who wish to use the internet for educational purposes. another creative idea for the coffee shop could be to fill some of the space with books and let customers use them. 4. discussion, limitation, and recommendations this study demonstrates that coffee shops in the aceh region not only sell coffee but also provide a comfortable atmosphere for customers, such as internet access, international tv channels, and student prices. the main purpose for which students visited the coffee shops in this region, as reported in the present study, was to access the internet, saving them money that they would normally spend on buying personal internet data. other reasons cited were to make money with google adsense, run an online business, access learning resources, or complete homework. in line with this, the z or igeneration, a generation born during the advent of digital technology, reported having developed a much higher instinctual relationship with technology and spending more time online than any other generation (spires et al., 2019; thulin & vilhelmson, 2019). they spend most of their time updating and sharing information on facebook or zamzami zainuddin & muhammad shujahat englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 227 twitter, uploading videos on youtube, playing online video games, doing online business, or searching for learning resources (atay et al., 2018; valenzuela et al., 2018). in terms of the sites most frequently accessed by the students in this report, social media and online games dominated. in line with this finding, facebook is reported in previous studies as the most popular social networking site in the world, followed by twitter and instagram (arora et al., 2019; waterloo et al., 2018). youtube has also emerged as the app with the highest concentration of millennials (bisht et al., 2019; uşaklı et al., 2019). besides, one big reason why they are hooked on the usage of the internet is the presence of online mobile games. millions of games are available, some of which are free. so much is the love and craze for online mobile games that they have become part and parcel of people's lives nowadays (kerr et al., 2019). meanwhile, this study demonstrates that only some students who spend significant time in coffee shops are slothful, as some strive to earn money from their online business programs. this may require them to spend a significant amount of time in front of the internet and at coffee shops all day and night. some also stated that they used the internet to find information about their class work. meanwhile, only some students' activities in the coffee shops can be considered positive, especially those which involve a great deal of time playing online games, watching youtube videos, and accessing social media without effort or just killing time without any specific purpose. in line with this, campbell et al. (2015) mentioned that technology is a twosided coin with both negative and positive impacts. if it is used correctly, there will be numerous benefits, but if it is used incorrectly, it might negatively affect people's lives. the main conclusion of this study is that the good and bad things that students do in coffee shops cannot be judged or looked at from just one point of view, especially not from the author's point of view, which would be from the y generation. moreover, for the acehnese community, just sitting in a coffee shop and chatting with the surrounding community can be a valuable experience and activity. this gathering activity can also be used as a means of socialization to disseminate information and culture that exists, both personal and organizational (samuels, 2012). this is in line with kasimin's (2017) statement that traditional or modern coffee shops like starbucks are the third most visited places by people worldwide, after homes and offices. visiting a coffee shop is a worldwide way to enjoy different kinds of facilities and social interaction. as reported in this study, millennials affirmed that social interaction activities occur in a physical sense, as older adults assume, and in a digital sense. this sentence shows how native digital students think and feel about the word "social." this is because digital technology and the globalization era have greatly impacted how people think and feel about the word "social." in terms of learning activities and information seeking, one of the interviewees acknowledged that he used this spot to do academic activities such as accessing learning video sources on ted-ed, youtube, and google scholar for searching academic articles. this finding implies that twenty-first-century skills have been formed in the understanding students’ activities in wi-fi coffee shops in aceh: a survey and narrative interview report 228 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 students' beliefs in which they have implemented the concept of a ubiquitous learning environment. indeed, the igeneration must encourage gaining information and knowledge as information seekers and not as information receivers. they must be able to use any space for positive and productive activities, even in coffee shops. learning in the twenty-first century can occur not only behind the classroom wall but also anywhere outside the classroom, including wi-fi coffee shops, and not just from teachers as the sole source of information but also from various digital sources. this study also confirms that the physical environment significantly affects social-emotional well-being and student social-emotional learning. for example, traditional student desks encourage students to follow the rules, while seating, like in a coffee shop, encourages community building and creative problem-solving by emphasizing communication and working together. the coffee shop-style seating encourages community building through an increased and intentional emphasis on communication and collaboration. think about how we feel when in a trendy coffee shop like starbucks. environments like these are alive. they promote creativity and conversation. it feels good to work in that space. how might we channel that energy and bring it into our classrooms? the instructors must set up their rooms intentionally if they want students to work together toward a common goal. the plan is to throw out the traditional student desks and replace them with couches, armchairs, coffee tables, and high tables with stools, restaurant-style tables, standing tables, or rugs. starbucks has created an environment where students can comfortably work alone or in groups, can text, surf, watch videos, and go online and do their school work (ardichvili et al., 2006; collins & halverson, 2018), and thus, it could be an alternative that wi-fi coffee shops in aceh province can imitate. it is common to see teachers marking assignments in starbucks, office workers holding meetings over a cuppa, and others who want a quiet place to watch videos or use free wi-fi. our students accommodate us by sitting in straight rows in our classrooms, but when they get to starbucks after school, they enter their natural environment—and probably become much more creative. if we could take some of the starbucks concepts and incorporate them into our learning space and teaching strategies, we might be more successful in reaching today's young people. based on the findings of this study, we suggest several reasons why the appropriate use of the internet will support students' education. first, by establishing good connectivity and communications through the internet with people worldwide, this activity will help strengthen international collaboration to support students' education and future careers. second, the healthy use of the internet, particularly in coffee shops, allows students to search for meaningful information related to their studies, including scholarships. third, it will aid students' independent study. they are not required to attend academies or pay for courses because they can learn quickly and for free at the coffee shop by only purchasing a cup of coffee. third, they can learn through various zamzami zainuddin & muhammad shujahat englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 229 online courses available on the internet from home or in coffee shops. fourth, they can earn part-time online through blogging, digital marketing, web design and development, and any service provided on the digital freelance marketplace. fifth, students can practice on the internet, such as learning english, programming, and other skills. finally, there are many other benefits, like being able to plan their career with the help of the internet, getting help with assignments and presentations, getting faster updates and the most recent information, and talking about things online on social media platforms. last but not least, this study has some limitations that must be pointed out. one obvious weakness was that the sample size was small (n = 3), and all were male students. therefore, the findings of this study may not represent the female perspective. thus, future research should examine larger samples and involve both male and female participants. furthermore, since this small study was carried out at three coffee shops in a province in indonesia, the findings may not represent other geographic regions in indonesia or other countries. it is highly recommended that similar studies be done in other places to learn more about how different things happen in different places and cultures. 5. conclusion this study indicates that coffee shops in aceh province are unique among public places that offer free wi-fi service. because of the large student population, coffee shops are a prominent feature of the local culture. students and freelancers often use coffee shops for various purposes, such as studying, meetings, and other work. as a result, they are among the first establishments to offer free wi-fi in this district. although many people in aceh province go to coffee shops to do silent work, many coffee shops remain social spaces—technology likely pervades the habits of someone who uses the internet at the coffee shops. meeting friends in a community is also why most students visit coffee shops. the existence of college students in a coffee shop indirectly binds them to a community. in addition, wi-fi coffee shops offer an important option for those who may not have internet access at home, particularly young people and recent transplants with limited income but high educational capital. although the availability of the internet in the coffee shop can be a two-sided coin with both negative and positive impacts for students, we believe that if the users or students are facilitated to access these facilities in the right way, there will be numerous benefits received. however, if used inadequately, it might negatively affect their lives. we also believe that if the internet in the coffee shop is used appropriately, it will push for greener and healthier information practices for students that may sometimes favor lowtechnological environments or the lack of infrastructure or resources. understanding students’ activities in wi-fi coffee shops in aceh: a survey and narrative interview report 230 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 references azungah, t. 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(2018). norms of online expressions of emotion: comparing facebook, twitter, instagram, and whatsapp. television & new media, 20(5), 1813-1831. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2022. vol. 9, no. 2, 32-45 indonesian l2 learners’ listening anxiety and socio-affective listening strategy: a survey study eunike putri chriswiyati universitas kristen duta wacana, yogyakarta, indonesia eunikeputri1310@gmail.com adaninggar septi subekti * universitas kristen duta wacana, yogyakarta, indonesia adaninggar@staff.ukdw.ac.id manuscript received september 1, 2021, revised december 16, 2021, first published may 1, 2022, and available online may 7, 2022. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i2.10708 recommended apa citation chriswiyati, e. p., & subekti, a. s. (2022). indonesian l2 learners’ listening anxiety and socio-affective listening strategy: a survey study. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(2), 32-45. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.10708 abstract the present study was conducted to investigate the possible interaction between the second language (l2) learners' listening anxiety and their use of socio-affective listening strategies (sals). the participants of this study were 74 university learners from non-english departments at a university in java, indonesia. the study used the survey method of distributing google form questionnaires. through descriptive statistics, the study found that generally, learner participants had a medium level of listening anxiety. the participants also reported a high level of sals. through correlation formula, the study further found that learners’ use of sals correlated negatively with their listening anxiety. it indicated that the more they used sals, the lower their listening anxiety tended to be. the correlation was not significant. based on the findings of the study, several pedagogical implications were suggested. this included promoting more learner-centred activities where learners could develop their socio-affective strategies and giving emphasis on overall comprehension rather than specific grammatical aspects in l2 listening activities. possible directions for future studies were also suggested concerning the study's findings and possible limitations. keywords: second language (l2); listening anxiety; socio-affective listening strategy (sals); survey * corresponding author https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6622 https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.10708 eunike putri chriswiyati & adaninggar septi subekti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 33 1. introduction it is argued that second language (l2) learners spend 40% of their time listening whilst they spend 60% of their time speaking, reading, and writing (loren, andayani, & setiawan, 2017), suggesting the importance of listening skills in l2 learning. sumalinog (2018) mentioned that l2 listening is a complex and intricate process for l2 learners and this could lead to learners’ anxiety and apprehension. though in l2 literature perhaps not as popular as l2 speaking anxiety and reading anxiety highlighted by horwitz and associates (horwitz, 2001; saito, horwitz, & garza, 1999), l2 listening anxiety was repeatedly reported as a detrimental factor negatively affecting l2 learning in various learning contexts (prastiyowati, 2019; tahsildar & yusoff, 2014; tayşi, 2019). these findings suggested that listening anxiety played a part in affecting l2 learning. regarding learners’ anxiety, literature suggested that the use of socio-affective strategies could lower it (saeidi & khaliliaqdam, 2013; vandergrift, 2003). in an early work, vandergrift (2003) defined socio-affective strategies as the techniques learners used to collaborate with others, to verify their understanding, or to lower their anxiety. these strategies covered the attitude of learners in dealing with learning difficulties, organizing their emotions, giving value to the l2 learning process, and managing their self-motivation (vijaya, 2012). many studies have been conducted in the areas of l2 listening anxiety (hidayati, dewi, nurhaedin, & rosmala, 2020; liu & thondhlana, 2015; prastiyowati, 2019; tayşi, 2019) and socio-affective strategies in l2 listening (d. bao & guan, 2019; firdaus, 2019; nowrouzi, sim, zareian, & nimehchisalem, 2014; shamsiri & noordin, 2009), suggesting the importance of these issues in l2 listening literature. studies by sumalinog (2018) and tsai (2013) even reported that l2 learners implemented socioaffective strategies more than other listening strategies. sumalinog (2018) also found that his participants used this strategy to overcome their anxiety. despite this, to the best of our knowledge, only a few studies investigated the possible interactions between learners’ listening anxiety and their use of socio-affective strategies in listening (dalman, 2016). therefore, conducting a quantitative study with a possible generalisation of findings in an under-researched indonesian context could be very necessary. considering the aforementioned rationales, this study attempts to answer three research questions. first, to what extent do learners experience listening anxiety? second, to what extent do learners use socio-affective listening strategies? third, what is the relationship between learners’ listening anxiety and socio-affective listening strategy? indonesian l2 learners’ listening anxiety and socio-affective listening strategy: a survey study 34 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 2. literature review 2.1. l2 learners’ listening anxiety though probably not as popular as l2 learners’ speaking anxiety, l2 learners’ listening anxiety has also been a subject of researchers’ interest. studies in this field have been conducted using various methods and involving participants from various research contexts (dalman, 2016; hidayati et al., 2020; liu & thondhlana, 2015; sumalinog, 2018). several quantitative studies adapted foreign language listening anxiety (flla) questionnaires to gather data (hidayati et al., 2020; liu & thondhlana, 2015; sumalinog, 2018). a study by liu and thondhlana (2015) involved 1702 l2 learners of english from five different universities in china. they found that more than half of the participants reported low anxiety in l2 listening. this finding was in contrast with the finding of another study involving 50 participants conducted by sumalinog (2018) at a university in the philippines. the study found that the majority of the learner participants had difficulty comprehending listening input and thus they felt anxious. the difficulty was attributed to several factors such as the speed rate (the speaker in recordings talking too fast), the use of slang, the participants’ limited vocabulary bank, noisy environment (sumalinog, 2018). the participants further reported feeling afraid of being criticised when they failed to catch the gist in the recording’s conversation (sumalinog, 2018). similar findings were also found in a mixed-method study by hidayati et al. (2020) in an indonesian academic listening class context. involving 97 participants, hidayati et al. (2020) found that 54.6% of the learner participants had a high listening anxiety level. these participants also reported their tendency to translate word by word when listening. unfortunately, through interviews, it was revealed that these learners were incapable of catching what the speaker said, which made them fail to understand the text. these particular situations made them anxious in listening (hidayati et al., 2020). furthermore, when language learners perceive themselves to have no control over the topic and the speech rate, and they could not go back and forth within the text for clarification, they may experience helplessness leading to listening apprehension (dalman, 2016). regarding speech rate that was reported to be a contributing factor of listening anxiety (hidayati et al., 2020; sumalinog, 2018), it was argued that providing the proper speech rate would help l2 learners be able to improve their skills in bottomup processing in which learners interpret broader context or idea from specific utterances (wong, 2015). 2.2. learners’ socio-affective listening strategies socio-affective strategies have been known as one of the learning strategies other than cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies. several authors differentiated social and affective strategies as two distinct strategies (gilanlioglu & kalajahi, 2010) whilst several others considered them one unit of strategy (x. bao, 2017; saeidi & eunike putri chriswiyati & adaninggar septi subekti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 35 khaliliaqdam, 2013; serri et al., 2012). saeidi and khaliliaqdam (2013), for instance, stated that socio-affective strategies focus on l2 learners' interaction that involves feelings and thoughts, which can be used by both learners and teachers to engage with each other. the typical characteristics of this construct involve learners' personal and social skills in their l2 learning activities (x. bao, 2017; saeidi & khaliliaqdam, 2013; serri et al., 2012). these skills involve cooperation, self-talk, and self-questioning (x. bao, 2017). several studies reported the benefits of the use of socio-affective strategies in l2 learning (allah, 2016; d. bao & guan, 2019). for example, a recent study by d. bao and guan (2019) found that by using socio-affective strategies, dubbed as cooperative listening techniques, teachers could help learners overcome their negative feelings such as anxiety. furthermore, several other studies were conducted to identify the implementation of the socio-affective listening strategy (sals) in various learning contexts (firdaus, 2019; nowrouzi et al., 2014; rouhi, nabavi, & mohebbi, 2014; shamsiri & noordin, 2009). an experimental study in a malaysian context by shamsiri and noordin (2009) involved 56 l2 learners of english from a counselling department. they found that learners implemented sals mostly by asking proficient peers for help and making positive talk. furthermore, another quantitative study involving 100 iranian tertiarylevel learners of english was conducted by nowrouzi et al. (2014). they found that the participants implemented sals by asking for feedback, imitating native speakers, attending outside-class events using english, giving self-rewards, and trying to keep on listening despite the difficulty they faced in understanding the recording. specific in the indonesian context, a quantitative study was conducted by firdaus (2019) in surabaya. in line with several findings in the study by nowrouzi et al. (2014), he found that learners' most frequently used sals were implementing self-rewarding and selfencouragement as well as listening to someone else, practising with friends, and asking teachers for confirmation (firdaus, 2019). 2.3. listening anxiety and socio-affective listening strategies despite several authors' reiterations on the importance of listening anxiety and sals in affecting l2 learning, only a few studies have been conducted to investigate the possible interactions between these two constructs. for instance, a study investigating l2 learners’ listening anxiety and sals was conducted in iran by dalman (2016). this study involved 110 university learners enrolled in toefl preparation courses. it found that sals had a significant negative relationship with listening anxiety (dalman, 2016). it indicated that with an increase in socio-affective strategy, there would likely be a decrease in listening anxiety. furthermore, a study in the philippines by sumalinog (2018) also reported that learners often used socio-affective strategies to cope with their anxiety in listening. the learner participants often indonesian l2 learners’ listening anxiety and socio-affective listening strategy: a survey study 36 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 communicated with their teachers and classmates when they encountered difficulty in listening, indicating the use of sals (sumalinog, 2018). 3. method 3.1. research design to obtain data with the possibility of generalisation, the present study implemented a quantitative method. it was conducted by distributing a google form questionnaire in indonesian. there were two main sections of the questionnaire. the first section was on listening anxiety. in this section, there were thirteen statements adapted from the foreign language listening anxiety scale (fllas) questionnaire developed by zhang (2013). for each statement, there were four possible responses, namely “strongly agree” (5 points), “agree” (4 points), “disagree” (2 points), and “strongly disagree” (1 point). statement numbers 12 and 13 were negative statements, so these were reverse-scored. the second section of the questionnaire consisted of 10 positive items representing the use of sals. these items were an adapted version of the socio-affective questionnaire developed by golchi (2012). there were also four possible responses, namely “strongly agree” (5 points), “agree” (4 points), “disagree” (2 points), and “strongly disagree” (1 point). before being distributed, questionnaire in indonesian was piloted by several university learners who were not the target group. based on their feedback, minor changes were made to ensure that all the questionnaire items were accurate and unambiguous (gray, 2014). 3.2. research participants, data collection, and ethical considerations the target participants were 203 non-english departments learners (122 males and 81 females) taking general english (ge) level 3 at a university in java, indonesia. ge level 3 taught the learners integrated skills, one of which was listening, thus deemed relevant to be involved in the present study. out of these 203 learners, only 74 participated in the present study (40 males and 34 females) with the age range of 18 to 23 years. the data collection started from october 16, 2020 to october 30, 2020. research ethic principles were adhered in this study. first, gatekeeper consent was secured from the director of language centre in charge of conducting the ge classes (ramrathan, grange, & shawa, 2016). then, the ge teachers were contacted to see if it was possible to distribute questionnaires in their classes. once the permission was granted, the questionnaire link was distributed to the target participants via whatsapp class groups with the help of the teachers. the target participants had freedom whether to participate in the present study, probably contributing to the moderate return rate of the online questionnaire. an informed consent form was provided at the beginning of the questionnaire to ensure that the participants understood the objectives of the study, their rights, and their responsibility if they decided to participate (gray, 2014). that was to ensure the participants’ voluntary participation and avoid any coercion (israel & hay, 2006). eunike putri chriswiyati & adaninggar septi subekti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 37 3.3. data analysis after the google form questionnaire data were obtained in the form of an excel file, any non-numeric data were converted into numeric. for example, all “strongly agree” responses in the positive statements were changed into “5” and in the negative statements were changed into “1”. all the data were then moved to spss 25 application for further analysis. descriptive formulas were employed to provide demographic information as well as to answer the first and the second research questions. the correlation formula was employed to find the answer to the third research question. the steps of data collection and analysis could be seen in figure 1. figure 1. steps of data collection and data analysis 4. findings and discussion the cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the listening anxiety questionnaire section was 0.76 and 0.75 for the sals section which means that both sections of the questionnaire had a quite high internal reliability. 4.1. learner participants’ listening anxiety the present study generally found that the participants experienced a medium level of listening anxiety. the mean score of the thirteen questionnaire items was 42.78 or averagely at 3.29 on each item, suggesting a generally medium level of listening anxiety. the mean score of each statement could be seen in table 1. table 1 learners’ listening anxiety. no mean 1 3.59 2 3.77 3 3.23 4 2.47 5 3.27 6 3.59 distributing the google form questionnaire to general english level 3 students through class teachers correlation formula  answering research question 3 analysing the data in the spss 25 (74 participants) adapting zhang’s (2013 and golchi’s (2012) questionnaires and translating them into indonesian descriptive statistics (means, percentages)  answering the research questions 1 and 2 indonesian l2 learners’ listening anxiety and socio-affective listening strategy: a survey study 38 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 7 3.28 8 3.45 9 3.97 10 3.18 11 2.70 12 2.14 13 2.41 as observed in table 1, items numbers 9, 2, 1, and 6 obtained the highest mean scores and these findings are worth further comments. the first one, item number 9, “i usually end up translating word by word when i’m listening to english,” produced a mean score of 3.97. 70.3% of the participants agreed with the statement. this finding was in line with a study conducted by hidayati et al. (2020) in an academic listening class in indonesia. they found that 40.2% of their participants reported ending up translating word by word when they did their listening activity. these same findings could indicate that l2 english learners in indonesia may tend to translate word by word when they listen to english narration. perhaps, when listening, indonesian english learners generally had difficulty in identifying the general idea without understanding the details (wong, 2015). another possibility might be related to the listening process where l2 learners tend to involve the recognition of the spoken foreign language they have heard to their first language (l1) (wong, 2015). hence, without translating the words, the l2 learners might have difficulty getting a complete understanding of materials in l2. the second, item number 2, “while listening to the speaker, i understand some words but still do not understand what the speaker is saying,” produced a mean score of 3.77. it was endorsed by 70.3% of the participants. this indicated that even if the participants understood some vocabularies, it was not a guarantee that they understood the general idea of the listening materials. this finding aligned with a study conducted by hidayati et al. (2020). hidayati et al. (2020) found that 48% of their participants reported failing to understand what the speaker was saying in listening. the similarity of these findings could happen because the indonesian learner participants from both studies failed to use bottom-up processing, which as wong (2015) explained, is the process of interpreting broader context or idea from specific utterances. the findings on item numbers 9 and 2 could be closely related and may need special attention. indonesian l2 learners were found to tend to translate word by word when listening and even so they still failed to understand the general idea of their listening materials. this could potentially increase their listening anxiety even more. hence, teachers could facilitate learners to improve their bottom-up processing skills, so they could use their tendency to their advantage. furthermore, item number 1, “i feel annoyed if i could not understand or am not sure about what the speaker is saying,” resulted in a mean score of 3.59. 66% of the eunike putri chriswiyati & adaninggar septi subekti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 39 participants endorsed this statement. a slightly identical statement in the study of hidayati et al. (2020), “i get upset when i’m not sure whether i understand what i hear in english”, resulted in an almost similar finding. 51.5% of their participants agreed with this statement. this could be related to the findings that the participants tended to translate word by word to understand the whole idea of the listening materials. however, when they were not sure about what the speaker was saying, they became annoyed or upset. in this case, the participants of both the present study and those of hidayati et al. (2020) may not have control of the listening topic and speech rate. this particular situation in listening could cause anxiety (dalman, 2016). regarding this, it may be better if teachers could give learners more chance to comprehend the listening materials better by assigning listening materials as homework before the class and letting them listen to them several times in class if necessary. last but not least, item number 6, “i feel annoyed when i do not understand the grammar of the narration or explanation in english that i heard,” produced a mean score of 3.59. 60.8% of the participants agreed with the statement. this finding suggested that understanding grammar in listening somehow positively influenced the participants’ understanding of the context. this finding was not in line with a finding of a study in a chinese context by liu and thondhlana (2015) in which learners did not consider understanding grammar of the listening materials an important factor facilitating understanding. the different results of this present study and the previous study might happen because the participants experienced different beliefs towards the english language. liu and thondhlana (2015) explained that their chinese participants preferred to use other listening strategies such as negotiating the meaning to overcome the issue of not understanding the grammar of the recording. they paid more attention to the social function of the language (liu & thondhlana, 2015). in comparison, in the present study, the participants may consider language structure more important compared to its social function. interestingly, the finding of the present study was in line with a finding of a study on listening anxiety conducted by sumalinog (2018) in the philippines. in the study, sumalinog (2018) found that unfamiliarity with the language could stimulate listening anxiety. the similarity could suggest that the indonesian learners had more similar characteristics with the philippines than they had with their chinese counterparts in terms of high regard for grammar in listening. heavier exposure to grammar in l2 instruction in the indonesian and the philippine context could play a part in shaping the participants' beliefs on the perceived important role of understanding the grammar of the listening narration. 4.2. learner participants’ use of socio-affective listening strategies using a 10-item questionnaire on sals, the present study found that the overall mean score of the participants' sals was at 39.11 or on average 3.9 on each item on a scale of 1 up to 5. this suggested that generally, the participants reported a quite high indonesian l2 learners’ listening anxiety and socio-affective listening strategy: a survey study 40 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 level of sals. the detailed findings in the form of the mean score of each questionnaire item could be observed in table 2. table 2 learners’ use of sals. no mean 1 4.09 2 4.19 3 4.16 4 3.36 5 4.15 6 3.76 7 4.05 8 3.26 9 3.74 10 4.34 from the data presented in table 2, it could be seen that the four highest mean scores were from questionnaire item numbers 10, 2, 3, and 5. the learner participants reported keeping on listening to the passage even though it was difficult for them to understand the context. they discussed listening passages with their friends, tried to understand the speakers’ feelings and thoughts, and did self-positive talk. first, sals questionnaire item number 10, "i try to keep on listening to the passage even if i have difficulties understanding the context," produced a mean score of 4.34, the highest among all items. 98.7% of the participants endorsed this statement. a study conducted by nowrouzi et al. (2014) found that the iranian l2 learners of english also implemented a similar strategy on their listening activity. however, in their study, the implementation of this particular strategy was categorized as low, with a mean score of 1.97. the striking difference between the finding of the present study and that of nowrouzi et al. (2014) was rather surprising considering the seemingly rather similar characteristics of the use of english in indonesia and in iran where the language was spoken as a foreign language and used very limitedly outside classroom contexts. however, the combination of individual differences and different cultural contexts between indonesia and iran could also play a part in influencing the striking differences. second, sals questionnaire item number 2, "when i am facing difficulties in understanding the context, i will discuss it with a friend(s)," produced the mean score of 4.19. 93.2% of the participants strongly agreed and agreed with the statement. the present study's finding was not in line with a finding in a quantitative study by firdaus (2019) in an indonesian university context. she found that discussing listening difficulties with friends was only moderately practised. different degrees of familiarity eunike putri chriswiyati & adaninggar septi subekti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 41 with peers between the present study’s participants and those of the study by firdaus (2019) may also play a part. perhaps, the participants of the present study were more familiar with their friends in class compared to the participants of the study by firdaus (2019) in surabaya, indonesia. interestingly, an experimental study in a malaysian context by shamsiri and noordin (2009) found that discussing difficulties in listening activities with friends was one of the most frequently employed sals in the experimental group. this could indicate that the level of familiarity with peers in class might be the same despite the different contexts of the indonesian participants in the present study and the malaysian counterparts in the study by shamsiri and noordin (2009). furthermore, sals questionnaire item number 3 "i try to understand the speaker's feeling and thought," produced a 4.16 mean score. 95.9% of the participants either strongly agreed or agreed with the statement. understanding speakers' feelings and thoughts was also frequently used by the participants of the experimental study by shamsiri and noordin (2009) in malaysia, further suggesting the similar characteristics between the two studies’ participants. next, sals questionnaire item number 5, "i encourage myself through positive talk," produced a mean score of 4.15. 73% of the participants agreed with the statement. this finding showed an alignment with a finding of the study by firdaus (2019) in which she found that the l2 learners of english in surabaya, indonesia also used selfencouragement in their listening activity. in indonesia, listening is one of the skills tested in national examinations. this might explain why learners in these two studies used positive talk when they did their listening activities. the high level of selfmotivation of the indonesian learners towards listening may explain the similarity. 4.3. the relationship between the student participants’ listening anxiety and socioaffective listening strategy the results on the correlation between the participants’ listening anxiety and sals could be observed in table 3. table 3 correlation between listening anxiety and socio-affective listening strategies. socio-affective listening strategy listening anxiety pearson correlation -.116 sig. (2-tailed) .326 n 74 as seen in table 3, the present study found a non-significant negative correlation between the participants’ listening anxiety and sals, r (72) = -.12, p>.05). the negative relationship, albeit being weak and statistically not significant, suggested that indonesian l2 learners’ listening anxiety and socio-affective listening strategy: a survey study 42 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 the more the participants used sals, the less anxious they became in l2 listening. likewise, as learners used sals less, the more anxious they were in l2 listening. this finding was different from a finding in a study by dalman (2016) in iran which found statistically significant, weak, and negative association between the two constructs, r (108) = -.28, p<0.01. the statistically not significant finding of the present study could be attributed to the combination of at least two factors, the background of the participants and listening exposure. compared to the participants in the study by dalman (2016), learners at toefl preparation classes, the present study’s participants were learners at general english classes taught integrated skills. hence, they may not obtain listening exposure as much as their iranian counterparts and thus may not use listening strategies as intensively as their iranian counterparts. the covid-19 pandemic forcing all instructional processes to be conducted online may also hinder optimal uses of sals by the participants in the present study. finally, though it was unpersuasive to claim that the use of sals could reduce learners’ listening anxiety through this negative correlation finding, this finding may offer an early indication to that direction. further studies are needed to better establish the cause-and-effect relationship between the two constructs. 5. conclusion the present study offered several implications and contributions. first, considering the finding on learners’ preference to discuss their difficulties in listening with their peers, teachers could provide more space for them to do discussions, thus also supporting a more learner-centred instruction. secondly, since most of the participants considered grammar necessary and got annoyed when they could not recognise it well, teachers could promote more listening activities emphasising less on grammar and more on developing fluency and intelligibility. furthermore, the present study may provide some kind of overview on the association between learners’ listening anxiety and sals in the indonesian university context, which may not have been thoroughly investigated previously. though the finding was seemingly inconclusive, it could open the possibility of future studies in the field in the indonesian context. several limitations of the present study were related to the methods, participants, and social setting when the data were collected. first, this study used an online questionnaire as the only method of data collection. hence, the finding of this study was based on participants’ self-report. secondly, considering the limited number of participants, it may be unpersuasive to claim that the finding could be generalised to a wider population. third, the data were gathered during the covid-19 pandemic in which the learning process was conducted online. this situation might slightly hamper the learner-learner and learner-teacher interactions as the key characteristics of socioaffective strategies. last but not least, there are several suggested directions for future studies. first, a study on listening anxiety and sals involving learner participants with more intense eunike putri chriswiyati & adaninggar septi subekti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 43 exposure to listening activities such as listening classes in an english language department or toefl preparation classes may produce more conclusive findings on the relationship between the two constructs. lastly, as sals may not be observable, conducting qualitative studies through interviews could be a way to explore this field deeper, allowing participants’ rich, in-depth, and subjective experiences in dealing with l2 listening to come to light. references allah, t. a. 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(2013). foreign language listening anxiety and listening performance: conceptualizations and causal relationships. system, 41(1), 164–177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2013.01.004 englisia may 2017 vol. 4, no. 2, 79-89 managing disruptive behavior of students in language classroom siti khasinah universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia skhasinah1@gmail.com abstract this article describes students’ disruptive behaviors in language classroom that may greatly affect language teaching and learning process, especially in esl or efl classes. teachers should know what disruptive behavior is to enable them to deal with problems occurred in their classroom or to take preventive actions to keep their students well-behaved during the class. this can reduce the occurrence of misbehavior of students in their classroom. to prevent disruption in the classroom, teachers should establish behavioral expectations in the first day of the semester and the expectations can be based on students attendance, arrivals and departures, class participation, full english speaking, and other appropriate conducts in the syllabus and discuss them at the outset of the term. the agreement is then assigned as a learning contract or a code of conducts with which bounds the whole class. consequently, whenever students are misbehaved, teachers and other students will directly know and recognize that the behaviors are out of the code. there are factors reasoning students to behave badly, so teachers as trouble solvers have to find appropriate strategies that are effective in helping students keep the code. otherwise, the disruptions will escalate quickly and the problems will increase in numbers rapidly and finally, teachers will have to work very hard to avoid teaching failure and “losing face” when they cannot manage the disruption as listed in the expectation. keywords: disruptive behavior; managing language classroom introduction disruptive behavior of students is also known as students’ misbehavior or negative class participation. this kind of behaviors often disrupts classroom teaching and learning process since it affects teachers and other students as well. sometimes, managing disruptive behavior of students in language classroom 80 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 some of the behaviors can be tolerated if they only irritate the class but they do not escalate and disturb the whole class. this issue is closely related to disciplinary matter that warrants careful treatment from teachers. teachers should be prepared to this kind of classroom climate even before the problem arises, when the problem is beginning and mainly when the problem has exploded. the ability of teachers to manage those constraints is really needed. knowing students personally, indeed, help teachers in reducing behavior-related problems in english classroom. besides, classroom management, methodology, lesson planning, and students’ motivation can be potential control of teachers to hinder disruptive atmosphere in their classroom (ur, 1996). motivation in language class is more than a way to develop students’ interest. as said by richards and renandya (2002) that language is not knowledge that is kept in mind, but a skill to be used. being undisciplined belongs to all age groups of students, young learners and also adult learners. related to this, harmer (1991) says that there are lots of ways of disrupting a class. further, he says that disruptive behavior is not confined to only one age group. young children can be incredibly noisy and unruly while teenagers can be truly uncooperative and unresponsive. in addition, adults are disruptive in different way such become disagree with teachers and distract classmates to follow them. disruptive behaviour merriam-webster’s online dictionary (“disruptive and behavior”, 2017) defines the word disruption within three contexts: “to break apart, to throw into disorder and to interrupt the normal course or unity of” whilst it gives three ideas of the word behavior: “the manner of conducting oneself, the way in which someone behaves and the way in which something functions or operates”. additionally, the university of houston student handbook (2017, p. 68) defines disruption as “obstructing or interfering with university functions or any university activity. disturbing the peace and good order of the university by, among other things, fighting, quarreling, disruptive behavior or excessive noise, including but not limited to, a disruption by use of pagers, cell phones, and/or communication siti khasinah englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 81 devices”. in accordance with this, (college of san mateo, 2013, appendix o) states that disruptive and inappropriate behaviors are “actions that interfere with the instructional, administrative or service functions of the college. assessing disruptive behavior can be a highly subjective process. for example, some behavior patterns, such as students talking in class, can be experienced as disruptive in some situations or simply irritating and frustrating in others”. in addition, charles (2004, p. 2) defines misbehavior as “behavior that is considered inappropriate for the setting or situation in which it occurs”. in context of classroom climate, students’ misbehavior can be defined as any action or activities that are perceived by teachers as disruptive to learning environment (cruickshank, jenkins, & metcalf, 2009). although all definitions above give general understanding of the meaning of disruptive behavior in language classroom, analyzing the terms and understanding their meanings gives deeper insight into what disruptive behavior is. types and examples of disruptive behavior in language classroom according to richards and renandya (2002), there are three types of disruptive behavior commonly occurring in language class: 1) the back-row distractor: the student who always sits at the back and distracts others; 2) the nonparticipants: some students who are not taking part in the assigned class activities; and 3) the over exuberant student: the students who are smart but very dominant and monopolize all activities in classroom. likewise, cruickshank, jenkins, & metcalf (2009) state that there are several typical misbehavior problems that can exist in a classroom including aggression i.e., physical and verbal attacks, and displays of violence; immoral acts i.e., cheating, lying, and stealing; defiance of authority i.e., refusing to obey teachers or becoming unruly; disruptive behaviors i.e., talking loudly, calling out, and tossing objects; and off-task behaviors i.e., daydreaming and fooling around. from those types of behaviors, we can observe some examples of disruptive behaviors that can cause discipline problems in teaching english in classroom. in the same way, the university of washington (2017) mentions the following items as examples of disruptive behaviors such as aggression toward other students or faculty, threats of violence, unyielding argument or debate, yelling inside or managing disruptive behavior of students in language classroom 82 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 outside of the classroom, untimely talking, laughing, or crying, snoring in class, engaging in content on a laptop that others find disruptive, and listening to music at a volume disruptive to others. these eight examples are considered as low level disruption since the behaviors do not directly threat others; even though they lead to irritation and disturbance for others. the university gives other examples that are considered extremely disruptive, threatening, or dangerous behaviors including a student physically or verbally assaults lecturers or other students, a student appears to be on the verge of physically or verbally assaulting others, a student damages classroom furniture or property, and a student carries a weapon. other statements on the examples of disruptive behaviors are the ones from an article of tomorrow's teaching and learning (2017), ann daniels (2013) and richards and farrel (2011) in which the followings are noted: arrivals and departures (late arrivers and early leavers), noisy students (talking and other disruptive noises), and other behaviors such as passing notes, sleeping, eating, overt inattentiveness, domineering students, distressed students, challenges to teachers’ authority, disruptive students online, and even cheating. from the arguments above, it can be said that students can produce several inappropriate behaviors that directly or indirectly distract teachers and other students and can finally affect english teaching and learning process. causes of disruptive problems in language classroom disruptive behaviors of students can be caused by several reasons. teachers themselves can be a major factor affecting the behavior of students together with the students and institutions (harmer, 1991). for example, unprepared teachers can easily be detected by students, which soon leads to cause problems in classroom. even if teachers are well prepared, teachers may still get trouble because of the students and institutions. khajloo (2013) claims that if students become motivated by their love for their english teachers, they will be more interested in learning english; although this fact may scientifically be unacceptable. moreover, based on the finding of their research, ghazi, shahzada, tariq, & khan (2013) list a number of factors that can cause inappropriate behaviors such as siti khasinah englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 83 inconsistent parenting, uncaring parents, over-protective parents, poverty, poor quality teaching, teachers’ negative attitude, lack of motivation from teacher, load shedding and lack of alternative, bad influences of a local community, students’ psych-problems, and classroom poor conditions. similar to harmer (1991), they note that teachers and students are the factors causing misbehavior. however, they add other factors such as parents, learning facilities, and environment as supportive factors due to the occurrence of the problems. preventing disruptive behaviour in language classroom preventing disruptive behavior in the classroom can be done by establishing or creating a positive classroom climate. brown (2001) suggests teachers to build up rapport, to balance praise and criticism, and to generate energy. rapport is a relationship or connection between teachers and students that produces a positive energy in the language classroom. rapport is developed by showing interest in each student as a person, openly soliciting their ideas and feelings, valuing and respecting what they think and say, and developing genuine sense of vicarious joy when they learn something or when they succeed. additionally, teachers should give feedback on students’ progress in english, work with them as a team and not against them and to relax, and teachers laugh with them and not at them. alternatively, teachers should balance in praising and criticizing students to make them become effective. meanwhile, the students are energized by the praise and then openly welcome the criticism. moreover, the experience during learning process drives teachers and students to take the energy with them when the class ends and bring it back to class the next meeting. to create a conducive and good learning atmosphere is necessary, but charles (2004) and marsh (2008) stress that teachers emphasize good human relations skills to gain good relationship and interaction in their classroom. first, general relation skills that includes friendliness, keep smiling and speaking gently even with trouble-makers, positive attitude, trying to solve the problem not to dwell on them, ability to listen, respecting other opinions, and ability to compliment genuinely. second, relation skills with students including giving regular attention, talking to students frequently but briefly, giving reinforcement, motivating and managing disruptive behavior of students in language classroom 84 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 encouraging students, showing willingness to help, and being a model for desired behaviors and manners. third, relationship with parents that covers regular communication using notes, phone calls, and letters, setting a clear verbal and written communication, explaining a clear expectation, and focusing on students succeed not on their failure. from these skills, it seems that he emphasizes that communication, warmth, and supports can facilitate productive and joyful classroom activities which can, further, lead to a positive classroom climate in which no disruptive behavior may occur. another way to hinder students’ misbehavior is by making an agreement or a code of conduct. it is a kind of learning contract created on the first day of english class that can be a written form that, if needed, is spelled out, or just unspoken rearrangement. harmer (1991) promotes that a code of conduct involves teachers and students to design what behaviors are allowed and which are not permitted in classroom. this prevent students to behave badly such as arriving late, interrupting classmates when they are speaking, leaving homework at home, eating or drinking, and paying less attention to their teachers or less class participation. another argument is proposed by ur (1996). she notes that these kinds of problems should be handled even before they arise and she suggests three main preventive ways. first, creating careful planning. teachers with well-prepared lesson plans can earn students’ attention and win their trust. likewise, teachers can avoid vacuum moment in which students fill with distracting activities. second, creating clear instructions. instruction is very important in teaching and learning process especially in learning english as esl or efl. teachers, sometimes, fail to give clear instructions in teaching. as a result, students become uncertain of what they have to do and then start asking and even making noises using l1. it is a necessity to communicate important information dealing with the tasks and activities that the students should do. third, keeping in touch: teachers should be alert since the beginning of the class towards what is going to happen in the classroom and make sure that students are aware that their teachers are keeping in touch by using their “six sense” to control their students. meanwhile, the teachers themselves can easily detect disruption which may arise in their classroom. siti khasinah englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 85 handling disruptive behaviour in language classroom as mention previously, disruptive behaviors can disrupt teaching and learning process. therefore, teachers have to react positively to establish a safe and comfortable classroom. according to bellon, bellon, & blank (1996), responding or reacting to students’ inappropriate behaviors is, indeed, a process of helping students control themselves in order to enable them to work and learn productively in their classroom. teachers need to focus and concentrate in doing so, since, as claimed by cruickshank, jenkins, and metcalf (2009), there is no foolproof strategies in correcting misbehavior and no single discipline technique is considered able to solve various types of disruptive behaviors. consequently, teachers should be professionally, carefully, and effectively select and consider the context of problems and also the personality and motivation of their students before, as problems solvers, taking actions. as managers of classroom, teachers should undertake quick and positive actions (albert, 2003; marzano, marzano & pickering, 2003). some experts believe that the problems caused by students’ misbehaviors can be prevented and solved by planning lesson thoroughly, developing positive interaction with students, and conducting lesson effectively (barry & king, 1998, hansen & childs, 1998, hendrick, 2001). cruickshank, jenkins, and metcalf (2009) propose an answer for the question on how teachers decide to manage misbehaved concerns. first, deciding to what extent the intervention will interfere or disrupt the class activities. second, basing how to intervene on the nature and severity of the disruption, the doers, and the time it occurred. third, discussing with students that “fair is not always equal” can sometimes cure the problems. uh hilo student conduct code (2017) promotes procedures that teachers can take whenever they encounter disruptive students. some of them relate to the way to communicate the disruption to the misbehavers gently and respectfully. tell them that the behavior benefits no one. remind them of the agreement assigned in the first day of class. if this comes to failure, talk to them personally and politely outside of classroom to stop the disruption. ask for their reasons for misbehavior and then decide how to assist them. if the problem is serious, teachers had better send them managing disruptive behavior of students in language classroom 86 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 to counseling center. additionally, if the disruption escalates, share the problem with the authority. in other case, cruickshank, jenkins, and metcalf (2009) highlight several types of intervention strategies that can be followed by teachers, based on disruptions they encounter. first, extinction: teachers ignore minor distraction such as attention-seeking misbehavior since the behavior will disappear when it is withheld. second, mild desists: it can be a kind of nonverbal intervention strategies such as establishing eye contact, facial expression, body language, gesture, and reinforcement. it can also be verbal intervention such as slowing down the voice, pronouncing things more distinctly, and pausing briefly. third, reprimands (verbally) help teachers remind students of what they have done and show them that teacher do not tolerate the misbehavior. fourth, time-out: it is a soft punishment such as excluding students from class activities, asking students to put their heads on the table, or sending them to time-out room. fifth, giving severe punishment is the last choice in intervening misbehavior. though the use of radical verbal and corporal punishment is sometimes effective, teachers should be very careful since this strategy can be against the school policy and also state laws. the ability of teachers in managing class disruptions can be varied. that is why the following measurement can be taken including first, acting immediately: the actions will be more difficult if the problems are unsolved soon after the occurrence. second, stopping the class: handling things that get out of hand first before restart teaching. third, reseating: changing the position of the students’ seats. forth, changing the activities: replacing lockstep activity into tasks that fully involve all students. fifth, after class talk; and, sixth, using institutions if the disruption cannot be held and if teachers have to give up. in managing a certain type of misbehaviors, teachers should move through stages as follow: first, the back-row distractor. dealing with this type of disruption, teachers should keep eye contact while speaking, use no mid-sentence, and invite the students to a private talk to find out the cause. next, the non-participants. to overcome this behavior, teachers can ignore the behavior if others are not disturbed, move through their desk and offer help, check whether they behave the same way in siti khasinah englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 87 other classes. third, the over-exuberant students: thank them and immediately ask others to speak, tell them that they can talk more in groups, and later, talk to them personally (richards and renandya, 2002). take, for example, when an english teacher assigns students to work in pair or group in a speaking class. if one of them is a dominant student, she or he will domineer all speaking time. consequently, this will disappoint or irritate others for having less proficiency in speaking english. therefore, the teacher should manage this situation to avoid the over exuberant student from monopolizing the team and make her or him share the equal time for all members. according to hedge (2008), this kind of issue is very sensitive. besides, brown (2001) highlights another issue in esl speaking class of when several students who share the same l1 sit together in the same group. they will speak or whisper in l1 that frustrate the other members of the team. accordingly, it needs teachers’ intervention such as moving the students to another group or telling them the value of group work in the speaking class. as a matter of fact, richards and renandya (2002) and harmer (1991) state that it is difficult for an english teacher to force students to use full english in class. in some cases, they agree if teachers let students use l1 purposively to, for instance, when explaining a difficult thing to the class. ur (1996), as partly mentioned above, advises teachers to respond immediately when the problems are in the beginning, through several strategies. first, dealing with it quietly: quiet, but clear-cut actions can directly solve the problems. second, don’t take things personally. avoid personal conflict with the students and forget the bad behavior soon after they are withheld. and, third, don’t use threats but be consistent to put sanction into practice. further, ur (1996) adds that teachers should act quickly when the problems has exploded. she suggests three ways to respond to the problems. first, teachers explode themselves. show them that you are angry, but do not lose control. second, giving in. and, third, making offers they cannot refuse. similar to the idea of ur, harmer (1991) lists several actions teachers should not do since the attitude of teachers as models greatly affects classroom. to avoid students’ misbehavior, then the following statements such as going to class well prepared, being consistent, issuing motivation not threats, managing disruptive behavior of students in language classroom 88 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 managing the voice, giving interesting classes, having positive attitude to learning, and keeping the code, can be very useful for teachers to adopt. all the strategies discussed can be considered by english teachers in managing language classroom disruptions. teachers only need to identify and select which action is appropriate as a solution for a particular case to make it works effectively. conclusion disruptive behaviors in an english classroom are commonly found such as the back-row distractor, the nonparticipants, and the over exuberant students; however, this issue is not to be taken as a serious or major threat to the language learning process. some misbehaviors are also considered “mild”, which teachers of english should be able to properly handle before, while, and after the occurrence. some actions, ranging from ignoring misbehaved students, reprimanding them, to giving severe punishment, are suggested for teachers on how to prevent and to cure the disruption in classroom immediately and effectively. still, these actions should be selected wisely according to the level of seriousness of each misbehavior. references albert, l. (2003). cooperative discipline (3rd ed.). circle pine: american guidance service. barry, k & king, l. (1998). beginning teaching and beyond (3rd ed.). katoomba: sosial science press. bellon, j. j., bellon, e. c., & blank, m. a. (1996) teaching from a research knowledge base. englewood cliffs: prentice hall. brown, h. d. (2001). teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy. san francisco: longman. charles, c. m. (2004). building classroom discipline (7th ed.). new york: longman. college of san mateo. (2013). faculty handbook 2012-2013. san mateo: college of san mateo cruickshank, d. r., jenkins, d. b., & metcalf, k. k. (2009). the act of teaching. new york: mcgraw-hill. daniels, a. (2013). dealing with disruptive student behavior. retrieved from http://www.livestrong.com/article/147291-what-is-disruptive-behaviorin-the-classroom/ http://www.livestrong.com/article/147291-what-is-disruptive-behavior-in-the-classroom/ http://www.livestrong.com/article/147291-what-is-disruptive-behavior-in-the-classroom/ siti khasinah englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 89 “disruptive and behavior” (2012). retrieved from http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/disruption ghazi, s. r., shahzada, g., tariq, m., & khan, a. q. (2013). types and causes of students’ disruptive behavior in classroom at secondary level in khyber pakhtunkhwa, pakistan. american journal of educational research, 1(9), 350-354. hansen, j. m & childs, j. (1998). creating a school where people like to be, educational leadership, 63(4), 172-174. harmer, j. (1991). the practice of english language teaching. london: longman. hedge, t. (2008). teaching and learning in language classroom. oxford: oxford university press. hendrick, j. (2001). the whole child (7th ed.). new jersey: prentice hall. khajloo, a. i. (2013). problems in teaching and learning english for students, international journal of engineering research and development, 7, 56-58. marsh, c. (2008). becoming a teacher: knowledge, skills, and issues. australia: pearson. marzano, r. j., marzano, j. s., & pickering, d. j. (2003) classroom management that works: research-based strategies for every teacher. alexandria: association for supervision & curriculum development. richards, j. c. & farrel, t. s. c. (2011). practice teaching: a reflective approach. new york: cambridge univ press. richards, j. c., & renandya, w. a. (2002). methodology in language teaching: an anthology of current practice. cambridge: cambridge university press. the university of houston student handbook. (2017). retrieved from civilityflier.pdf the university of washington. (2017). disruptive behavior in the classroom. retrieved from http://dsl.uw.edu/faculty/disruptive-behavior-in-theclassroom/ tomorrow's teaching and learning. (2017). dealing with disruptive student behavior. retrieved from https://tomprof.stanford.edu/posting/1353 uh hilo student conduct code. (2017). disruptive student behavior in the classroom. retrieved from https://hilo.hawaii.edu/studentaffairs/conduct/disruption.php ur, p. (1996). a course in language teaching. cambridge: cambridge university press. http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/disruption https://tomprof.stanford.edu/posting/1353 englisia november 2013 vol. 1 no.1, 81-99 rahmat yusny state islamic university of ar-raniry banda aceh this paper is aimed to render an analysis on how the impression of linguistic imperialism of english in the era of globalization would affect language teaching of english in indonesian context. english is known to globally spread very rapidly. starting from the two major diasporas in 16th and 18th century, now, english is accepted in even more countries through the initiatives which is claimed as a practice of linguistics imperialism. indonesia, unlike other neighboring countries such as singapore, malaysia, and the phillipines, has a very little exposure on english due to never become regulated under the british colonial. hence, english has never been widely spoken in the indonesian society. but in contrast, english is taught in indonesian schools as a compulsory subject in grade 7 of secondary school to university levels and considered very important compared to other subjects in indonesian education system. this is proven by the fact that english is tested the indonesian national examination (minister of national education, 2007). this paper discusses about both the historic view and present-day view of elt as a form of linguisitics imperialism to be noted and anticipated in the practice of elt in indonesia in order to plan for a more benefitting reason. hopefully, by being aware of these issues and accusations, elt in indonesia will advance better in the future. keywords: elt, linguistic imperialism, post-method pedagogy. background “why indonesia takes teaching of english so seriously; is indonesia also being ‘imbibed’ into the english linguistics empire as a form of neo-imperialism? are local english teachers in indonesia aware of the issue of linguistic imperialism of english in the area of elt?” elt in indonesian context: issues  and challenges  elt in indonesian context: issues and challenges 82 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 everybody should ineveitably agree that, as today, english is the most succesful language on the world (burns, 2004). non-english speaking nations have widely opened their door to allow english to be used in almost every aspect of their life. the number of english user increased very significantly that in 2005 the estimation of the user was between 840 millions to 1.34 billion. the number was the sum of both the number of users who speak english as first language and those who speak english as second language. interestingly, users of english as second language outnumbered the users of english as first language, which english as l1 is 25-40% and english as l2 is 60-75%. the development of english as global language links with the history of how english made across the globe. if we traced back, it was believed that english global spread was through two major ‘diasporas’ (b. kachru & nelson, 2001). the first diaspora was during the large scale migrations to the north america beginning in 16th century. the second diaspora was beginning in the late 18th century by the expansion of british colonial power to africa, india and south pacific (crystal, 1995). hence, both access of the global spread of english in the two diasporas suggested us that english become powerful today—multiplying the number of users because it was supported by globalization which is dominated by the western hegemony through trading and the influence trend and culture. therefore english teaching was later realized as a commodity that supports strengthening this business. pennycook (1995) sees english language teaching industry dominated by major english speaking countries such as britain, the usa, australian and others – is as an essentially political activity which may be likened to a form of ‘linguistic imperialism’ (phillipson, 1992, as cited in burns, 2004). many studies focusing on linguistic imperialism has been conducted to see how english teaching in almost every part of the globe being in tandem with certain hidden agenda of hegemonic politics. phillipson (1992) being the most influential researcher in this matter explores what he called a phenomenon of how english become world language as well as become so dominant. his claim was that rahmat yusny englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 83 profession in language pedagogy indeed has close entailment with linguistic imperialism. on the contrary, following the striking notion of imperialism incorporated in language teaching, many other sociolinguists resist the idea. rajagopalan (1999) argues that such notion will deteriorate the appropriateness of teaching english. rajagopalan voices that there is a considerable effect entailed that teaching english under the belief of linguistic imperialism will make the english pratitioners across the globe to feel guilt (modiano, 2001). standing on the same stance as rajagopalan, canagarajah (1999a) proposed a contrasting notion called linguistic hybridity that he points out “celebrates the fluidity in languages, identities, and cultures, thus pluralizing these constructs” (p. 207). canagarajah opposes that english is determined by certain dominant ideology that imposes upon a less dominant ideology. he claims that the local community is actually negotiating and filtering the dominant discourses in a many ways such as “modifying, mixing, appropriating and even resisting discourses” (1999a, p. 207). although the debates in this issue are still continuing, there are some other studies that tend to see how english being the dominant global language is being appropriated into and for certain contextual practices. pennycook and coutandmarin (2003) pointed out that english has been carried along missionary practices as missionary language. contrasted to that, mahboob’s (2009) study on english used in pakistan appears to reflect islamic values and represent south asian islamic sensitivities. tout ensemble, the studies and theoretical claims that i provided in this paper are allowing future studies to see more clearly how certain english language teaching can be driven into a more benefiting course rather than addressing negative claims that will evolve into skeptical notion of language pedagogy. looking at elt practice in indonesia, i believe one should question how this country take sides upon the two poles of perception of globalized english today in which is still left unanswered. hence, this paper will try to document how english is taught in the indonesian society through its education program and its language elt in indonesian context: issues and challenges 84 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 policy in order to see whether english pedagogy in indonesia falls under the linguistic imperialism or not. in presenting this paper, i elaborated history and the scheme of world englishes of english to date, as well as the ongoing debate over this issue followed by documenting brief history of english in indonesia and how english become the nation’s foreign language of choice. i will also discuss about language planning enacted by the indonesian government and its indication of policy direction. finally, to see how elt in indonesia today—whether it is affected by claim of linguistic neoimperialism or not—i would like to elaborate my observation on how the globalization affect elt; and how unawareness of the phenomena of linguistic imperialism can cause harm to the society. discussion history of the global spread of english today’s expanding use of english in different parts of the world is inevitably vast. to seek into how english managed to travel around the globe meeting with its unprecedented users, perhaps it can be benefiting for elt practitioners to trace english back into its origin. apart from the debate whether english in its original root is romanic or germanic (some claimed west-germanic root) (leith, 1997; crystal, 2003) it can be traced as far as the fifth century once it arrived in england from northern europe (crystal, 2003). soon english is spread across the british isles. crystal mentions that not until 1066 after the norman invasion, many important people of england fled north and eventually settled in scotland. the next important expansion of english language is in 1607 during the first settlement of english expedition in the land across the atlantic sea to north america (crystal, 2003). the earliest english permanent settlement is called jamestown in virginia, and later english settlement spread across the east coast of today’s united states of america. after 1840, continuously many immigrants entered the united states due to famine in most european countries. of those with remarkable numbers rahmat yusny englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 85 were the irish immigrants. the growth of the population in united states entailed the growth of english speakers, in which “within one or two generations of arrival, most of these immigrant families had come to speak english, through a natural process of assimilation” (p. 35). therefore, the massive number of english as mother tongue speakers inevitably follows. as english travels across america, the spread continues north to canada in 1495 (crystal, 2003) and to the south through slaves importation in the caribbean regions in the 16th century. interestingly, the traded people grouped in ships were under the policy of putting men of different language background to avoid rebellious act committed by these traded slaves. hence, due to some of the slaves are speaking english, the slaves develop pidgin forms of communication with the sailors and expanded into language to communicate among themselves and the landowners. in australia and new zealand, english was spread through the british world exploration starting by james cook visited to the land in 1770. later in 1788, convicts from england were transported to australia, growing in numbers until approximately 130.000 prisoners in 50 years. english settlements are sprouting in the new lands followed by more immigrants coming from europe. “the british isles provided the main source of settlers, and thus the main influence on the language” (p. 41). english also travels to different part of the world through colonization of british and america. some countries inherited english as their second language by the british colonial are malaysia, india and singapore; and english inherited by america is the republic of philippines. as of today, english is still spreading to other part of the globe through modernism and globalization. in order to see the distribution of english user, jenkins (2009) mentioned the three distinct groups of user of english: english as native language user (enl), english as second language user (esl), and english as foreign language user (efl). kachru illustrates these groups in three concentric circle model of world english consisted of the inner circle elt in indonesian context: issues and challenges 86 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 (english as first language), outer circle (english as second language), and expanding circle (english as foreign language) (1992, p. 356). english in the south-east asia countries english language later develops greatly in asian countries. as of today, kachru (2008) claims the numbers of english users in asia “exceed the combined population of inner circle of english. the dominated numbers of users came from the expanding circle, while the numbers from the outer circle seconded the expanding circle. the dominant numbers of the expanding circle are from china and india, in which “add up to approximately 533 million” (p. 14). however, in the context of asia, kachru includes australia and new zealand as the inner circle countries, which illustrated in the following figure. three concentric circles of asian englishes (kachru, 2005, p. 14). indonesia is a part of the south-east asia countries. the country participates as a member of a regional organization called the association of south-east asian nations (asean) that established in 1967. besides indonesia, the members of this organization are brunei, cambodia, laos, malaysia, myanmar, the philippines, singapore, thailand, and vietnam. these countries communicate with each other rahmat yusny englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 87 using english, and therefore, as krasnick (1995, as cited by kirkpatrick, 2007) dedescribes english used in this context as de facto lingua franca. the term english as lingua franca has been used as a way of “referring to communication in english between speakers with different first languages” (seidlhofer, 2005, p. 339). the asean country member delegates accepted using english as a medium of communication in acclamation (okudaira, 1999, as cited by kirkpatrick, 2007). however, it is true that this language choice privileges some member countries that use english as their second language; who are the countries that inherited english from formerly being colonies of the british and the american. looking at the context of how english being used in communication of asean countries, it is interesting to look on how that english being an acclaimed choice. however, there were attempts of including additional official language besides english such as first was bahasa indonesia; suggested by indonesia and second was french, suggested by the vietnam (their colonial language) but “neither suggestion was taken up” (kirkpatrick, 2007, p. 155). this can be inferred that other countries that represent the expanding circle have no other choice except accepting english, although giving privileges to the countries of the outer circle. therefore, it can be seen that the ‘no other option’ scene in deciding language among countries of the expanding circle is an illustration of how english can easily dominate other languages. consequently, this will also lead to question to ponder whether the aforementioned scene is an indicator of domination of english or simply a conscious voluntariness to follow the trend of globalization of using english which will be discussed in the following page. linguistic imperialism – foreign policy to maintain the imperial power of the british and the american phillipson (1992) argues that despite any nation, whether voluntarily or not, willing to adopt english, in earlier time, there is a hidden agenda (canagarajah, 1999b) believed to be placed in the initiatives of spreading the language. phillipson elt in indonesian context: issues and challenges 88 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 was very contentious in bringing this notion. for instance, phillipson claimed that british and american promotion of english across the world impose a set of agenda to maintain power and dominance. giving the sense of maintaining and developing economic stability in the third world was claimed to be among the greatest concern to the british empire (drogheda report, 1954, as cited by phillipson, 1992). he argued that “in the very long term we have no doubt that the work of british council, especially in regard to the teaching of english in asia, will be highly beneficial to our overseas trade” (p. 146). in addition, the learning of english was also proposed to promote beyond instrumental needs: “a knowledge of english gives rise in its turn to desire to read books, talk to british people, and learn about british life or some aspect of it” (p. 146). america, independently, according to chomsky (1982), initiates to proclaim strategy for their political stability by aiming to undertake the responsibility of world leadership and building a strategy for world hegemony. cited from the security council report of april 1950, the aim was to “foster a world environment in which the american system can survive and flourish” (p. 22). hence, among the initiatives is language promotion as a part of the american global strategy (phillipson, 1992). this strategy consists of, amongst all, book promotion, and the increasing number of foreign students in the united states. similar strategy was also used during the time of american occupation in the philippines. american introduces english as medium of instruction and american textbooks to enable the people of the philippines to learn a new language as well as a new way of life (phillipson, 1992). consequently, the philippines become dependent on the new language along with “the dominant ideology and political-economic interest of the u.s.” (p.153). to date, according to phillipson (1992), america is still employing the strategy in which many private sponsors conduct the activity to promote understanding the language and culture of the usa, which one of them is the school exchange programs. the british also conduct similar strategy; “to increase the use of english as the main second language in most part of the non-speaking world” (british ministry of education, 1956, as cited by phillipson, 1992, p. 147). another rahmat yusny englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 89 initiative was to give opportunity for more potentially influential teachers overseas to be brought to britain for educational training in addition to expanding the coverage of the bbc english radio program. today’s context of english used in the third world, although with strong evidences brought by the notion of english as part of the imperialism strategy of the dominating superpower, phillipson (2008) later claims english as a neo-imperial language. the needs of english in the periphery countries are ubiquitous. global english as a key dimension of u.s. empire expansion is a fundamental principle of u.s. foreign policy. however, surfacing this issue brings a great impact on elt. rajagopalan (1999) was applauded by those who are concern that this notion can bring insecurity amongst many english practitioners, especially those who are from outer and expanding circle countries. the vague notion on linguistic imperialism can bring burdening guilt among those english teachers. the trend that linguistic imperialism brought was very provocative. rajagopalan viewed the trend marked “by certain misguided spirit of penitential self-flagellation” (p. 201) and therefore needs to be argued. canagarajah (1999a) opposes the notion of linguisitic imperialism due to its being too simple and unilateral. canagarajah pointed out that the periphery users of english are indeed aware of the embedded agenda, and therefore cautiously attempt to filter and modify the dominant discourses, resist on the impositions of english for political and material reasons, and appropriating english to suit with local context (1999b). english in indonesian education (during the dutch colonial and today) english has been taught in indonesia since the era of dutch colonial period. however, the access to education for the locals was very rare. the dutch policy in establishing education in indonesia is exclusively for themselves and some of the important local officials. english was first taught to indonesians in 1914 when junior high schools were established (lauder, 2008, p. 9). elt in indonesian context: issues and challenges 90 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 after gaining independence from the dutch in august 1945, the government of indonesia started to surface their concern regarding language policy. it was clearly, from the initial stages of establishing independent of the country, bahasa indonesia has been chosen as the national language when the youth representation from different region of indonesia committed to the sumpah pemuda (youth pledge) in october 1928. therefore, the indonesian constitution of 1945 verse 36 codified bahasa indonesia as the official language; abandoned the language of the former colonialist, the dutch. there were thoughts to take english as the second language at that time due to comparing with the neighboring countries that inherit english from their colonialist such as malaysia, singapore and the philippines. dardjowidjojo (2003) pointed out that the idea was not feasible because indonesia has not been the colony of either british or america, and thus, indonesia never had any establishment upon using english in official or public settings. therefore, by that time onward, english was recognized as the first foreign language of the country and used as a mean for international communication; to access scientific knowledge and new technologies; as a lexical resources for the development and modernization of indonesian; and as a way to get to know and learn about the native speakers, their language, culture, literature or expanding one’s intellectual horizons (lauder, 2008). english as the first foreign language of indonesia although english was not deliberately introduced to the indonesian society as a second language, most of indonesians today would argue that english is perceived as the most important ‘other’ language. considering that most of indonesian population is muslims, therefore the need of learning arabic is inevitably compulsory due to requirement of the prayer and reciting of the quran and other islamic texts. however, this has been seconded by most of muslims in indonesia, and placed the need to learn english above arabic—maybe other foreign languages as well. nevertheless, the variant of english in indonesia as an efl (english as foreign language) is not endonormative and has no official status, therefore remain rahmat yusny englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 91 dependent on the norm set by enl (english as native language) speakers from the inner circle (jenkins, 2003). bahasa indonesia remains as the function of lingua franca for the diverse regional languages spoken by users across the nation. lauder (2008) stated that the success of bahasa indonesia being a national language developed from modest beginning to be able to meet the communication needs of more modern society achieved by the price of people not having working ability in english. i agree that having bahasa indonesia as lingua franca for the people across indonesia enables them to unite and establish a unified power in order to stand under one nation. there is no need to force english to fit this purpose for this society. however, english remain in the medium of external communication of the people, as aforementioned requirement in the context of communicating with asean neighbors, and other parts of the world. the impact of the globalization toward indonesian foreign language policy in regard of competitions in globalization, indonesia, from my point of view, struggles very hard to participate. here i quote the definition from fox (2001) that global is shifting from local control to become global. fox also mentions that business in this age must be able to compete globally, in which the claimed existence of global market imposes everyone to simply compete with everyone else. fox adds that economic globalization can be seen as the latest version of capitalism. in order to compete with the other nations, english is inevitably a primary tool in the economic war for communication and negotiation. it puts the position of indonesia equal to any other nations as both trader and consumer. however, due to the relentless political issues and unstable economy, perhaps, we should be more concerned that indonesia will be likely left as mere consumers of the ‘global market’. apart of my being skeptical in this issue, i would like to propose an argument from my observation that the indonesian society tends to be inconsistent in terms of appreciating value. indonesia is more of global trend-oriented, and thus possesses a elt in indonesian context: issues and challenges 92 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 relatively high culture of consumerism. therefore, indonesia can be as easy targeted consumers of global products. developed countries, on the contrary, focus on proproduction and trade. therefore, they may have abundant of product in the global market. at the same time, indonesia is struggling very hard to balance the distribution of wealth within its society. the distribution of quality education was also problematic across the nation. both of these two issues will cause mental instability of the society that leads to vulnerability of losing identity. therefore, with this condition, this unstable society can be easily lured to be the consumers. in the bigger competition scheme, indonesia will be dominated by other nations due to economic loss. globalization for indonesia should be more aimed as the mean to expand the influence of its culture, science and technology, identity and ideology, politic as well as economy to the global world, instead of participating merely as the spectator and the consumer of the globalization. the scene of english in indonesia is somewhat tied closely with the paradigm of english as global language rather than as the paradigm of world englishes. pennycook (2007, p. 20) argued that the “world englishes framework has consistently avoided the broader political implications of the global spread of english' and 'places nationalism at its core.” the context of the indonesian language policy in education choosing english as their first foreign language is a clear indicator of the purpose of globalization. komaria (1998) noted that the indonesian government instructed in 1989 law (chapter ix, section 39, verse 3) as first foreign language and thus instructed to be taught starting at the secondary level as a compulsory subject in the basic curriculum, but allows to be taught as the fourth grade of primary level (stated in government regulation, number 28, 1990). the policy that the indonesian government make is in a right direction as english will continue to be used as the language medium of globalization. the survey conducted by the british council can be seen in the following table: rahmat yusny englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 93 1.1 before the middle of the twenty-first century another language will strongly challenge english for its role as the world's main language. 1.4 english will remain the world's language for international communication for the next twentyfive years 1.6 english will retain its role as the dominant language in world media and communications table: status and use of english (bamgbose, 2001, p. 358). conclusion as i have rendered earlier in this paper that indonesian policy on foreign language especially on english language teaching requires special attention. we may surrender to the historic evidence of how hegemonic the intention of the expansion of english at the time was. nevertheless, the global spread of english today is a different scene, which therefore requires a complete different attitude. we need to realize being in the extended circle meaning that we have options whether acknowledging english for our development purposes or for the external purpose. for internal development purposes, indonesia needs to be able to develop english language curriculum that enables the learners to enhance themselves in education and scientific field, global trading, and academic advancement. as for external purpose, i would really advise my students to anticipate understanding english only as an international language or language of global cultures (pop culture). everybody who learns english needs to know that the latter was part of the elt in indonesian context: issues and challenges 94 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 global market politics. those who have very limited awareness on this matter will likely become the agent of the western (inner circle country) global marketing stratestrategy. local english teachers will unconsciously become agent of foreign product marketing. their job will be only circulating around enabling their students to be able to absorb english spoken advertorials and become potential buyer of the products; to understand english spoken movies thus their students will shift identity of becoming a ‘westernized’ indonesian; to enjoy english spoken entertainment that make them accept their local entertainment as conservative and old-fashioned; and to appreciate english written brand of product and thus left local brand with local language on the shelf without comparing their quality; and many other wasted skills. in addition, we should note that the influence of the depiction of inequal power between developed and developing countries will result inferiority toward the people of the developing country of having insecured identity. failure to understand the concept between globalization and elt will lead linguistic imperialism to activate in that matter. on the contrary, having a full awareness of the developmental purpose of learning english will automatically disarm practices of linguistic imperialism. moreover, it is considered naïve to accept that the inner circle countries are not taking any advantage of the current setting of english spread and the importance globally people understood. the inner circle countries are very serious in promoting their english norm; for example promoting british or american english through english language program in the internet and other various media. attempts to take advantage of the stream are absolutely acceptable; afterall, those countries are living with english as their first language—neither second nor foreign. indonesian society can be easily targeted as this nation is in the group of extended circle. english language teaching (elt) can be a vital weapon to make this half-conscious society to provide agency service for the imperial competitors’ economic power benefit. the original identity can be bought by the dominant societies, and fulfill the hidden agenda of the neoliberal empire (pieterse, 2004, as cited in phillipson, 2008) that i have previously discussed. the users of english in indonesia can easily accept the new culture and replace his/her own culture, as well rahmat yusny englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 95 as perception and attitude towards issues brought within the more dominant councountries agenda. therefore, there is an urgent need of educating local practitioners of elt to raise their awareness of any potential hidden agenda encapsulated within the english language pedagogy. in this light, elt can be metaphorically illustrated as a trojan horse. in addition, elt practitioners in indonesia are required to be neutral; not to oppose and feel guilt of the profession. language teachers must be able to filter any contents that might harm the integrity of the identiry. although canagarajah (1999b) pointed out that “people are not always passive or blind to be converted heart and soul to new discourses,” contrarily, foreign language curriculum should be in line with national foreign language policy that fosters indonesian society in resisting the hidden agenda in the dominant discourses. all local elt teachers need to be trained and informed about the challenges of globalization and the the potent of linguistic imperialism, apart from its vagueness. therefore, elt in indonesia will have a commitment to benefit the local society to be able take active part in the continuing globalization positively. language policy needs to be purposely strengthening the purism of the national language and raised better nationalism, not putting “aggressive efforts to implement assimilative language policies and educational curricula” (kachru, 2005, p. 166). even though for the context of indonesia, bahasa indonesia is already hard-framed within the society, which unlikely becomes ‘killed’ (crystal, 2003b) by english. however, from local language point of view, it is true that bahasa indonesia is a threat for other local mother tongues in indonesia. according to unesco survey, out of 738 local languages, there are 15 that are close to extinction due to the use of english or the national language (rudiana, 2010). however, i personally question that english being responsible in this case. for this case, it is inevitably caused by unawareness of language transfer between generations; the plausible cause could be the ‘teacher’ who teaches bahasa indonesia is not aware of the power of the dominating language. the debate of elt in indonesian context: issues and challenges 96 | englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 english has the potential of being a predator language is noted by fennell (2001, as cited in kachru, 2005. p. 165) who believes that ‘english is not a “killer” language in most instances, but it could definitely be called as an “accessory to murder”. rahmat yusny englisia vol. i no. 1 nov 2013 | 97 references aziz, e. a. 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(2003). teaching english as a missionary language. discourse: studies in the cultural politics of education, vol. 24(3), 337353. phillipson, r. (1992). linguistic imperialism. oxford: oxford university press. phillipson, r. (2008). the linguistic imperialism of neoliberal empire. critical inquiry in language studies, vol. 5(1), 1-43. rajagopalan, k. (1999). of efl teachers, conscience, and cowardice. elt journal, vol 53(3), 200-206. rudiana, p. a. (11 january 2010). local languages may become extinct. tempointeractive.com retrieved 12 may, 2011, from http://www.tempo.co.id/hg/nasional/2010/01/11/brk,20100111-218442,uk.html seidlhofer, b. (2005). english as a lingua franca. elt journal, vol. 59(4), 339-341 englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2022. vol. 9, no. 2, 74-90 investigating translation strategies in indonesian best seller novel ika apriani fata* english education department, universitas syiah kuala, banda aceh, indonesia ika.apriani@unsyiah.ac.id miftahul jannah english education department, universitas syiah kuala, banda aceh, indonesia yusufmifta@gmail.com bukhari daud english education department, universitas syiah kuala, banda aceh, indonesia bukharidaud@unsyiah.ac.id fadhilah muktabar public health department, universitas muhammadiyah aceh, banda aceh, indonesia fadhilah_60@yahoo.co.id sri wahyuni english education department, universitas bina bangsa getsempena, banda aceh, indonesia sri@bbg.ac.id manuscript received december 2 4 , 2021, revised march 7, 2022, first published may 1, 2022, and available online may 7, 2022. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i2.11804 recommended apa citation fata, i. a., jannah, m., daud, b., muktabar, f., & wahyuni, s. (2022). investigating translation strategies in indonesian best seller novel. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(2), 74-90. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.11804 abstract translation strategies have been the subject of extensive investigation. most people believe that translators use specific strategies and that basic translation strategies are sometimes insufficient. as a result, numerous scholars have investigated and analyzed various translation techniques from various perspectives. this study determined the translation strategies in the novel of negeri 5 menara and its english version, the land of five towers using baker's (2011) framework. this study was conducted using a descriptive qualitative technique to determine the translation strategies in negeri 5 menara and its english version, the land of five towers. there were 130 data points in * corresponding author https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6622 https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.11804 ika apriani fata, miftahul jannah, bukhari daud, fadhilah muktabar, & sri wahyuni englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 75 all. according to the findings, 11% about the use of the more general word, 14 % in the use of the more neutral or expensive word, 8% of cultural substitution, 5% of loan words, 4% of omission, paraphrase with related terms accounted for 57% of all translation tactics, while paraphrasing with unrelated words accounted for 2%, and there was no data on illustration. there were 21 uncategorized data points for every given strategy. it was predicted that in the future, a translator, who is also a pre-service teacher, should widen his or her translation methodologies in order to combat nonequivalence translation. keywords: translation; translation strategies; novel; indonesia 1. introduction when the subject of the translation is a work of art, such as a novel, translation has already become complex. because translation is a process of transforming the source language into a target language by modifying the words depending on the context or the target language in adapting the content, it is difficult for the translator to demonstrate the notion of the source language. as a result, the translator must be able to convert the concept of the original work from the source language into a translation output that has the same concept in the target language. translators must have a complete understanding and knowledge of the original work's concept, which includes the source language, culture, and the novel's author. furthermore, the translator must be familiar with the target language's culture (akrom, 2013; dragsted & carl, 2017; ramsden, 2021; trisnawati, 2014). the process of translating the meaning of the source language into the receptor language is defined by dungcik and bety (2014). this is performed by transiting from the first language's form to the second language's form utilizing semantic structure. it is meaning that is transferred and must be maintained. acioly-régnier, koroleva, mikhaleva, and régnier (2015) investigated how iranian university students use translation as a writing strategy. to achieve this goal, 40 students studying english as a foreign language at shiraz azad university were chosen at random to participate in the study, which employed two questionnaires and one interview guide devised by ramsden (2021) and modified to the iranian context. according to the findings, university students in iran indicated that translation from farsi considerably helped to the development of their writing ability, and they utilized translation as a learning strategy to acquire writing in english on a medium to a high level. dragsted and carl (2017), on the other hand, used a developed survey to investigate 351 taiwanese junior college students' beliefs about the role of translation in english learning, classify the translation strategies that students used to learn english, investigate the relationships between students' beliefs and translation use, and evaluate the extent to which learners' background variables related to their beliefs about translation and its strategic use. surveys and qualitative interviews were used to attain investigating translation strategies in indonesian best seller novel 76 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 these goals while analyzing this research. students utilized translation the most to learn english vocabulary words, idioms, phrases, and grammar, to read, write, and speak english, and to evaluate their reading and listening comprehension. learners used a range of tactics including translation, cognitive, memory, and compensatory, social, and affective strategies, according to the study. in this study, dragsted and carl classified the technique of translation used by the translator into 11 out of 18 techniques as suggested by fois (2020) namely adaptation, amplification, borrowing, compensation, description, generalization, literal translation, modulation, particularization, reduction, and transposition, then she also added there was the other technique used i.e. omission proposed by dinckan (2010). based on this research, they revealed that the quality of meaning equivalence was fully equivalent. aside from translation studies, other research related to negeri 5 menara also has been done, one of which was the study of code-switching and code-mixing. rohmani (2013) qualitatively observed three aspects of code-switching and code-mixing in the conversation performed by characters of negeri 5 menara i.e. 1) the forms, 2) the factors causing it, and 3) the functions of its use. the result of the study revealed four types of code-switching and seven types of code-mixing. she later explained that the speaker‟s personality, the partner of speech, the functions and the objectives of the speech, and the situation in which the speech takes place were contributed to causing code-switching. meanwhile, code-mixing was caused by the speaker‟s social and educational background and the nuance of religious and local references in the conversation. lastly, she explained that code-switching and code-mixing in the novel function as a technique by which the speaker used to deliver a certain message in the conversation as in explaining a particular thing, making a command, performing praying, asking a question, and confirming one‟s intention. because translation studies are based on the concept of meaning, different approaches in these studies refer to different types of meaning: for example, some scholars focus on lexical patterns in source texts and translations fois (2020), while others focus on how text utterances function within their immediate contexts (hvelplund, 2017). some studies, on the other hand, focus on the overall impact of the work on its audience or society (ivanova, 2016), while others use the philosophy of language to look at meaning in translation (cotos, 2014). several studies focused on the work of translation in which negeri 5 menara serves as the research data of this study. therefore, translation is quite difficult task to be translated as the original language content, because it is affected by the culture, religion value, symbol, etc of the authors‟ background in composing negeri 5 menara. in literary work, translation is not going to change the source language into the target language as stated by newmark (1998). then added by halliday (2014) that the written language has its own meaning and wording. thus, translating the literary work such as novel is used to deal with the specific language background or culture of the author which makes the readers comprehended or accepted the content and the value of the translation properly. the ika apriani fata, miftahul jannah, bukhari daud, fadhilah muktabar, & sri wahyuni englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 77 researchers took the novel of negeri 5 menara to conduct the research about the translation methods used in this novel based on baker‟s theory. after assessing many previous studies, the state of art of research on translation problems in novel, there are only a few employed the framework of (baker, 2011), thus this study will fill in void. the research question addressed was: what translation strategies are employed in the novel of negeri 5 menara and its english version the land of five towers? 2. literature review 2.1. translation strategies translation strategy, according to krings (1996, p. 18) is a “potentially conscious translator's plan to solve a concrete translation problem within the framework of a concrete translation task”, and seguinot (1999) believes that translators use at least three global strategies: (i) translate without interruption for as long as possible; (ii) correct surface faults promptly; and (iii) leave monitoring for qualitative or stylistic errors in the text to the revision stage. furthermore, loescher (2001) defines translation strategy as a potentially conscious procedure for solving problems encountered in translating a text, or any segment thereof. as stated in this definition, the concept of awareness is critical in distinguishing the learner's or translator's strategies. according to cohen (1998), it is this element of awareness that distinguishes strategy from non-strategic processes. additionally, bell (1998) distinguishes between global (related to the entire text) and local (related to text segments) strategies, claiming that these distinctions are the result of different types of translation problems. baker (2011) presents eight translation strategies to handle the common problems of non-equivalence mentioned previously. 2.1.1. the use of more general word baker (2011) proposes that when the target language text lacks particular terminology (hyponym) from the source language (sl, hence after) text, the translator use a more generic word (superordinate) to solve the difficulty. in fact, as baker points out, this is the most typical technique for dealing with various types of equivalence. for instance, the english shampoo—a verb, is translated into lavar in spanish which is back-translated into to wash. shampooing is related to washing although it is more restricted in use; wash can relate to the process of cleaning lots of things, but shampoo is limited to only imply hair washing. 2.1.2. the use of more neutral or expressive word the word mumble in english and its nearest italian equivalence, mugugnare convey different expressive meanings. the english verb mumble indicates confusion, disorientation, or embarrassment. the italian equivalence mugugnare tends to suggest investigating translation strategies in indonesian best seller novel 78 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 dissatisfaction rather than embarrassment or confusion. hence, it is best to translate mumble into suggerisce which means suggest in italian. 2.1.3. cultural substitution a translator can substitute a culturally distinctive item or expression with a target language item that has a different propositional meaning but has the same effect on the target reader. this method introduces the reader to a notion that he or she is familiar with. 2.1.4. loan word or loan word plus explanation according to halliday (2007), this strategy is used particularly to deal with culture-specific items, modern concepts, and buzz words—fashionable words or phrases at a particular time or in a particular context. baker (2011) gives an example of arabic target text that borrows an english word cap by adding a further explanation to it; cap, a hat that covers the hair. it is useful to add an explanation to the loan word when the word is repeated several times in the text. once the word has been defined, there is no need to provide another explanation when it appears for the second or third time in the text; the reader can grasp it without being distracted by further long explanations. 2.1.5. paraphrasing using related words this strategy tends to be used when the concept expressed by the source item is lexicalized in the target language but a different form (baker, 2011). for example, the word related can be paraphrased into having a kinship relation in chinese as in the sentence giant pandas are related to the bears: giant pandas have a kinship relationship with the bears. 2.1.6. paraphrasing using unrelated words in some contexts, the paraphrase strategy still can be used even if the source language concept is completely not lexicalized in the target language (tl, henceforth), as suggested by baker (p. 38). she further explains that the paraphrase may be made by modifying a superordinate. in chinese, accessible can be paraphrased into where human beings enter most easily. 2.1.7. omission a translator can choose to omit to translate a particular word with no equivalence in the tl text as mentioned by baker (2011). however, a translation fails to deliver the whole meaning of a text when certain words are discarded. therefore, it should be noted that the omission of the word does not affect the major plot of the text. baker advises only using this strategy as the last option. ika apriani fata, miftahul jannah, bukhari daud, fadhilah muktabar, & sri wahyuni englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 79 2.1.8. illustration the last strategy offered by baker (p. 43) suggests the translator provide an illustration when translating specific term or expression in source language text which has no equivalence in the tl text, particularly if the term in question can be explained by a picture or an illustration. additionally, lefevere (1992) in anwar (2020) mentions that there are seven translation strategies employed to translate poetries, which are (1) phonemic translation: the output of this strategy highlights the sound in the target language by picking an appropriate translation of the meaning; (2) literal translation: a translation strategy that emphasizes translating words by word; (3) metrical translation: in this strategy, the syllables of the source text are preserved in the target language; (4) verse into prose translation: a translation approach that converts the original text's lyrics into prose in the target language; (5) rhymed translation: translators aim to provide a translation that is congruent with the meter, rhyme, and syllables of the source language; (6) blank verse translation: in this method, the translators retain the structure of the original language while excluding the source lyric; and (7) interpretation: a translation approach that generates a new version based on the interpretation of the translators. 2.2. novel a novel is a prose fiction narrative work that tells the story of certain human experiences over a long period of time (watt, 2001). the most obvious characteristics of the novel are the style and length of the prose, as well as the subject matter of fiction or semi-fiction. in contrast to epic poetry, this poem tells the story in prose rather than verse; in contrast to short stories, these tell a long narrative rather than a short selection. however, there are other distinguishing features that set the novel apart as a literary work. novels, by the most part, are dedicated to telling the individual experiences of characters, resulting in a more intimate and complex portrait of these characters and the world in which they live (yusuf, fata, & chyntia, 2018). inner feelings and thoughts, as well as complex and even contradictory ideas or values, are frequently investigated. the novel, more than any other literary form, exemplifies this. not only is the story itself more personal, but so is the experience of reading it. whereas epic poetry and other forms of storytelling are intended for public consumption or reading, novels are intended for individual readers. 3. method this study used a descriptive statistics of qualitative method to examine translation strategies in novels at the level of words, clauses, and sentences. in qualitative research, descriptive statistics allow researchers to provide another context, a richer picture or enhanced representation, in which to examine the phenomenon of investigating translation strategies in indonesian best seller novel 80 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 interest (nassaji, 2015). data was collected, arranged, and analyzed as part of the procedure (bowen, 2010). the researchers observed the language used in conveying the messages from indonesian to english and recognizing the use of translation strategies in the novel. the data was picked from ahmad fuadi's negeri 5 menara and its english translation, the land of five towers. the novel negeri 5 menara was released by gramedia in 2009 (fuadi, 2009), became a best-seller in 2010, and was translated into english by angie kilbane in late 2011. it depicts alif's (the protagonist) life in pesantren madani, an islamic boarding school in east java. several steps are used by the researchers in collecting the data: 1) the researchers read the original indonesian version of negeri 5 menara, then reading the novel which has been translated into english language; 2) the researchers marked the specific language and comparing it based on the source language and targeted language; 3) the researchers classified the language used into bakers‟ translation strategies. the data for this study came in the form of words, phrases, clauses, or sentences from the novel that contained idiomatic terms. these statistics were compared, with english and indonesian being the two languages used. in qualitative research, descriptive statistics allow researchers to provide another context, a richer picture or enhanced representation, in which to examine the phenomenon of interest (nassaji, 2015). furthermore, baker (2011) highlighted eight sorts of translation techniques. after identifying all of the data according to baker‟s translation strategies, then the data were cultivated to calculate the frequency and percentage of each strategy. 4. findings the results showed that by observing and comparing both the indonesian version of negeri 5 menara and its english translation. the strategies used to translate the nonequivalence at word level of negeri 5 menara were classified into seven out of eight types of strategies proposed by baker (2011) namely the use of the more general word, the use of the more neutral or expressive word, the use of cultural substitution, the use of loan word or loan word plus explanation, paraphrasing using related words, paraphrasing using unrelated words, and omission, while zero data on illustration. table. 1 result of translation strategies. no translation strategies frequency percentage (%) 1 the use of more general word 14 11 2 the use of more neutral or expressive word 18 14 3 cultural substitution 11 8 4 loan word or loan word plus explanation 7 5 ika apriani fata, miftahul jannah, bukhari daud, fadhilah muktabar, & sri wahyuni englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 81 5 paraphrasing using related word 72 56 6 paraphrasing using unrelated words 3 2 7 omission 5 4 8 illustration 0 0 total n=130 =100% 4.1. the use of more general word the translator primarily employed this method to translate words from the source language that have no equivalent in the target language. e1 ind aku akan traktir kalian semua di warung sate paling enak di sana,” eng i will treat you all to the most delicious satay restaurant there,” e2 ind “kita seperti sedang belajar silat… eng “it’s like we’re studying martial arts… when the target language does not have equivalence for a specific source language word, it is best to use more general word in the translation (baker, 2011). in the above case, a specific indonesian martial art silat can be translated to just martial art and a type of food place warung can be translated into restaurant. 4.2. the use of more neutral or expressive word e3 ind kamp konsentrasi eng refugee camp the above finding was from the title of chapter 44 of negeri 5 menara. this chapter mainly told about preparations before the school final examination. in the story, all senior graders were assigned to the school main hall for a month in order to prepare for the notoriously tough final exam. they were insisted to do all kinds of activities within the hall area from studying, having a group discussion, to performing communal praying, having daily meals, and even sleeping. later, the hall was dubbed as kamp konsentrasi which means concentration camp in english. the term implied the hall was a place where final graders focused and concentrated their whole attention on one thing: exam preparation. however, the translator translated the said term by using more neutral word i.e. refugee camp. refugee means „a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster‟ (hornby, 2000). the example is rohingya refugees. much of the time, chaotic situation ensues in a place like refugee camp where massive number of people gathers at one cramp space. the story indeed investigating translation strategies in indonesian best seller novel 82 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 depicted that the scene occurred in the main hall similar to that of a situation in a refugee camp. 4.3. cultural substitution a word or term of the source text which has no equivalence in the target language can be substituted with a culture specific item which conveys different meaning but has similar impact to the target reader (baker, 2011). e4 ind inilah malam syukuran ujian akhir. eng this is the final examination thanksgiving night. e5 ind sehabis isya, murid-murid berbondong-bondong memenuhi aula. eng after dinner, students filled the hall in droves. the concept syukuran is not directly equal to thanksgiving. however, they both share common idea of an expression of gratefulness hence the translator opts to use thanksgiving as the equivalence of the original text. in the second case, the translator might consider isya is performed close to the dinner time. she chose to transfer the original language term by using word that might be more familiar to the target reader. nevertheless, the source and target language text are not equivalent. 4.4. loan word or loan word plus explanation e6 ind … seperti habis menenggak stmj. eng …like after a drink of jamu tonic. the abbreviation stmj stands for susu (milk), telur (egg), madu (honey), and jahe (ginger)—a type of indonesian traditional medicine. the translator chose to translate the source text by using a loan word jamu which also defines as indonesian traditional or herbal medicine and added tonic to it in order to help the readers to understand the meaning of the source language text. 4.5. paraphrasing using related word baker (2011) mentions this strategy tends to be utilized to express the source language concept which is lexicalized differently in the target language. e7 ind …lebih dingin dari secawan es tebak di pasar ateh, bukit tinggi. eng …colder than a glass of shaved ice made by a spinning machine in my village in west sumatra. ika apriani fata, miftahul jannah, bukhari daud, fadhilah muktabar, & sri wahyuni englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 83 the english language has no direct equivalence for this type of local food. hence the translator translated es tebak by paraphrasing it using related word. e8 ind bisa bicara ngalor-ngidul, semalam suntuk, tidak ada jadwal lonceng yang mengganggu,… eng we could talk about anything, all night long, with no bell schedule interrupt,… ngalor ngidul is derived from javanese word which implies the act of talking aimlessly or without specific point. the paraphrase talk about anything can be used to translate this specific term. 4.6. paraphrasing using unrelated words paraphrasing can still be used in translating non-equivalent word as suggested by baker (2011). the following example shows that the source language texts were translated by using unrelated words. e9 ind aku duduk bersama tujuh orang pembicara di depan masa yang heboh bertepuk tangan dan berdiri bagai menyambut kedatangan dai kondang. eng i sat with seven other speakers in front of the excited masses clapping their hands and standing as if greeting the prime minister. dai and prime minister totally hold different meaning. dai defines as someone who introduces islam and invites people to have faith in it. meanwhile, prime minister is the head of an executive body of a governmental system. e10 ind tim guru juga diperkuat oleh pemain bertahan ustad abu razi, dedengkot mabikori, badan tertinggi pramuka di pm. eng the teacher’s team was also strengthened by a defensive player, ustad abu razi, a former member of mabikori—the highest board of scouts at mp. the term dedengkot refers to a leader or a chief of a community whether in good or bad term. it does not bear any correlation to former member. 4.7. omission baker (2011) mentions that the omission only a good choice for translator when by doing so the result of the translation does not discard the main message of the original text. e11 ind kami membahas pelajaran bersama, saling berdiskusi dan kalau bosan, kami berbagi cerita ngalor ngidul. investigating translation strategies in indonesian best seller novel 84 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 eng we studied the lesson together, discussing, and if we were bored, we shared stories. the term ngalor ngidul were mentioned four times in negeri 5 menara. the translator translated the term differently three times and left it omitted in the last times as displayed in the above case. 4.8. uncategorized cases of translation in addition to the cases described earlier, 21 cases were discovered that did not fall into any of baker (2011)'s eleven categories. the majority of the data in this scenario comprised of inaccurate translations of source language words that had direct equivalences in the target language. places and proper names were also substituted with unsuitable equivalences in the data. e12 ind …mulai dari toko sampai perusahaan konveksi dan bordir yang produksinya sampai ke tanah abang. eng …a shop and a convection and embroidery business whose products went as far as malaysia. tanah abang is a district of central jakarta, capital of indonesia. it hosts the biggest textile market in southeast asia. meanwhile, malaysia is one of southeast asian countries, a neighboring country to indonesia. e13 ind para ahli motivasi ini punya “jam praktek,” biasanya sebelum makan malam atau setelah subuh. eng these motivational experts had “office hours,” usually before lunch or after dawn. english translation for makan malam is dinner, while lunch means makan siang in indonesian. thus the above translation was non-equivalent. e14 ind …rumah bertembok putih berkusen hijau terang. eng …white-walled house with a bright green roof. e15 ind …kami bagai tersengat ribuan tawon. eng it was as we’d been stung by thoushand of bees. e16 ind kami sama-sama menengadah. “benua amerika,” kataku. eng we both looked up. “north america,” i said. ika apriani fata, miftahul jannah, bukhari daud, fadhilah muktabar, & sri wahyuni englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 85 the above examples; kusen, tawon, and benua, are respectively not equal to roof¸ bees, and north. all of the three words of the original text have their direct equivalences in english which are (door or window) sill, wasps, and continent. however, the translator opted to use the inappropriate translation of the source language word. 5. discussion regarding to the finding above, the researchers related the theory of bakers‟ strategies in translating the novel of negeri 5 menara that consisted of eight types. there were: 1) the use of more general word which is 11% applied; 2) the use of more general word is 14%; 3) cultural substitution is about 8%; 4) loan word or loan word plus explanation is 5%; 5) paraphrasing using related word which is 56%: as the highest strategy used by the translator; 6) paraphrasing using unrelated words is only 2%; 7) omission is 4%; and 8) illustration is the only strategy that was not applied in translating negeri 5 menara. moreover, the researchers described and explained the findings by linking them with the theory or previous studies that have been conducted by previous researchers. the primary goal of translation is to accurately convey the meaning provided by the source text to the target text, such that target readers have the same reading experience and understanding as original text readers (daems, carl, vandepitte, hartsuiker, & macken, 2015; dragsted & carl, 2017). as a result, according to alves and campos (2009), translators are expected to provide the most equal target text meaning. according to the facts described above, it is true that unequal representation of the original text message is inescapable throughout the translation process (angelone & shreve, 2011). in addition, they added that there is no completely identical meaning of two words in any two languages since languages possess their own characteristics in vocabulary, grammar, phonology, and cultural differences. translation strategies are vitally necessary and crucial in translation. finding the equivalent of some terms, particularly those related to culture and academic writing, is challenging (tursina, susanty, & efendi, 2021). many translation professionals have provided solid theories, models, and solutions for overcoming equivalence concerns (board, 2017; bundgaard & christensen, 2019; carrasco flores, 2021; chesterman, 2013; cotos, 2014). baker (2011) is a well-known thinker on the issue. she categorizes translation techniques into eight categories. she clearly analyzes the most common challenges that happen at this level and provides a solution that is quite helpful to translators. the most difficult aspect of translation work is determining target language equivalences (ehrensberger-dow & massey, 2017; fernández-guerra, 2014; fois, 2020; ghazanfari, 2015). gonzález-davies and enrquez-rado (2016) define equivalency as being equivalent in value, quantity, and meaning. in other words, investigating translation strategies in indonesian best seller novel 86 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 translation equivalence indicates that both the source and target language texts have the same meaning, value, and style. therefore, gough and perdikaki (2018) express that no two things are completely similar to each other. regarding language, there is no completely identical meaning of two words in any two languages since languages possess their own characteristics in vocabulary, grammar, phonology, and cultural differences (herrero, 20 horcasrufi n elly, 2020). thus, it is inevitable that a certain amount of meaning is lost in the process of translation. however, the primary goal of translation is to correctly translate the message communicated by the source language to the target text. it is critical that translation has the same impact on target readers as the source work has on its original audience (fata & aprilya, 2021; hvelplund, 2017; ivanova, 2016). as a result, as luong (2016) points out, translators must provide the most comparable target message so that readers may completely comprehend the meaning expressed in the target language. liang (2020) suggested that the effort of seeking equivalence in translation should not be considered as searching for similarity since source language (sl) and target language (tl) are whole different languages and cultures (ismail & fata, 2021). translation deals with more than the replacement of lexical and grammatical items between languages, as in the translation of idiom (latief, 2020; mutta, pelttari, salmi, chevalier, & johannson, 2014; yusuf et al., 2018). the process involves discarding the basic linguistic elements of the sl text. to solve the problem of translation strategies, risku and windhager (2013) suggested that the semiotic category which contains syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic elements should be taken into consideration. these components should be ordered hierarchically, where semantic equivalence takes the first place, followed by syntactic equivalence, and pragmatic equivalence at the last order (shih, 2017). baker (2011), in a similar vein, divides equivalent into five levels: equivalence at the word level, equivalence above the word level, textual equivalence, grammatical equivalence, and pragmatic equivalence. she described the challenges of nonequivalence experienced by the translator at each level, as well as the solutions that may be utilized to cope with the problems. furthermore, other types of translation strategies have also been presented by other theorists. fitriani (2015) has examined how indonesian address terms in negeri 5 menara were translated. she applied the framework submitted by liang (2020) in analyzing the research data. in addition, she also used the theory by zapata (2016). the result showed that the techniques of translation used were classified into 11 out of 18 techniques namely adaptation, amplification, borrowing, compensation, description, generalization, literal translation, modulation, particularization, reduction, and transposition. the omission technique proposed by risku (2014) was also used. the translation is utilized for more than simply content analysis; it is also employed in language teaching. according to saputra (2020), english instructors should ika apriani fata, miftahul jannah, bukhari daud, fadhilah muktabar, & sri wahyuni englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 87 be prepared with translation abilities when teaching and studying english. many language learners and teachers, particularly in indonesia, use translation in language instruction. according to yusuf et al. (2018), many language learners utilize translation to enhance their foreign language learning, such as reading a bilingual dictionary and using a code switch when interacting with classmates or instructors in the classroom. as a result, translation is primarily used as a teaching technique in the study of english as a foreign language. 6. conclusion the study found that in the novel negeri 5 menara and its english translation, the land of five towers, there were seven out of eight translation techniques that were employed in, with no consideration for illustration at any point. paraphrasing with related phrases appeared to be the most common, whereas paraphrasing with unrelated terms was the least common. to relate this to language teaching practices, particularly in the english language, a teacher candidate should be familiar with a variety of methods and techniques to deal with language barriers between the source and target languages. the majority of english teachers agreed that utilizing translation selectively may help students acquire a foreign language, improve metalinguistic awareness, serve as a thinking tool, moderate social interaction, and serve as social mediation. furthermore, the teachers in this study employed tilt (translation in language teaching) tactics to clarify complicated concepts and grammar, reduce chunks of word translation, and encourage students' critical thinking and problem-solving skills. if translation is used in language education, it is suggested that it be used carefully as a pedagogical tool to aid students' learning. even though the translation has played a variety of roles in various methods of language teaching from various social backgrounds, most of them agree that translation is a powerful tool to understand foreign words and expressions and express themselves in the target language with greater confidence. acknowledgment the authors expressed sincere gratitude as preliminary data contributors to lathifah m. nur and andira riski alya. references acioly-régnier, n. m., koroleva, d. b., mikhaleva, l. v., & régnier, j. c. 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(2016). investigating translator-information interaction: a case study on the use of the prototype biconcordancer tool integrated in casmacat. new directions in empirical translation process research: exploring the critt tpr-db, 139-152. http://dx.doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2021.18.3.5.816 https://doi.org/10.29103/ijevs.v2i3.2210 englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2022. vol. 10, no.1, 16-39 the inaugural speech of the indonesian presidents: analysing speech acts of jokowi and sby inaugural speech didin nuruddin hidayat *1 , yudi septiawan 2 , ismalianing eviyuliwati 1 , teuku zulfikar 3 , sudarya permana 4 1 department of english education universitas islam negeri syarif hidayatullah jakarta, indonesia 2 department of information system, institut sains dan bisnis atma luhur, pangkalpinang, indonesia 3 department of english education, universitas islam negeri ar-raniry, banda aceh, indonesia 4 department of english education, universitas negeri jakarta, jakarta, indonesia manuscript received february 26, 2022, revised april 3, 2022, accepted april 8, 2022, and published online november 7, 2022. recommended apa citation hidayat, d. n., septiawan, y., eviyuliwati, i., zulfikar, t., & permana, s. (2022). the inaugural speech of the indonesian presidents: analysing speech acts of jokowi and sby inaugural speech. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(1), 16-39. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.12760 abstract language plays a significant part in shaping and influencing people‟s perspectives on societies and political sectors, especially in an inaugural speech. hence, the researchers aimed to analyze the inaugural speeches‟ rhetoric and schematic words of susilo bambang yudhoyono (sby) in 2004 and joko widodo (jokowi) in 2019 during their tenure as the indonesian president. to uncover their inaugural speeches, the researchers used the macroand micro-linguistics theoretical frameworks proposed by hymes (1974) concerning the equality between linguistic and social perspectives. the study revealed that sby and jokowi mostly used polite words, a low, moderate voice, and tended to appreciate their rivals in their inaugural speeches. the differences in macro and micro-linguistics features assert that these two national figures have different traits even though they come from the same ethnic group, the javanese. further, this study suggested some pedagogical implications for english teachers to give students an idea * corresponding author: didin nuruddin hidayat universitas islam negeri syarif hidayatullah jakarta jl. ir h. juanda no.95, cempaka putih, kota tangerang selatan, banten 15412, indonesia email: didin.nuruddin@uinjkt.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.12760 didin nuruddin hidayat, yudi septiawan, ismalianing eviyuliwati, teuku zulfikar, & sudarya permana englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 17 of the importance of formal (and informal spoken english), bridging a gap between academic english and practical daily english in society. keywords: inaugural speech; sby; jokowi; sociolinguistics 1. introduction language is a powerful way to express opinions and beliefs and can also be applied to manipulate thoughts and influence other people (orwell, 1969, cited in wilson, 2003; david, 2017). further, it integrates linguistic features and cognitive processes that form a complex dynamic cognitive system (kintsch & van dijk, 1978; caplan, 1992; marini, 2001). taiwo (2009) observes that language is a powerful weapon because it can generate people to vote, debate, and even rebel. it is closely related to the use of language in the political sphere. language can be associated with various fields such as social, cultural, education, and politics (purnomo, 2017). nowadays, language is essential to politicians, and it colors most politicians' activities such as campaigns, rallies, elections, inaugurations, and many others. a large number of linguistic studies (arnold, 1993; david, 2014; fairclough, 1989; lenard et al., 2017; ratnasari et al., 2019; stojan & mijić, 2019) have concerned with the analysis of the techniques and kinds of language used by politicians to strengthen the ideologies of supporters and to obtain peculiar purposes. this is then associated with the speech theory delivered by hymes (1974). according to hymes (1974), a different group of people applies speech differently, and each group has its privileged behavior in linguistics. to scrutinize the language of specific groups, it needs to provide a clear framework to elaborate on the definition of language in the context of ethnographic study. hymes (1974) suggested three levels of analysis: speech situation, speech event, and speech acts. the three speech levels have different contexts. speech situation occupies the highest place of the three because it describes the social conditions in which speaking occurs. the next level of analysis is the speech event. the use of language underlies this analysis and social interactions that occur in speech situations ( fitch & sanders, 2004). speech acts are the lowest level of analysis of the three levels proposed by hymes. unlike speech situations and speech events, speech acts look at this analysis from fundamental things. in a broader sense, speech acts are all speech and actions we express through speech (schmidt & richards, 1980). political rhetoric, language style, pragmatics, discourse analysis, and critical discourse analysis are some aspects of studying political language (parkin, 1984). the language features meet with political communication features, including direct statements, political writings and speeches, campaigns, open debates, and political interviews (beard, 2000). some speech features potentially affect the audiences' social condition (charteris-black, 2005). repeating certain words and phrases indicates that society accepts the ideas and concepts offered by politicians (david, 2014). the inaugural speech of the indonesian presidents:….. 18 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 moreover, the main aims of political addresses are to impact, instruct, convince, or engage the majority. the language of politics is not a neutral medium that conveys ideas independently formed (ostwald et al., 2019). an institutionalized structure of meanings channels political thought and action in specific directions (gautam, 2022). some political speeches were addressed to the individuals before the election, and these speeches are better known as a pre-election campaign, particularly at rallies and elections. further, the situation frequently dictates the speeches after the election is completed. in this case, an elected candidate should thank the individuals for voting for him through a victory speech (afzal & hassan, 2021). the victory speech is a space to introduce the elected candidate (darong, 2021). it is also an important opportunity for the elected legislators, for example, to reaffirm their duty to serve by repeating the projects and promises of their party during the campaigns (mio, 2017). the inaugural speech is the first speech an elected candidate delivers when beginning a new prestigious position. inaugural speech is given by political leaders to inform the people of their vision and missions as leaders. an inaugural speech is one of the main objects of linguistic research. some outstanding works have been conducted in this of interest. a study conducted by ayeomoni and akinkuolere (2012), for example, found that the identification of speech acts types in an inaugural speech of president umaru yar'adua (2007) was very helpful in defining the speech‟s meanings. speech acts dominate a speech, and it describes a person's personality. hence, every sentence must always contain speech acts. president umaru yar'adua was a senior and respected political leader of nigeria. with his colorful experience, umaru delivered his speeches to the audience clearly, and with understandable speech acts (ayeomoni & akinkuolere, 2012). another study was conducted by rohmawati (2016) regarding barack obama‟s inaugural speech. she explained that obama applied three kinds of attitudes: affection, judgement, and appreciation (martin & rose, 2003). the speech delivered by obama addressed several key issues, including the damage caused by global warming. another topic that obama also mentioned was terrorists. finally, obama invited all world leaders to be more responsible for their people, and these statements led obama to use more judgment features in his speech. researchers observed that studies on sby‟s and jokowi‟s inaugural speech differed from those and rohmawati (2016). the study of sby‟s and jokowi‟s inaugural speech was more critical of the sociolinguistics than those two, including macroand micro linguistics features. ayeomoni and akinkuolere (2012) applied the speech acts theory to identify the speech acts of president umaru, while rohmawati (2016) focused on obama‟s attitude toward his speech. what distinguish this study from others is its cultural background factors. culture, in this case, certainly affects the political speeches delivered by the presidents. african and american cultures, for example, are different from asian cultures. indonesia, one of didin nuruddin hidayat, yudi septiawan, ismalianing eviyuliwati, teuku zulfikar, & sudarya permana englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 19 the asia countries, is renowned for having a variety of cultures, such as minang, malay, batak, betawi, dayak, and java. sby and jokowi, who are javanese, always apply the concept of politeness in delivering their state speeches (sumekto et al., 2022), including when addressing their inaugural speeches as president (laksana, 2021). although sby and jokowi are both javanese, some fundamental differences are observed in macro and micro-linguistics. sby is the sixth president who successfully served two terms (2004-2014). during his tenure, sby has delivered dozens or even hundreds of speeches on various formal and informal occasions. sby has a strong, disciplined, and courageous personality with his military background. in delivering his speech material, sby's style of speech was orderly, rigid, and used long terms. the language used by sby in his speech included langue or language that follows the standard rules of language (humaidi, 2017; mozefani et al., 2020). as a speaker who uses langue language, sby has successfully provided three aspects that form language (langue), namely phonology (sound system), morphology (word formation), and syntax (sentence formation) (laurie, 1983). he is a professor at the defense university of indonesia (universitas pertahanan indonesia). he completed his master's at webster university and was awarded two honorary doctorates from well-known universities (encyclopedia of world biography). besides, sby was also awarded the best oral language figure 2003 (liputan 6.com, 2003). at that time, he served as coordinating minister for politics and security affairs. the award was presented at the 8 th indonesian congress. in addition, he is also considered to have a structuring style in delivering a speech. structuring style is a typical person who applies high rhetoric and schematic in speaking. that can be seen from how he manages his speeches that emphasize the rhetorical power with long logical and elaborate data or facts (tempo.co, 2018). however, his formal style of delivering speeches did not significantly impact when he gave a speech in front of the children on the commemoration of national children's day 2012. several children were asleep when sby delivered a speech (tempo.co, 2012). perhaps sby's speech was so formal that sby forgot his audience was children. it also made sby stop giving speeches only to wake sleeping children. being aware of the way he talked made children bored. sby then changed his speaking style to be more communicative with children. this certainly has to do with microand macrolinguistic factors. sby is indeed a true indonesian speaker. he was quickly aware of the macrolinguistic aspects of 'speaking' conceived by hymes. meanwhile, jokowi, the president of indonesia since 2014, is from the same ethnic background as sby, javanese. jokowi has a different character and communication style from that of sby. it can be seen generally among several observers; that the translator of the indonesian presidency muhammad iqbal sirie has an opinion about the president's two-speaking style. sby and jokowi have different communication styles in speaking at various international-level meetings (sulistiyani & mukaromah, 2018). the difference lies in the choice of words conveyed to the listeners. president sby uses the inaugural speech of the indonesian presidents:….. 20 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 formal languages, while president jokowi prefers to use informal and straightforward terms (rimadi, 2015). jokowi is the seventh president replacing sby after serving for two terms. growing up with ordinary people, jokowi's rhetorical style follows his characters. in contrast to sby speaking in a formal language (langue), jokowi frequently gives a speech using parole. he uses simple, famous words that all people easily understand. another strength of jokowi's language style is his body language helping him facilitate speech messages that can be conveyed clearly. in addition to spoken language, jokowi actively carries out non-verbal kinesics, including emblems and compelling displays. in contrast to sby, which uses adapter sign language more often, jokowi is more active in doing illustrator movements. he uses hand gestures in conveying his messages as a reaffirmation of what is said in spoken language. in addition to sby's language and body movements that are different from jokowi's rhetorical style, the facial expressions shown by sby are also much different from jokowi. sby is not expressive in rhetoric, while jokowi's expression shifts following the message conveyed and the movements carried out (sulistiyani & mukaromah, 2018). furthermore, a language-based analysis frequently cannot examine why one chooses specific language choices. in analyzing a speech, especially a political speech, a combination of linguistic and social perspectives will lead to a better understanding of how linguistic choices have been made for political purposes and how social context affects linguistic selection (ekström et al., 2018; fairclough, 1992; herkman, 2017). this study analyzed the inaugural speeches of the sixth president of the republic of indonesia, susilo bambang yudhoyono (sby), and the latest president of the republic of indonesia, joko widodo (jokowi). the reasons above ensured the researchers deepened and revealed aspects of the language in sby's and jokowi‟s inaugural speeches. 2. literature review the literature review discusses three features regarding the rhetorical analysis of the inaugural address. they function to identify the social and linguistic aspects of sby and jokowi's inaugural speech. the first part elaborates on the macrolinguistic features. macrolinguistic covers interdisciplinary fields of study such as psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, sociolinguistics, etc. this study would further discuss sociolinguistic features contributing to inaugural speech personal factors. the second part explains micro linguistic features, defined as the study of the core level of linguistics such as phonetics, phonology, syntax, semantics, morphology, and pragmatics. finally, researchers try to connect the macroand microlinguistic features to the concept of politeness of sby and jokowi‟s inaugural speech. it analyzes how a culture shapes language expressions and influences sby and jokowi‟s ways of delivering their inaugural speech. didin nuruddin hidayat, yudi septiawan, ismalianing eviyuliwati, teuku zulfikar, & sudarya permana englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 21 2.1. macrolinguistic features according to leech, macro linguistics is a part of linguistics concerning more comprehensive language factors (leech, 1983). this makes macrolinguistics the interdisciplinary study of applied language and linguistics. macrolinguistic elements represent a whole sample of discourse above the level of words and sentences (caspari & parkinson, 2000), such as coherence and propositions (hay & moran, 2005). macrolinguistic connects language with broader social systems, such as language geography and psycholinguistics. moreover, macrolinguistics often interprets the relationship of language with cultures, countries, and other outside social influences. several theoretical frameworks proposed by hymes (1974, cited in eaton, 2019) will be used in analyzing the macrolinguistic features. those are situation: setting and scene (s), participants (p), ends (e), act sequence (a), key (k), instrumentalities (i), norms of interaction and interpretation (n), and genre (g) or “speaking grid”. the “speaking grid” facilitates the designation of the content and meaning of the speech, provides researchers a scientific instrument for “situated and purposive” description and analysis of communication (hymes, 1974: 106), and presents an etic frame of which an emic description may be formed (keating, 2001; saville-troike, 2003). a. situation: setting and scene (s) situation covers different times, places, settings, and scenes, and they can cause the use of distinct language variations. there are two kinds of situations in a conversation: formal and informal. formal situations bring participants to use standard languages, such as state speeches, job interviews, service meetings, and company meetings. the second is an informal situation. in this situation, participants tend to use the language variations they want in conversation (hymes, 1974; fitch, 2001). b. participants (p): speaker/sender/addressor/listener/audience/hearer/receiver the participants consisted of speakers-listeners, sender-hearer, and addressor-receiver with specific social roles. in the context of political speeches, the participants are speakers and audiences. social distance and social status affect the choice of language variations. social distance refers to how well participants know the speech audience. there are two types of relationships: intimate relationships and distant relationships (kalou & sadler-smith, 2015). intimate relationships are commonly practiced by people who already know each other well. meanwhile, distant relationships are relationships between people who do not know their speech audience well. secondly is social status, which refers to the position of someone in society. some factors determine a person's social status, such as job, economic background, politics, and education. hence, a speaker tends to use a more polite and standard form of language in a speech when interacting with people of higher status. otherwise, a speaker who has a high status tends to use simple language with people of a lower social status. c. ends (e): purposes of the speech event, required goals, and tangible results. the inaugural speech of the indonesian presidents:….. 22 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 ends belong to the conventionally identified and predicted results of change and the individual aims that participant strives to perform on special occasions. hymes (2013) mentions that the ideas of an event from a societal viewpoint may not be equal to the conceptions of those occupied in it. individuals can employ the method for individual or social purposes or artistic impressions (duranti, 1985). d. act sequence (a): message form and content act sequence deals with “information about the ordering of communication acts within an event” (saville-troike, 2003). it is attributed by duranti (1985) as the event‟s “sequential organization”. hymes (1974) recommends that message content is covered in the analysis, perhaps as an issue of a problem and a setting of matter. the issue is predetermined for numerous events and acts, though the problem is moderately unconstrained for others, notably conversation. hymes (2013) proposes that all speaking commands require message forming in two ways: modifying its shape or administering its definition. consequently, message form and content are accessible to the speech acts and the focus of its syntactic pattern. further, they are interdependent and can be called jointly part of the “act sequence”. e. key (k): tone, manner, or spirit of speech acts key refers to the tone, manner, or speech acts in which a particular message is conveyed light-hearted, serious, well-defined, formal, insulting, disrespectful, pretentious, and so forth (duranti, 1985). the key may also be considered nonverbal by particular sorts of conduct, movement, or even attitude. f. instrumentalities (i): medium of transmission of speech and forms of speech under instrumentalities, the information regards itself with the channel or medium of speech delivery (hymes, 1974). it entails a variety of spoken, written, telegraphic, semaphore, or other media. concerning channels, one needs to distinguish methods of use. the spoken channel, for instance, may be used to sing, hum, or piping features of speech. g. norms (n): rules of interaction and interpretation norms regard the distinct ways and characteristics ascribed to speaking (hymes, 1974; saville-troike, 2003). further, norms refer to how these may be viewed by someone who does not share them, such as silence, loudness, and so forth (blackman & sadler-smith, 2009; saville-troike, 2003). h. genre (g): textual categories – the type of the event genre attributes to divided utterances, such as poems, proverbs, riddles, sermons, supplications, discourses, and commentaries (hymes, 1974). these are all registered in particular ways in reverse to informal speech. the genre regularly corresponds with speech events. though, it must be employed as analytically autonomous of them. they may happen at various events. didin nuruddin hidayat, yudi septiawan, ismalianing eviyuliwati, teuku zulfikar, & sudarya permana englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 23 simply put, macro-linguistics pertains to how language and society mix, particularly how social factors can affect the application of language in broader society. macro-linguistics often compares languages beyond counties or cultures, the development of language over time, or other large external societal forces. 2.2. micro-linguistic feature micro-linguistics is a part of linguistics concerning the study of language practices in general, without concern for the meaning of the notional content of linguistic locutions. micro-linguistics is an in-depth composition of language and its structure. it pertains to how small language differences emerged and changed the sound and look of language. micro-linguistics does not center on how a language influences society. however, it centers on its structure by examining details, for example, phonetics, syntax, and morphology. accordingly, micro-linguistics studies numerous features of a particular language and do not provide a comprehensive aspect of its procuring or practicing. tager (1949) initially issued the term micro-linguistics in an article in studies in linguistics: occasional papers. a. phonetic phonetics studies speech sounds from a language, how sounds are generated, actualized acoustically, and then processed (jurafsky & martin, 2019). there is very little evidence to reveal how phonetic languages relate structurally to phonology. however, phonetic variations make it clear that there is a level of phonetic description in a language, although this receives little attention from the sign language literature (crasborn, 2014). b. syntax the word "syntax" is from the ancient greek sýntaxis, which implies "arrangement." in detail, syntax is an expression of a language involving two elements, particularly sound and meaning, combined with grammar (valin & lapolla, 2001). syntax becomes an integrated part of a language. every lexical item, especially the verb, has substantial control over the syntactic structure of a sentence (miller, 2002). finally, syntax is only restricted by the lexicon and the meaning and form of sentence sounds (utah, 2020). c. morphology wolfgang von goethe (1749-1832), a german poet, novelist, and philosopher, applied the term morphology in the early 19th century. wolfgang, at the time, defined morphology in a biological context. morphology is a greek word, morph meaning 'form,' and logos meaning 'science'. hence, morphology is the study of word forms. in linguistics, morphology is a linguistics subdomain (koopman et al., 2014)that analyzes the problem of words, structure, and how they are set (aronoff & fudeman, 2011). the inaugural speech of the indonesian presidents:….. 24 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 2.2.1. the concept of politeness in sociolinguistics, a person is considered to be polite when they look at the face of their interlocutors. politeness is divided into two, namely deference (or negative) politeness and solidarity (or positive) politeness (brown & levinson, 1987). solidarity politeness occurs if the speaker and listener have known each other and are emotionally attached, which implies that the relationship is not fake. the phrase "come and have a drink!" expresses the speaker's sensitivity to others. meanwhile, deference (negative politeness) requires restraint and formality in the utterance, such as, "i don't want to bother you, but can i have a minute?". locher and watts (2008) state that politeness and impoliteness are not combined in speech. they distinguish politeness as expressions and potential. mills (2003) also argues that responses at the 'potential' level often occur in interactions between family members. speakers in this context may use more polite words or phrases to respect the family. besides, haugh (2015) also presumed interactional difficulties between people. for example, parents tend not to hear 'impolite' words, even when they already know the potential for such impoliteness. culpeper and haugh (2014) also examine whether, in military training, the language spoken by the sergeant to trainees has offensive and impolite words. in this context, the sergeant's shouting at the trainees is considered conventional. hence, a discursive approach to analyzing politeness should consider certain aspects and contexts (linguistic politeness research group, 2011). 2.2.2. speech politeness in the javanese culture the javanese language is stratified into three levels. these levels are practiced uniquely according to the person whom to talk to. the javanese sustains ethical attention deeply both in attitude and utterance. in conversing, a youngster uses complex javanese language that seems more polite. oktafia (2015) states that the culture of politeness is more in preference. soedarmanta (2014) affirms that verbal and body language are good deeds to show politeness custom. further, achmad (2017) identifies javanese characters into nine classes, one of which is politeness. being polite is an act that is highly respected in javanese life. accordingly, parents always educate their children and grandchildren to talk and be respectful in everyday life, including being polite in dresses. they expect that others will respect their children and grandchildren. javanese proverb explains that three things determine a person's self-esteem: how to dress, speak, and behave (ajining dhiri soko lathi, ajining sariro soko busono). furthermore, anshoriy (2008) affirms that politeness in speaking can significantly influence a person's life. in javanese speaking, the type of language used determines one's modesty. there are three sorts of javanese according to the level of people speaking. the lowest level is the ngoko, then kromo, and the highest is kromo inggil. when speaking, young people must apply a higher language level than older people. it also shows the behavior of the didin nuruddin hidayat, yudi septiawan, ismalianing eviyuliwati, teuku zulfikar, & sudarya permana englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 25 speaker. speakers will be considered impolite if speaking to parents using the ngoko language. 3. method this is qualitative research analysing the inaugural speeches of two indonesian presidents, susilo bambang yudhoyono (sby) and joko widodo (jokowi). the study is concerned with how sby and jokowi delivered their rhetoric and schematic words in their speeches during their tenure serving as the president. accordingly, the researchers used the theoretical frameworks proposed by hymes (1974, cited in eaton, 2019), where he developed the analysis of the connection between a language and a broader feature. however, the main point of concern still sees a language that provides a balance between linguistic and social perspectives. the researchers applied two features of the theoretical framework developed by hymes (1974). the first analysis used macro-linguistic analysis, intended to see the context of speech situations and events (fishman, 1973). the study then analyzed the objects using micro-linguistic features to obtain an in-depth analysis. macro-linguistics takes a broad view of linguistic phenomena, whereas micro-linguistics focuses on the details of language itself, including its sounds, grammatical structures, syntax, and meanings. this analysis emphasizes speech acts in which the speech occurs, such as the use of the personal pronoun, the use of persuasion, the use of reference, the use of metaphors, and the use of address terms. furthermore, the concept of politeness also presents more evidence about the words and phrases used in the speech of sby and jokowi. this study used sby‟s inaugural speech when he was the sixth president of the republic of indonesia in 2004. jokowi‟s inaugural speech was when he was appointed president for the second time in 2019. sby and jokowi are also from the javanese culture, with unique characteristics in delivering a speech. furthermore, both the language style and gestures in delivering speeches became another interesting factor to be analyzed in this study. these reasons are sufficient to convince researchers to discuss sby's and jokowi‟s inaugural addresses as president in 2004 and 2019. 4. findings and discussion the researchers analyzed the data using the theory mentioned in the previous section. the inaugural speeches of sby and jokowi were analyzed using the theoretical framework by hymes in two features, namely analysis of macro-linguistic and analysis of micro-linguistic. 4.1. analysis of macro-linguistic this inaugural speech was delivered directly after sby was sworn into office. the scene was at the presidential palace in jakarta, the capital city of indonesia, and it was the inaugural speech of the indonesian presidents:….. 26 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 broadcasted live from all local television stations all over indonesia. the setting and the scene required sby to create a very formal speech. sby is the sixth president of the republic of indonesia. he originally came from the eastern part of java. this is an exciting point because his place of origin influences his language choice, which will be discussed further in the concept of politeness section. sby is also known as „the thinking general‟. this is because he not only achieved the rank of four-star general but also gained a doctorate title from bogor agricultural institute (ipb) plus two honorary doctorates in political science from thammasat university in thailand and the field of law from his alma mater, webster university in the united states of america. sby is the first person to win a direct election involving all people of indonesia who have the right to vote. a president was elected by the house representative assembly (dpr) in the past. his victory was quite extraordinary since his party, democratic party only got less than 10% of the overall voters. however, if the former voting system were still used, he might not have been elected as the president, considering that his party only got four chairs in the parliament. sby won a landslide victory in september 2004 in the second round of the indonesian presidential election. he defeated the incumbent president megawati sukarnoputri. previously, sby was the coordinating minister for politic and security under the megawati‟s government. they had a clash that made him resign from his position and start the campaign as one of the presidential candidates. his popularity increased significantly after he resigned as megawati‟s minister. this is one of the reasons why it is interesting to analyze this inaugural speech because sby and megawati are rivals, but sby still highly appreciates megawati in his remarks. this will be discussed further in the concept of politeness. the audience in this inaugural speech can be classified into two groups: the immediate audience and the far audience. the former audience consisted of invited local and international guests, governmental officers, military leaders, mass media, etc. in contrast, the distant audience was all people of indonesia watching live from their televisions. considering the broad scope of the audience, sby needed to make a speech that was relevant for the upper classes and understandable for the middle and lower classes. hence, sby avoided using specific political jargon and carefully selected the lexical choice. there are two types of political communication: internal and external (alfani, 2015; schäffner, 1996). the former type means when the political speech is delivered to particular people or organizations, politicians, government officers, and political organizations, whereas the latter is intended for ordinary citizens. considering the near and the far audience, as mentioned above, this political speech was a mixture of internal and external political communications. several purposes of the speech can be identified from the text. initially, it thanked all indonesian people for their trust and belief in sby. this is very legitimate, considering that sby would not have been elected president if most citizens had not didin nuruddin hidayat, yudi septiawan, ismalianing eviyuliwati, teuku zulfikar, & sudarya permana englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 27 decided to vote for him. secondly, the speech was intended to give a brief overview of the new government; to give the audience a sense of direction on where sby would lead indonesia and how his government would address the problems being faced by indonesia. thirdly, the speech also aimed to gain solidarity and support from sby‟s supporters and opponents. sby saw this as the perfect time to unite to build a better indonesia. fourthly, considering that sby came from a military background like some other leaders, such as hugo chavez (salojarvi, 2019), most people of indonesia felt traumatized after being ruled by general soeharto for 32 years. sby needs to assure people that he is different from general soeharto. hence, he stressed the importance of democracy and guaranteed that he would uphold the constitution. the nature of the speech, an inaugural speech, makes the speech more polite than the common political speech (choi et al., 2016). this is based on the following reasons. firstly, after being elected as the president, this was the first time for sby to give a good impression to all people of indonesia. hence, he needs to make a „safe speech‟ because he does not provoke any parties but embraces solidarity and support from all elements. secondly, he is aware that this is the perfect time to appreciate all support given by the people, without whom he cannot win the election. he addresses his appreciation not only to his supporters but also to those who oppose him. this is why he shows gratitude to all people, including his opponents, such as megawati soekarno putri, the previous president. thirdly, he already won the election and became the president. he had two choices: reducing or escalating the political tension. he chose the second option by highly appreciating his opponents. meanwhile, in his speech, jokowi offered five strategic objectives for national development in the second period. however, there is one exciting thing in jokowi's inaugural speech in 2019. he said that the bureaucracy's task is delivering and ensuring that people benefit from the program. in addition to presenting five important agendas that were the priorities of his administration in the next five years, the president also urged the stakeholders and the bureaucracy to proceed to innovate and be resultsoriented. an important conclusion from the speech is that jokowi wants to enlarge his political view that the people are the central actors in indonesia's political and democratic system. the importance of the centrality of the people is, in some literature, categorized as populism (moffitt, 2017; mudde & kaltwasser, 2018). looking at his background, jokowi is a populist figure. in indonesian history, during the new order and post-reform era, he was the only elected president in the country who came from ordinary people. unlike sby, jokowi does not come from elite circles. he is also not a founder figure of political parties like sby. many people even know him as a party's ordinary cadre and 'officer' (faqih, 2014). it is not a new thing that jokowi's political views are on the importance of promoting the results of real development programs. since being elected the mayor of solo, he has run this program to his victory in the 2014 presidential election. in the inauguration ceremony for the first period on october 20, 2014, he even delivered a speech entitled “under the will of the people and the the inaugural speech of the indonesian presidents:….. 28 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 constitution” (humas setkab ri, 2014). this title implies that he is the figure of the people who get the mandate to rule the government in this country, following the constitutional basis formulated by the founding fathers of the republic of indonesia. as a populist leader, jokowi inevitably adapts to the rapidly developing domestic and international political environment. even so, his populist character still seems visible. thus, it is not surprising that he gets the support of the majority of the people in the 2014 presidential election. jokowi's inauguration speech in 2019 highlighted his plans for leading the next 5 years. the speech also implies that jokowi wants to end his ten-year tenure as president with remarkable accomplishments. thus, the closing speech of jokowi in a bugislanguage proverb indicates that he encouraged people to support the government policies toward an advanced indonesia. “pura babbara’ sompekku, pura tangkisi’ golikku“ (my sail is flying, my helm is mounted), “together we move toward an advanced indonesia!”. based on the previous analysis, sby and jokowi have distinctive backgrounds and styles in terms of support, leadership, and approach. these factors significantly impact people's views on choosing their leader in the future. the success of sby and jokowi in the election for two consecutive periods shows that having a good vision of society is a key to attracting people's sympathy. 4.2. analysis of micro-linguistic the use of personal pronouns both sby and jokowi use personal pronoun i for specific purposes. there are two meanings taken from the use of i in the speech. first, sby and jokowi use i to show their power and leadership. they would like to show that they are the ones who have the power to lead all indonesian people. besides, they also use i to show intimacy and solidarity. here are the examples: table 1 the use of personal pronouns. to show power and leadership. to show intimacy and solidarity sby that i lead…. i will inaugurate the members of my cabinet for the 20042009 period. ….with the mandate that i received directly from you…. i am no different from each and every one of you…. jokowi i often remind the minister…. i check in the field….. i want, and i will force the bureaucracy to deliver…. ….that i am proud of…. i also express my thanks….. ….i invite bapak, ibu, and brother and sister…. didin nuruddin hidayat, yudi septiawan, ismalianing eviyuliwati, teuku zulfikar, & sudarya permana englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 29 i also ask the minister…. i guarantee that i will remove (them). the use of persuasion one of the aims of this speech is to persuade the indonesian people to believe in sby's ability and jokowi to lead indonesia and gain solidarity. hence, they use some persuasive statements to engage their audience: table 2 the use of persuasion. to persuade the audience. sby let me assure you… it is time to walk together… i sincerely urge you all… it is time for us to consolidate our spirit of determination… jokowi because of that, that is what we want to carry out… we will continue infrastructure construction… we will continue to simplify the bureaucracy… we have to transform….. the use of reference halliday and hasan (1976) assert that one of the factors that can influence cohesion is using reference. in a speech, reference also means informing the audience of the speaker's beliefs. sby's two most notable references in his speech are democracy and religion. the word “democracy” appears 11 times in the text. democracy became a critical state system in indonesia after the fall of the soeharto regime. by repeating the word “democracy”, sby would like to show that his government is different from what soeharto had established, an iron-fist system. politicians commonly use repetition to convince the listeners of the statement‟s authenticity (david, 2017). sby also frequently uses religious expression in his speech, and he uses the phrase “thank god”,“god almighty”, and “god willing” to show his obedience to god. on the other hand, jokowi also uses the religious phrase, but only the phrase “god willing” appears in his speech. the use of religious expression in indonesia is common, considering that most indonesians are muslims. however, jokowi's speech shifted greetings to muslims and all religions in detail, while sby only used universal greetings “salam sejahtera” after “assalammualaikum”. besides, jokowi rarely uses a reference in his speech. this is because jokowi does not only focus his speech on one particular area. jokowi raises five critical points. the inaugural speech of the indonesian presidents:….. 30 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 however, the word "innovation" is the implied reference to his speech. he always emphasizes development, simplicity, and transformation, which define what innovation is. the use of metaphors it is identified from the text that sby and jokowi frequently use metaphors. some of the metaphors are as follows: table 3 the use of metaphors. metaphors sentences sby united we stand, divided we fall. for a great nation, the more complex the test, the higher its tenacity. the more complex the change, the stronger our sense of unity. this is the time to greet a new dawn/ jokowi indonesia should have escaped the middle-income trap. once again, breaking the routine is one thing. i don‟t want a bureaucracy that just keeps on sending things. long procedures must be cut down. the use of metaphors in political speeches is quite common among politicians (stojan & mijić, 2019; lenard et al., 2017). lakoff and johnson (1980) argue that metaphor consists of isolated instances of original figurative language and repetitive and pervasive language patterns that may even seem literal to the persons engaged in communication. even though metaphors only have little influence on the semantic meaning, they provide a pragmatic function. pragmatic concerns about "what [speakers] hope to achieve by talking, the relation between the form they choose and the effect they want it to have" (lakoff, 1990). in this speech, sby uses metaphors to enhance nationalism, collectivism, and patriotism among the indonesian people. on the other hand, jokowi uses metaphors to encourage ministers and state officials to support the five main points. in his speech, jokowi also showed his firmness by emphasizing the personal pronoun "i" when saying, "i don't want a bureaucracy that just keeps on sending things." the use of address terms there are two types of address forms that sby uses in his speech. he uses the v/v forms (formal/deferential) for the immediate audience, such as guests, other countries‟ leaders, and political leaders, he uses the v/v forms (formal/deferential). wardhaugh and fuller (2015) assert that using the v/v form is common among the upper classes, and this is intended to illustrate mutual respect and politeness. he didin nuruddin hidayat, yudi septiawan, ismalianing eviyuliwati, teuku zulfikar, & sudarya permana englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 31 addresses the near audience with the honorable, sir or madam, his excellency. on the other hand, for the far audience, that is indonesian people, sby uses the t/t forms (informal/familiar). when sby transitions between topics, he always addresses the audience with “saudara sebangsa setanah air, " equivalent to “my fellow citizens”. this is a typical address term that is familiar in indonesia. brown and levinson (2006) include this as positive politeness regarding the addressee as being at the same level as the addressor. by using that term of address, sby would like to show a close relationship with his people, in contrast, to keep their distance. another example is when sby said, “i am no different from each of you – i am just an ordinary citizen from an ordinary family, born and raised by the state and community. interestingly, in the translation, he uses the pronoun “you/your” twelve times and “my” ten times. in an indonesian context, those pronouns show the power distance. this means that the speaker regards themselves as superior to the hearers. on the other hand, it is almost impossible in western cultures to avoid using those pronouns, and that does not show superiority as in the indonesian context. sby does not use the v/t forms as indicated in the text translation. the phrase “my administration”, which appears nine times, is written as pemerintah or “the government”. the other examples that show that sby uses v/t forms are “let me remind you” and “… my deepest gratitude to the indonesian people, for your participation, support and trust”. those statements are written as namun saya mengingatkan or “but i remind” and … terima kasih kepada seluruh rakyat indonesia atas partisipasi, dukungan dan kepercayaannya or “… deepest gratitude to the indonesian people, for the participation, support and trust”. like sby, jokowi uses address terms but with a slightly different greeting. jokowi opened and closed the speech very politely by greeting all religious adherents in indonesia, for example, “assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh” , “salam sejahtera bagi kita semua”, “om swastyastu”, “namo buddhaya”, “salam kebajikan”. jokowi also frequently addresses the audience with “saudara sebangsa setanah air”, equivalent to “my fellow citizens”. jokowi's and sby's speaking styles are different in intonation, dialect, and speech flow. jokowi prioritizes nationalism and unity in almost every critical speech, including the inaugural speech, while sby emphasizes the acceleration of development in all sectors. furthermore, jokowi elegantly inserted the bugisnese proverb at the end of the speech to give an impression of the vice president in the previous period, jusuf kalla, who is from the bugisnese. this also includes the unique address terms in jokowi's speech. for the audience context, jokowi repeatedly uses t/t forms. jokowi uses the greetings “bapak” and “ibu” to show his closeness and equality with the audience. the word “bapak” appears 11 times, and the word “ibu” appears 4 times in the speech. the inaugural speech of the indonesian presidents:….. 32 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 4.3. analysis of politeness concept it is interesting to analyze that sby and jokowi pay great attention to politeness in their speeches. one example of this is when they complement and appreciate all the audiences, his supporters and his opponents, quite extensively from the beginning to the end of his speech. this is in contrast with the other leaders‟ inaugural speeches, such as president george w. bush (bush, 2005), nelson mandela (mandela, 1994), and president recep tayyip erdoğan (türk, 2018). two reasons underpin the concept of politeness that he demonstrates: political attitude and cultural background. in indonesia, it is uncommon to see politicians and leaders attack each other in public or even in debates. every presidential candidate has a right not to get involved in a political debate. even though they are rivals, they will still respect one another if they meet face to face. several indonesian scholars, such as haryatmoko (2003) and jazeri (2017), regard these as typical characteristics of polite politics. this is also what sby and jokowi attempt to show the audience. although sby and megawati have an inner conflict, sby still highly honors her. he compliments megawati for having “great efforts in upholding the constitution, leading the government, and guiding the nation successfully”. besides, sby also mentions megawati as one of the national figures. furthermore, he respects megawati‟s father, former president soekarno, as a “great founding father” and cites soekarno‟s popular metaphor, “united we stand, divided we fall”. these are intended to reduce the political tension that sby thinks unnecessary to be prolonged. on the other hand, he also would like to create a sense of harmony with his rivals, which is contradictory to the political condition in the nordic countries, such as denmark, finland, and sweden (herkman, 2018). jokowi, in his speech, also showed the same thing as sby by greeting all former presidents and rivals in the 2019 elections, prabowo subianto and sandiaga uno. jokowi even greeted prabowo and sandiaga by calling “sahabat baik saya”, meaning “my good friend”. despite being elected in the 2019 elections, jokowi still respects his opponent. before ending his speech, jokowi did not forget to thank jusuf kalla, who had accompanied him for 5 years in the previous period. jokowi's attitude is considered one of jokowi's appreciation and polite manners towards jusuf kalla. it cannot be denied that cultural background influences the way people communicate. fitzgerald (2003) claims that “communicative behavior is believed to be strongly influenced by the cultural value system” (p. 21). their cultural background also influences the politeness shown in sby‟s and jokowi‟s speeches. originally, both sby were from the eastern part of java. however, demographically, his place of origin is close to central java. it is observed that the way he speaks in terms of tone and manner does not reflect the typical east java people who speak pretty fast and rough but are closer to the central javanese people who are calmer and speak in a low, moderate voice. meanwhile, jokowi is originally from central java, surakarta. the javanese dialects of surakarta (solo) and yogyakarta are standard javanese dialects. they didin nuruddin hidayat, yudi septiawan, ismalianing eviyuliwati, teuku zulfikar, & sudarya permana englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 33 occupy the top rank in a hierarchical status. they are gradually accepted as the most delicate variants, the most rapidly developing, and the most able to express the essence of javanese culture (sulistyowati, 2014). therefore, the surakarta dialect directly influences the character of jokowi, both in terms of intonation, choice of words, and speaking style. furthermore, indonesian people, particularly javanese, have a strong philosophy in their life (suhadi & purwarno., 2018). they should respect the order of society, honor elders and superiors, stay close and be considerate with inferiors, maintain a harmonious relationship, and avoid all open conflict (hakam, 2017). those are why even though sby and jokowi have a conflict with their opponents, they still need to appreciate and honor them. 4.4. implications for english teaching and learning sby and jokowi's inaugural speech noticed that sociolinguistics in teaching english is essential to learn. the macroand microlinguistic aspects of inaugural speech can be good english teaching material in the classroom. macrolinguistics can give students an idea of the importance of formal (langue) and informal (parole) language in public speaking. in teaching speaking practice, the teacher can give any speech text for later analysis by students using the macrolinguictics scope. as a result, students can learn about the relationship between language and culture. students can also explore more about communication and language styles. moreover, the microlinguistics aspect also contributes to the teaching of english. in the context of the inaugural speech, details of microlinguistics, such as the use of personal pronouns, references, and metaphors, provide a rich and broader perspective for students to learn more about a language detail. apart from language issues, sby and jokowi's speeches also teach students that the concept of politeness in a formal speech is fundamental to practice. that is because indonesia is the one that upholds a polite culture at any stage. 5. conclusion the above study has proved some differences in macroand microlinguistics analysis on the inaugural speech of sby and jokowi in detail. as all settings present unique aspects to elaborate on, the researchers recommend that an inaugural speech is influential in scrutinizing someone‟s behavior, especially country leaders, which perhaps neglects cultural aspects. from this perspective, the outcomes of the prior studies on the inaugural speech from different methods and approaches are defined by their locus in a particular context. thus, their conclusions are not final. the context of presidential inauguration speeches provides details on social and cultural features. it also has an immeasurable impact on english learning for students. hence, it is beneficial for teachers to address this topic in their classes. the inaugural speech is ceremonial; thus, its context is more formal than any other speech occasion. the inaugural speech of the indonesian presidents:….. 34 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 interestingly, jokowi frequently uses simple words in formal situations. this situation is contrary to sby, the previous president. sby always uses well-structured language in his speech. for leaders, rhetoric is an essential means of influencing and managing humans. it seems challenging for a leader to gain reputation and achievement without mastering rhetoric. sby and jokowi, through their state speeches, succeeded in making the public believe that they could understand the audience with a unique and varied choice of style and choice of words. moreover, they can also maintain their respective speaking styles, sby with his 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(2003). political discourse. in d. schiffrin, d. tannen, & h. e. hamilton (eds.), the handbook of discourse analysis (pp. 398–415). blackwell publishing. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2023. vol.10, no.2, 56-70 understanding identity construction of an in-service pre-k teacher using discursive psychology faishal zakaria department of english education, universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia faishalzakaria.ftk@ar-raniry.ac.id manuscript received july 1, 2022, revised april 5, 2023, accepted april 8, 2023, and published online may 7, 2023. recommended apa citation zakaria, f. (2023). understanding identity construction of an in-service pre-k teacher using discursive psychology. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(2), 56-70. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.13998 abstract experts have asserted that teacher identity is an integral part of classroom practices; studying teacher identity construction would allow us to understand the teachers’ learning process and teaching practices. it is then argued that identity is fluid and is never a standalone aspect. further, many studies of the discursive construction of teacher identities have suggested teacher identity construction is highly contextual. however, little research has focused on how pre-k teachers serving low-income students and families construct their professional identities discursively. grounded within the perspectives of discursive psychology, this study is interested in how a us government-sponsored pre-k program teacher discursively constructs her identities. the findings further suggest the fluidity of identity and particularly posit that the teacher has constructed and claimed her collective and co-constructed identities, as well as discursively formed her identities as a person who values social capital, who is practical, who serves the needy students and families, who has power or resources, and who is a lifelong learner. the findings further implicate the need to consider teachers’ identities to understand their learning, growth, and classroom practices. keywords: pre-k teacher; discursive identity construction; discursive psychology 1. introduction many have asserted that teacher identity is one of the most crucial aspects of classroom practices (alsup, 2006; tsui, 2007; yuan & lee, 2015; zacharias, 2010). also, the teacher’s ethos takes a central stage in every classroom. thus, when teachers are mailto:faishalzakaria.ftk@ar-raniry.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.1 faishal zakaria englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 57 aware of the identities they bring into the classroom, they will be aware of their contributions to the teaching-learning process in the classroom (zacharias, 2010). it has further been argued that teacher identity is not a stand-alone professional aspect but is rather a combination of personal aspects of self and professional ones (alsup, 2006). further, understanding how teachers claim, construct, or negotiate their identities is paramount to understanding how they learn and develop professionally (trent, 2017; yazan, 2018). it is interesting to learn how teachers negotiate their “personal ideologies and perceived professional expectations” (alsup, 2006, p. xiv) as they construct their identities and make sense of what it means to do/become teachers in their particular teaching contexts. in this sense, many studies have addressed the issues of teacher identity formations. for example, bathmaker and avis (2013) discuss the findings of their longitudinal study of novice teachers involved in the english further education (english fe) program. their construction of identities is particularly discussed. it is also discursively constructed through language and talk (tan, 2020). in general, the findings indicate that teacher identity construction is highly contextual. thus, teacher identities should be viewed as not static but fluid depending on the context (pennington & richards, 2016). other existing research (e.g., devos, 2010; li, 2020; trent and lim, 2010; trent, 2010) study also suggests similar insight on teacher identity development; how teachers make sense of their professional identity is very much shaped by the social conditions of their teaching contexts. here, as alsup (2006) has argued that teachers would usually negotiate their personal beliefs and professional expectations as they teach or during teacher learning (yazan, 2017), it would be very interesting to explore how these teachers construct their professional identities and make sense of doing/becoming teachers in their teaching contexts. indeed, many studies have focused on the discursive construction of teachers’ identities (e.g., li, 2020; tan, 2020). however, little research has delved into how government-sponsored pre-k program teachers construct their professional identities through language and talks. therefore, i am particularly interested in exploring and understanding how a teacher of the pre-k head start program, which is sponsored by the us federal government, navigates her personal beliefs and professional identities as she serves children from economically-challenged families. studying the discursive construction of the head start program teachers’ identities will enable us to better understand the underlying meanings of their “talks-in-interaction” (potter & wetherell, 1987) and how they construct their personal/professional identities through the discourse. this present study seeks to answer the following question: how does a government-sponsored pre-k program teacher navigate her personal beliefs and discursively construct her professional identities? understanding identity construction of an in-service pre-k teacher using discursive psychology 58 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.10, no.2, may 2023 2. literature review 2. 1. teacher identity constructions there is, of course, no single-agreed-upon definition of the notion of identity. it can be understood from different perspectives. from a post-structuralist perspective, for instance, identity can be understood as “the way a person understands his or her relationship to the world, how that relationship is constructed across time and space, and how the person understands possibilities for the future” (norton, 2013, p. 4). using such a perspective, one can further view identity as something that is enacted and reenacted through various “discursive practices and social interactions” (davey, 2013, p. 31) within a particular setting. as has been said, we can see that teacher identity is never a fixed and stand-alone entity. as yuan and lee (2015) further argue, teacher identity could be “understood as a fluid, multifaceted and contextual construct, which involves teachers constantly making sense of themselves in their professional practice in relation to the outside world” (p.470). it is understandable that teachers discursively construct and negotiate specific professional identities as professionals. professional identity can also be problematized, and the term is open to a wide range of interpretations (servage, 2009). therefore, davey (2013) draws on the perspectives of psychological, sociocultural, and post-structural theories of identity and social identity. he contends that professional identity is ”the valued professional self” (p. 6), and he proposes that we take this viewpoint when examining the professional identity of teachers as “a distinctive professional group.” davey argues that we must try to go “beyond stories” teachers tell to understand their professional identity better. therefore, he argues that professional identity can: a. be thought of as both personal and social in origin and expression; it is personally and individually perceived and claimed but individually and culturally negotiated. b. be thought of as multifaceted and fragmented, as well as evolving and shifting in nature; one’s professional identity is always in a process of becoming. c. involve emotional states and value commitments; it comprises how one sees oneself and what values in oneself as a professional. d. necessarily involve some sense of group membership or non-membership, and identification with a collective; one’s sense of self as a member of a purposeful occupational community is a significant and necessary component of one’s professional identity (pp. 31-32). there have been many studies on the construction of teacher identities. for instance, within the context of english language teacher education, elsheikh (2016) studies how four sudanese efl preservice teachers discursively construct their professional identities. interestingly, the findings reveal that only two of these four preservice teachers aspire to be english teachers. socio political and economic discourses very much influence the preservice teachers’ views of their identities in their context. elsheikh argues that “the participants’ discursive constructions and experiences of teaching impacted how they view themselves as future teachers or professionals''(p. 48). in other words, these preservice teachers built and claimed their identities based on different discourses around them. also, trent and lim (2010) explore the experiences of two groups of secondary faishal zakaria englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 59 english teachers who got involved in school-university partnerships in the context of hong kong. by drawing on several theories of identity construction, such as varghese et al. (2005) identity-in-discourse – teacher identity discursively established through the discourse and identity-in-practice – teacher identity as demonstrated through their practices, wenger’s (1998) negotiation of meanings, and fairclough’s (2003) model of identity formation, this case study showcases how the teachers’ identity construction was shaped by their participation in the school-university partnerships. the participants indicate that their participation in the partnership is very much related to their identi ty construction. therefore, as alsup (2006) has argued, teachers would usually negotiate their personal beliefs and professional expectations. thus, it is very interesting to explore how these teachers construct their professional identities and make sense of doing/becoming teachers in their teaching contexts. similar findings are also echoed in research from the context of indonesia; for example, a recent study by intansari meilani et al. (2022) shows cases of three female mid-career english teacher educators’ autoethnographic inquiry of their professional identities. the findings suggest that these female teacher educators’ identity constructions are influenced by various historical, sociocultural, and institutional factors. this is much like the existing literature that has suggested that identity construction is indeed contextual, contested, and negotiated (yazan, 2017). it is within the sense of such identity construction fluidity that the present study commenced. 2.2. discursive psychology people mostly construct certain discourses through language use, either spoken, written, or other non-verbal cues (tan, 2020). therefore, a discourse analysis approach can appropriately be used to analyze how identity is discursively constructed. this paper focuses on the discursive construction of teacher identity in a us government-sponsored pre-k education program. discursive psychology (dp) can be beneficial because it is both a theory and a method. as its name suggests, dp is a type of discourse analysis that centers around psychological aspects in talks or texts (mcmullen, 2021). despite its name, wiggins (2016) says that dp is not trying to understand what is in somebody’s mind when they say an utterance (e.g., i don’t like the food) because the assumptions we make about such an utterance can be limitless. dp, however, simply focuses on what action the utterance is performing (i.e., saying no). here, dp will help a researcher study “talk-in-interaction” (potter & wetherell, 1987), which can be simply understood as real-time social interactions within real-world contexts (higginbotham & engelke, 2013). in other words, dp allows us to understand talks and texts and our activities when interacting with others (wiggins, 2016). furthermore, potter (2012) asserts three discursive psychology (dp) strands. the “first strand” focuses on identifying interpretive repertoires, or conceptually organized clusters of terms, phrases, grammatical features, and idioms used to construct social behaviors, often perpetuating existing structures of power and inequality. the “second understanding identity construction of an in-service pre-k teacher using discursive psychology 60 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.10, no.2, may 2023 strand” focuses on what speakers and writers do with language. a speaker’s praise, belittling, demand, or condone could indicate this strand. finally, the “third strand” pays close attention to the sequential conversational structures typical of conversational analysis, which focuses on micro features of interactions, such as grammatical forms, pauses, intonation, and idioms. the present study adopts an “interactionist perspective,” explained by jorgensen and phillips (2002) as the second strand of dp that “concentrates on the analysis of action orientation of text and talk in social interaction” (p.105). with this particular perspective, an analysis is focused “on what speakers are doing with language – on the social actions that are being performed” (mcmullen, 2021, p. 5). this perspective is drawn from conversation analysis (ca), which enables analysts to concentrate on how social organization (i.e., identity) is enacted through language and interactions. 3. method 3.1. population and sample ten teachers were teaching at the pre-k center where this research was conducted. these ten teachers were considered the population of this study. initially, i purposely invited two teachers as samples for this study. these two teachers once served as my child’s teachers. thus, i know them personally. i know their communication styles, so i could understand them easily. as i explain below, my analysis only focuses on the data from one of the sample teachers, ms. anna. i refer to ms. anna simply as ma and use my initial (fz) in the interview transcripts; our initials appear in the quotes presented in this paper. 3.2. positionality i must admit that i brought my personal biases to this project. one clear possibility of such biases was that i was educated as a teacher educator. thus, i might have brought my personal positions and stances to the issues that my participant and i discussed during the interviews, or i might have based my interpretation of data on my personal and academic viewpoints. for instance, i might have played a significant role in coconstructing the discourse during the interviews. therefore, i would also like to address this co-construction issue in my analysis. 3.3. research context i used the data i collected for one of my class projects for this paper. i initially used the data to analyze whether teachers’ beliefs and practices are in line with the goals or objectives of the programs or institutions they work for. at the time, i chose to observe a local federally-funded pre-k classroom (best known as the head start classroom) and interview its two teachers. because i wanted to reorient or re-purpose this existing data to fit my current focus, i only emphasized my attention on one of the teachers. thus, my analysis is only based on my interviews with ms. anna. faishal zakaria englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 61 ms. anna serves as a lead teacher of a head start classroom. this head start classroom is situated on the east side of a mid-sized college town in a us midwest state. altogether, there are four pre-k head start classrooms at this location. the classroom where the research took place was team-taught by ms. anna and ms. sharon (not real names). during my research, 13 students were enrolled in this classroom. i chose this particular classroom because my oldest daughter was once enrolled in ms. anna and ms. sharon’s class. i usually talked with both of them when i dropped and picked up my daughter or when we had parent-teacher conferences. such interactions have enabled me to know both teachers quite well, and i became aware of some of their teaching beliefs and practices. in addition, i could also learn more about this particular classroom and other head start programs in general through other general and curriculum-related documents sent out to me regularly as a parent. through various head start socialization programs, i came to know some key figures of the local head start program. knowing these figures has made it easy for me to gain permission to interview ms. anna and ms. sharon and observe their classroom. i contacted ms. anna’s supervisor, ms. regina (a pseudonym), to ask for permission and to inquire about what i needed to do to be able to observe ms. anna’s classroom and interview her and her assistant teacher. because i have known ms. regina during head start socialization programs, i found it easy to explain my research plans. i was permitted to observe the classroom and interview the teachers but must sign a confidentiality form before starting any research activity. generally speaking, my familiarity with the head start program and its key individuals allows me easy access/entry to the site. 3.4. research participant previously, i invited both ms. anna and her assistant to participate in my study. as has been said, i only focus my attention on ms. anna here; thus i solely based my analysis on my interviews with ms. anna. ms. anna was born in one of the us midwest states and she has extensive experience teaching children aged five or less and under. ms. anna started her career teaching children after she graduated from college decades ago. she had taught for the head start program for almost five years by the time i interviewed her. prior to coming to head start, ms. anna had taught in many different daycares before, but ms. anna had to adjust here and there and had to upgrade her ability when she first worked at her current pre-k class. she had to do more paperwork and learned other computer skills not required in her previous work. 3. 5. research site as said above, the research site was a classroom of a us government-sponsored pre-k education (head start) program located in a mid-sized college town in a us midwestern state. the classroom lead teacher, ms. anna, serves as the main research participant thus, the analysis will specifically refer to my interviews with her. understanding identity construction of an in-service pre-k teacher using discursive psychology 62 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.10, no.2, may 2023 3. 6. data sources my data was sourced from several observation notes and three interviews in my previous project. but, i especially paid attention to my interviews with ms. anna in this project. because i conducted two interviews with ms. anna, i initially planned to use both of these interviews as my data sources. however, for this project, i only focused on my first interview with ms. anna because it has quite a lot of data, and it would not be feasible to study and analyze all data for this paper. the interview lasted about 40 minutes. i conducted this interview in the school playground as ms. anna watched her students playing. i did not ask for a specific interview time because ms. anna preferred that the interview be done while the children were playing outside. 3.7. data analysis because i initially did a verbatim transcription, i had to revisit my transcription and apply light jeffersonian transcription symbols to enable me to analyze the verbal cues as well. these jeffersonian transcription symbols include, for example, “↑” to indicate a rising intonation, (( )) to show words or phrases added by the researcher, or “(0.2)” to tell seconds pass by before an interlocutor continues their sentence. i only use a few of these symbols here because this is not a pure conversational analysis study. i then coded my interview transcripts. it is important to note that i had to omit some data because ms. anna talked about things that were not directly related to the topics of my questions. [omitted] would indicate such data omission. as has been said above, i provided jeffersonian symbols only to parts of the interview data that i see as relevant to my focus. to help me with transcription, i used express scribe software where i could set hotkeys (e.g., i assigned the f4 key for pause and f9 key for replay, etc.) so i could continue typing without having to close my microsoft word file. because the transcription process can also offer some initial interpretation of the data, i omitted the data that i did not need (e.g., i omitted data unrelated to the topics discussed). another benefit of this transcription process is that i can develop some kinds of initial data analysis. when i first coded my data, i tried to apply descriptive, in-vivo, and a priori coding (see saldana, 2015) just to see how many themes i could come up with. here, i simply printed my transcribed data and provided my codes on the margins of the papers or between the lines because i did not use qualitative analysis software packages such as nvivo. this coding strategy resulted in numerous codes. when i revisited my codes, i came up with some major themes that accurately represented the data. i will later discuss these themes here. for the sake of trustworthiness, i analyze my initial codes recursively. this allows me to move from a broad understanding of large datasets to categories/themes. faishal zakaria englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 63 4. findings this study primarily focuses on how ms. anna navigates her personal beliefs and discursively constructs her professional identities. these identity claims were present in numerous initial codes, which were interpreted into major themes of different kinds of identities ms. anna was constructing and co-constructing, either through her personal language use or her interaction with me as the interviewer. below are the major themes: 4.1. a collective identity several times during the interview, ms. anna hinted that she was claiming a collective identity as a head start teacher serving low-ses (socioeconomic status) students and their families from around her head start site. 146 ma: i feel like it, and i think they come here because they are very smart (.) intellectual. the parents who come here from other countries and they want their children to be (.) 148 fz: uh uh 149 ma: this program is available because of the funding, i feel like they want their children to uhm it’s great that we can help people who come over, they’re coming here and learn from from (0.2) their university and here we are helping their children by giving free childcare so they can study to become better individuals and they don’t have to worry about childcare for their children every day before they go to ↑kindergarten. in the interview excerpt above, ms. anna discussed her fondness for working with international students and their parents. she seemed to express her pride in being able to serve and help these international parents. she was giving herself credit because the parents could go to study at the university and better themselves while their children were being educated in ms. anna’s class for free. interestingly, ms. anna did not claim that as her personal accomplishment but as collective attainment. the pronoun “we” in line 151 indicates that ms. anna presents herself and her colleagues under the big umbrella of the head start program. such a claim can also have a different meaning. as a part of a collective entity (e.g., head start program, which assists those in need), ms. anna can also seem to express her power and resourcefulness. here, such power and resourcefulness can be understood as ms. anna’s ability to provide assistance (i.e., daycare) to those parents who need it the most. in this sense, imbalanced power relations are also visible, one acts as a provider, and the others act as receivers of assistance. such a discourse is being constructed in ms. anna’s talk (line 151-153 of the above excerpt). the fact that she said, “we are helping their children by giving free childcare so they can study to become better individuals and they don’t have to worry about childcare for their children every day” indicates the kind of important role that ms. anna and her colleagues are playing in helping these understanding identity construction of an in-service pre-k teacher using discursive psychology 64 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.10, no.2, may 2023 international parents’ efforts to be better individuals. such a claim makes a lot of sense because daycare is not inexpensive, and these international students coming to the united states on tight budgets might not be able to afford quality daycare for their pre-k children without help. thus, ms. anna and the head start program have come to the rescue. 4.2. an identity of a teacher who values social capital although ms. anna claims to have done a great favor for these international parents, she also acknowledges their other social capital. she posits that these international parents come to the united states to pursue their graduate education; this makes them different from some local head start parents who did not even have ged (general educational development) diplomas or high school equivalent diplomas. in line 146, ms. anna explained why she likes multiculturalism and working with international students/parents. her assumed impressions of these international people are clearly positive. when she says, “i think they come here because they are very smart (.) intellectuals,” she seems to mean that international parents managed to come to the united states and got admissions to prestigious graduate programs at a large well-known research university in the midwest because they are smart and intelligent. indeed, not many people can attain such kind of academic achievements. in this sense, ms. anna values the parents’ social capital, i.e., big ‘d’ discourse (gee, 2015). these parents might not possess great financial capital but they have other valuable social and cultural capital (e.g. having graduate education, possessing research skills, and being the cultural agents of their countries, etc.). in a different interview, ms. anna claims that she loves working at her current site because of the demographic she’s serving. the fact that her head start site is only a few miles away from a big midwestern university makes many international parents working on their graduate degrees send their children to this particular head start location. different head start locations do not have such a diverse student population. 4.3. a co-constructed identity apparently, ms. anna does not entirely construct her identities on her own. there were times when ms. anna co-construct her identities with her interlocutors. in the context of our interview conversations, i serve as one of her interlocutors. in the following interview excerpt, i seemingly have influenced ms. anna’s discursive construction of her identity as a pre-k teacher. 117 fz: what were some of the ↑reasons for you to choose this kind of job? 118 ma: uhm, it offers health ↑insurance. 119 fz: ↑oh, ok! 120 ma: it has ↑paid days off. 121 fz: uh uh faishal zakaria englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 65 122 ma: it uhm (0.2) it took early childhood ↑degree. a lot of daycares said that you had to have an early childhood degree to be a ↑lead teacher. you must have a degree to be a lead teacher here. in other places or daycares, you do ↑not. so, i obviously got paid more. 125 fz: other than the (.) uhm ↑benefits and financial ↑reasons, do you have any other ↓reasons? 126 ma: i ↑thought i would do something different. i knew i knew what this program was about (.) helping lower-income children and families. 128 fa: ok, ok 129 ma: so, ok i:: give it a ↑try. i’ve always worked with more ↑elite groups. i worked at a place where a lot of ((a midwestern university)) families were. they ↑paid a lot of money and at this place you know so uhm i got to know different kinds of families, especially my main thing i really like the last two years with the ↑multiculturalism 133 fa: ↑nice! when asked why she chose her current profession, ms. anna’s first answer was very practical, listing the benefits she received for taking up the job. in this regard, she presented herself as a pragmatic and practical teacher who still values job security. this is strongly evidenced in line 118-124 where she mentioned all the benefits she received for teaching for the head start program. i, as the interviewer, seemingly did not expect that she would mention “health insurance” as her first answer. in line 119, there was a rise in intonation (i.e. ↑oh, ok!), indicating my surprise. ms. anna explained her credentials (e.g., early childhood education degree) to indicate her credibility as a teacher and her being paid more for such credibility. i immediately asked if she had any other reasons other than financial reasons. ms. anna did respond by mentioning her ability to do something different and assist lowses students and their families (line 127-128). she would not probably say that if i did not ask the follow-up question. here, i have played a part in “helping” ms. anna coconstruct her identity as a head start teacher who served low-ses students. 4.4. an identity of a teacher who is both practical and caring also, i seemed to encourage ms. anna to continue talking about other-thanfinancial-reasons. in line 129, i said, “ok, ok” to encourage ms. anna to say more. i said this because i was expecting ms. anna to say more about her efforts to help low-ses students and their parents. ms. anna compared the students she served in a different daycare where their “elite” parents had to pay a lot of money with her current head start class attended by students from different low-ses backgrounds. here, ms. anna was discursively trying to assert her identity as a teacher who does a “noble” deed, as she was serving low-ses families. as she mentioned in line 132 of the interview excerpt above, ms. anna claims to have valued multiculturalism in her class. i, as the interviewer, found understanding identity construction of an in-service pre-k teacher using discursive psychology 66 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.10, no.2, may 2023 her elaboration interesting, so i continued encouraging her by saying “nice” (in line 133) and the word “nice” to indicate that i approved of what ms. anna said and i was interested to hear more. the excerpt below shows that ms. anna has had positive experiences interacting with people from different countries (e.g., learning more about different cultures, climates, or food). from all of these examples, we could see that ms. anna and i were co-constructing a particular kind of identity for ms. anna; an identity of a teacher who is both practical and caring. 134 ma: and i ↑love meeting people from other ↑countries and they share their cultures with ↓me; whether it’s ↑climate, ↑food uhm raising their children and i really like getting to know people from other countries. and i feel like their children are more ↑well-behaved hum(h)our 4.5. an identity of a lifelong learning teacher although ms. anna has obviously constructed her identities as the one who serves or the one who has power and resources, she also constructed her identities as the one who is eager to learn more. also, this is interesting because, during the early stages of the interview, ms. anna clearly showcased and emphasized her credentials and experiences as a professional pre-k teacher. 167 ma: ((a midwestern university)) helps us like the parents. we’re getting ((a midwestern university)) volunteers we had one this morning, i had one yesterday morning. so, they’re going to school to be teachers or psychologists and we’re using them as service-learning students over here. so, they’re helping ↑me by being extra hands in class and i learn from ↑them because ↑obviously they’re going to ↑school and it’s been 20 years since i’ve been to ↑school. so, i’m still learning from ↑them as ↑well. from line 167 – 172 of the above excerpt, ms. anna explained how she benefits from some university students coming to her class to learn. the fact that she mentioned, “they’re going to ↑school and it’s been 20 years since i’ve been to ↑school. so, i’m still learning from ↑them as well” explains her humbled position as a long-time practitioner but is still willing to learn from younger people who are still attending today’s university classes. also, to emphasize her point, ms. anna raised her intonation on some of the words she used. for example, she raised her intonation when saying the word “school” to indicate temporal differences. she attended school a long time ago thus, she can learn from the students who might learn new things that ms. anna did not get to learn before. therefore, we can also consider her a lifelong learner. 5. discussion the data analysis revealed some interesting themes regarding ms. anna’s discursive identity construction. ms. anna’s construction of a collective identity could fit in bathmakers and avis’ (2013) discussion of occupational and personal professionalism. faishal zakaria englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 67 occupational professionalism is defined as the discourse formed within an occupational entity where “collegial authority” exists. for instance, when ms. anna used the pronoun “we” instead of “i” when arguing that the head start program has provided great service to low-ses students and their families. here, she seemingly acknowledged some “collegial authority” because she did not want to claim all the credits for herself. in fact, the services provided to the low-ses and families would not be possible without her peer and institutional support. therefore, collegial authority is certainly exercised to achieve institutional goals. ms. anna also constructed some personal professionalism as well. for instance, when she was talking about assisting low-ses parents (i.e. providing free daycare to their children) and her fondness for multicultural and diverse classroom populations. she indicated her personal commitment to helping these families so that they could better develop. obviously, ms. anna also enjoyed the presence of international students in her class because that was also some kind of personal development for her. although ms. anna admitted that financial issues were some of the most important reasons for her accepting the job, she later showcased her commitment to the job. she seemed to invest in this kind of classroom environment personally. she claimed, for example, that she loved knowing people from different cultures, trying new food, and learning about new cultures. such construction of occupational and personal professionalism is an example of the combination of personal and professional aspects of self (alsup, 2006). thus, ms. anna here confirms that teacher identity is not a stand-alone professional aspect. things always mix up together, so the construction of identities is always complex. in the case of ms. anna, the fact that i, as the interviewer, might have played an important part in co-constructing her identities suggests the fluidity of the notion of identity construction itself (ruohotie-lyhty et al., 2021; wang et al., 2021). this discussion can then be referred back to davey’s (2013) point that professional identity is always a process of becoming. even though i did not intentionally adopt fairclough’s (2001) ideas to analyze power relations in this project. i noticed ms. anna asserted her power, especially when she claimed to have assisted the students and their parents. in any kind of people-topeople relationship, the power relation is usually present. trent and lim (2010), who adopt fairclough’s framework of power relations, discuss the dynamics of power relationships among participants of school-university partnerships where the power relations among participants are not balanced. the data also suggests that ms. anna is constructing her identity as a lifelong learner when she talks about her willingness to learn from the university students doing the service-learning teaching in her classroom. perhaps, ms. anna is fully aware that being a lifelong learner is crucial in her line of work. ms. anna’s optimistic view of lifelong learning aligns with the existing literature suggesting that professionals who excel and perform well are those involved in lifelong learning activities (e.g., cirocki & understanding identity construction of an in-service pre-k teacher using discursive psychology 68 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.10, no.2, may 2023 farrell, 2019; richardson et al., 2018, zakaria, 2021). in this sense, teachers and educators could catch up with their ever-changing needs and cope with all kinds of challenging teaching in today’s world. this research indeed specifically focuses on the construction of pre-k teachers’ identity construction. however, its findings could seemingly be interpreted as having contributed to the existing literature on other teacher education contexts, such as english language teacher education. it has provided additional insights that understanding teacher identity formation is paramount because it would allow us to understand teachers’ learning and classroom performance (li, 2020; yazan, 2017). 6. conclusion the data reveals the fluidity of teacher identity constructions. as grounded in the data, one can draw a conclusion that identity is not a stand-alone professional aspect because there are always things that mix up together, so the construction of identities is always complex. when studying teachers’ identities, for example, discourse analysts should also pay attention to the spatial and temporal contexts so we can better understand how their identities shape their classroom practices. as in the case of ms. anna her teaching context has shaped how she constructed her teaching identity. for example, she positions herself as a teacher who is fond of multiculturalism. and this is related to the fact that her student population is quite diverse. the findings also showcase the importance of the contributions of the researchers, as interlocutors, in constructing participants’ identit(ies) in this type of discourse analysis. in this sense, this study has also allowed me to practice recognizing my roles during the research process. finally, the findings have also hinted at teacher identity’s centrality in their learning and classroom practices. as suggested by li (2020), paying attention to teacher identity construction is paramount because helping teachers become aware of their identity would eventually help them develop professionally. references alsup, j. 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(2021). a single case study of an online indonesian english teacher educators’ professional development community (28650620) [dissertation, indiana university bloomington]. proquest dissertations publishing englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2022. vol. 10, no.1, 88-106 contrastive analysis of english and indonesian adverbs luthfi auni 1* , abdul manan 2 1 english education department, faculty of tarbiyah and teacher training, universitas islam negeri ar-raniry, banda aceh, indonesia 2 department of islamic history and culture, adab and humanity faculty, universitas islam negeri ar-raniry, banda aceh, indonesian manuscript received august 10, 2022, revised august 23, 2022, accepted august 29, 2022, and published online november 7, 2022. recommended apa citation auni, l. & manan, a. (2022). contrastive analysis of english and indonesian adverbs. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(1), 88-106. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.14692 abstract this study focuses on a contrastive analysis of the characteristics and features of adverbs in english (el) and indonesian (il). it thoroughly explores all similarities and differences of adverbs according to their forms, formations, meanings, and positions in both languages. the study also predicts what sorts of errors the il learners of el may encounter. this research uses a descriptive method using library research in which all data are collected from linguistics books in both languages. the findings show similarities and differences in almost all aspects of el and il adverbs. both languages have two similar forms, origin and derivative. in il, the original and derivative ones can be classified again into reduplication words. next, the adverb formations in both languages use different affixation systems as inflection and derivation. il uses various affixes (prefixes, suffixes, and confixes), while el uses only prefixes and suffixes. referring to adverbs derived from verbs, il ones may be formed through reduplicating the base form of the verbs, while el does not have this system. in forming adverbs derived from nouns, el uses some suffixes, while il uses only one prefix. in terms of their meanings, although both el and il are alike, a significant difference appears that several words are called auxiliaries verbs in el. too, some el verbs have different word classes, concepts, and functions in both languages. those auxiliaries‟ words and verbs are real adverbs as qualifiers in il. then, referring to adverb positions, il adverbs are more mobile in sentences; meanwhile, el ones have certain common positions, * corresponding author: luthfi auni universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh kopelma darussalam, kec. syiah kuala, banda aceh, 23111, indonesia email: luthfi.aunie@ar-raniry.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.14692 luthfi auni & abdul manan englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 89 except some words should be placed permanently. these differences in adverbs in both languages are identified as problems caused by language interference for il students. consequently, the results of this extensive research may be helpful for teachers, students, curriculum development, and teaching materials. keywords: adverbs; contrastive analysis; english; indonesian 1. introduction the english language has been part of every curriculum of study program from the elementary until university levels in indonesia. students are encouraged to be able to master the main four main skills of the english language such as reading, listening, speaking and writing. mastering the main skills as mentioned above for indonesian students is challenging. during the process of acquiring the el, indonesian students inevitably might produce improper utterances that deviate from the different systems and characteristics of the el. this is due to the fact that since il and el have a variety of differences, indonesian students need to adapt themselves to the new system of el which is very much different from their native language. this existing difference in the characteristics and system between il and the el, for instance, needs a serious attention in finding out some ways out to deal with (celce-murcia & olshtain, 2001; richards & renandya, 2002 as cited in amiruddin, 2019) some factors that may cause the mastery of english are due to the existence of differences of grammar, structures and sounds between the first language of the leaners and el affecting the of teaching learning process. in regard to indonesian students, one of the most salient aspects of problem can clearly be viewed from features of adverbs according to their forms, formations, meanings and positions which are different from the el ones. first, in terms of form for instance, il has reduplication words which are not found in el. second, in the aspect of formations, different and various affixation in el of derivative adverbs and il affixation systems also create another problem for indonesian students. third, in view of meaning, a group of words has different concept in both languages. the differences in features and functions make indonesian students trapped in problems such as auxiliary words and some verbs in english which are classified as real adverbs in il. and fourth, relating to positions, il adverbs are freely mobile in sentences and without affecting their meanings, while in el ones have strict rule or order in sentence structures. based on the above explanation, this study will critically demonstrate and explore as well examine the similarities and differences between el and il adverbs. in addition, as the final part, this research is directed not only to find out similarities and differences adverbs in both languages, but also include some predictions of the potential problems or obstacles of teaching and learning. lado (1957, p.59) mentions that “……those contrastive analysis of english and indonesian adverbs 90 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 structures that are different will be difficult because when transferred they will not function satisfactorily in the foreign language and will therefore have to be changed.” this work uses contrastive analysis method as its main theory to deal with. the selection of contrastive analysis theory for this study is based on the premise that learning a language is learning a set of habits and consequently considered errors as interference due to the habits that were transferred from the mother tongue to the l2. it is also believed that by making a comparison between the two languages most of the learners‟ errors could be predicted (lin, chen & chang, 2020). in other words, contrastive analysis is based on the prediction of errors on the basis of differences between the source and the target language. it is believed that the more differences between the two languages, the more difficulty the l2 leaners may face. the results of comparison between english and indonesian adverbs will be analyzed through this method and will reveal which category that the indonesian students face most and common problems. the findings of this research, hopefully, will be useful for the teachers and linguists in developing teaching and learning materials especially for indonesian students. 2. literature review literature review is a comprehensive investigation of the available theoretical background including from books and scholarly articles related to research areas and theories. in this section, the researcher provides a description, summary, and critical evaluation of works concerning the research problem being investigated. literature reviews are aimed at providing an overview of sources that have been explored while researching a particular topic to notify the potential readers how the research fits within a larger field of study. 2.1. contrastive analysis even though contrastive analysis, as a potential predictor of the influence of the learners‟ first language on the second language and the resultant errors, has been subject to criticism (eckman, 1977; oller & ziahosseiny, 1970; wardaugh, 1970; james, 1998; keshavarz, 2012; gülden, 2021), it is somehow believed that contrastive analysis, is still applicable in the sphere of language acquisition of target leaning process. the facts show that contrastive analysis projects have been carried out in different parts of the world to avoid errors in specific language areas until this day. gas and selinker (2008) write that second language acquisition refers to the process of leaning another language after the native language has been learned. the habits of using learner‟s first language, to a great extent, will interfere with leaning of the target language. this view implies that the influence of native language as prior experience cannot be denied in teaching learning process of a target language. therefore, contrastive analysis can be applied to find out difficulties and ease of the second language learners (fisiak, 1981). this is due to reality that the principal barrier to second language acquisition is the interference of luthfi auni & abdul manan englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 91 the first system to the new second language system, and therefore, a scientific and structural analysis of the two languages in question would yield a taxonomy of linguistic contrasts between them which gives a highlight for language teachers and linguists to be able to predict the difficulties faced by the learners of the target language (brown, 2000). broadly speaking, discussing the contras of two different languages, contrastive analysis is one of the main theories which are still used until this day since it is a branch of linguistic approach. historically, contrastive analysis hypothesis (cah) in sphere of linguistics may be traced back to the study of fries in 1945. then, followed by lado with his famous work „linguistic across culture focusing on the foundation of cah which discusses on the problems of interference in language acquisition. lado (1957) clearly depicted that both leaners and users of language transfer the forms and meaning and other related structures as the influence of the leaners‟ first language to the target language (ara, 2021). further, bhela (1999) depicts that many of difficulties of second the language learners referred to the phonology, vocabulary and grammar of the target language are caused by the interference of habit from l1. kridalaksana (2009) mentions that contrastive analysis is a method of synchronizing in language analysis to show similarities and differences among the languages and dialects as to find the principle that can be applied for practical purposes such as language teaching and translation. johansson, 2008 as as cited in kazazoğlu (2020) mentions that contrastive analysis is the systematic comparison of two or more languages that deal with their similarities and differences. further, fisiak (1981) depicts that contrastive analysis or contrastive linguistic as a sub discipline of linguistic sphere focuses on the comparison in the languages or subsystems of languages. brown (2000) clearly mentions that the first language of the leaners influences and interfere when learning a foreign language. therefore, the comparison and contrast of language will be useful for teachers and linguists to predict the errors the language learners may make. further lado (1957), is of the view that contrastive study on language plays an important role regarding the second and foreign learning in that the result of the comparison between the first and the foreign language will facilitate the process of teaching learning since the features of differences within the two-language compared are the source of the difficulties in learning, while the features of similarities are the easy ones and at the same time it can be used or curriculum development, selection of materials and identification of problems the leaners face when leaning a target language. according to mudhs (2021) the principles of contrastive analysis of lado are in line with structural linguists perceiving that a rulegoverned system within a language can be hierarchically ordered in three levels of language learning from phonological aspects, to morphological and then syntactical scopes. basically, contrastive analysis is a means of comparison on the characteristics and features of within two languages to find out the similarities and differences and as such contrastive analysis of english and indonesian adverbs 92 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 would be able to predict the errors the students make. tarigan (2009) more clearly is of opinion that contrastive analysis as a tool of identifying errors in learning the target language by the second language learners, which has been practiced in the application of structural linguistic in language teaching is basically held at least three assumptions as (1) there must an interference of li in learning a new language or target language, (2). some problems faced in learning a new language or target language can be predicted by using contrastive analysis, (3) contrastive analysis can be used as guidance for a teacher, especially a teacher of english in teaching pronunciation, in term of phonology. from the description above, it may be concluded that contrastive analysis is applicable in comparing two or more different languages from the viewpoints of their characteristics and features. through this way, the results may be used to find out predictions of some difficulties the foreign language learners face and give some recommendations that may be useful not only for language teachers in particular but also for materials of teaching programs in general. regarding to this, keshavarz (2012); is of the opinion that contrastive analysis covers features within two languages, identifying the diversities and then predicting what errors would make. its scope deals with two main purposes: to provide an explanation for the causing factors of the students, errors, and to give information for identifying which parts of the target‟s structure need to be paid attention to teach by teachers. as a result, teaching learning process of the target language by the learners of other languages may reduce if not fully eliminate the common problems and errors they make when they are studying a foreign language. 2.2. procedure of contrastive analysis scope as depicted above that in linguistic sphere, contrastive analysis which is one of the most important methods that have been playing role in linguistic comparison and contrast focus on the errors of the leaners of the target language. it is nonetheless to say that the study of the errors made by learners to a great extent is unavoidable as many linguists mentioned above to overcome problems faced by the students. in terms of the scope of identifying errors that students may make in learning a target language, contrastive analysis may be used as a tool in language acquisition. in this regard, grami and alzughaibi, as cited in bukhari (2022) and khansir and pakdel (2019) mention that contrastive analysis studies consist of four common procedures, namely description of two languages; selection (a sets of items selected for comparison); comparison (identification of areas of difference and similarity); and prediction (identification of areas likely to cause errors due to language difference and learning difficulty). keshavarz (2012) further adds that there are five procedures in comparing two more languages, namely selection, description, comparison, prediction and verification. first, selection refers to focus of the similar elements of the languages to be compared and contrasted. description should be in line with certain linguistic luthfi auni & abdul manan englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 93 items description, structure or rule, the linguist or language teacher‟s experiences through scientific questions emphasizing and basing on a parallel description of the systems of two different languages. comparison deals with comparing and contrasting the two systems by juxtaposing features of the two languages to identify similarities and differences on three levels such as form, meaning, and distribution of form. prediction refers to difficulties the students may face as the results of identifying similarities and differences which are found from the comparison of the languages. verification, on the other hand, is the way of reaching the identification whether the predictions made about errors and difficulties actually materialize or not and finding out whether second language learners in reality commit the type of errors predicted on the basis of the two language or sub-systems of those languages. 3. method in order to develop the current work, it is necessary to turn to bibliographic investigation which was taken basically from el and il textbooks, journals, dictionaries and internet. the study was conducted to compare and contrast between el and il adverbs according to their forms, formations, meanings and positions. these four aspects were analyzed thoroughly and orderly in order to be able to depict the characteristics and features or natures of adverbs in english and indonesian. the study used the qualitative-descriptive method since this study tries to describe the existing phenomenon without manipulating. the data were critically analyzed and examined using contrastive analysis theory to find out some similarities and differences of adverbs in english and indonesian according to their forms, formations, meanings and positions. then, the data were marked to find out some predictions of the most common problems that may be faced by indonesian students and recommendations for both teachers of indonesia and english-speaking teachers in teaching learning process of el as the foreign language to indonesian students. 4. findings findings and discussion section is where the researchers report the results of the study based upon the methodology they applied to obtain significant information regarding their research focus. this section should state the findings of the research arranged in a logical sequence without any bias interpretation. the discussion will always connect to the introduction by ways of the research questions have been formulated and the theories or literature have been reviewed. nevertheless, it does not simply reiterate or rearrange the introduction; the discussion should always explain how the study has relocated the readers‟ understanding of the research questions or problems from where the researchers left them at the end of the introduction section. 4.1. the comparison between el and il adverbs 4.1.1. definition contrastive analysis of english and indonesian adverbs 94 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 in accordance with the definition, el and il adverbs refer to similar sense that is to use the same idea that an adverb is a word used to qualify a verb, an adjective or another adverb (alwi, et al., 2003; ambary, 1982; chaer, 2008, 2009; huddleston, 1984). 4.1.2. classification of adverbs according to forms the classification of adverbs according to their forms in both languages is different. some english grammarians are formulating adverb categories based on their forms in various views. huddleston (1984) mentions that lexically adverbs are classified into four forms as complex, compound and simple, meanwhile homer and harman (1951) classify into two forms as origin and derivative. while in il adverbs may be classified according to their forms into three forms as origin, reduplication, and derivative (alwi, et al., 2003). this shows the different systems of the two languages. in this regard, in indonesian, the original one can be classified again into reduplication adverbs, while it is not in el. another difference is that derivational forms of indonesian adverbs may also be reduplicated, of course, it is also not found in el. 4.1.3. classification of adverbs according to their formations both languages share the same idea in forming adverbs – adverb formation from the adverb themselves and derivational adverb formations from other word classes, such as from adjectives, verbs, and nouns, as will be depicted in the following discussion. 4.1.3.1 formation of compound adverbs in forming compound adverbs, english and indonesia share similar concept in which a compound adverb is done by the combinations of two or more words which form a unity and have their particular meaning (jackson & zé amvela, 2007; urbom, 1998; wren & martin, 1990). however, this kind of adverb is quite small in number (huddleston, 1984). a big different that occurs between el and ilil compound adverbs is that in english compound adverbs may be formed by combining or joining words in various ways and word classes, but in il the compound ones are formed from the words which are very closed to each other. for better understanding, they will be depicted in the following some examples. el: midway meantime wherever however hereafter forever today indeed anywhere nowhere thereby whereby elsewhere someplace inasmuch nevertheless notwithstanding il: lebih kurang amat sangat bila nanti tidak tentu sesegera mungkin 4.1.3.2. reduplication adverbs luthfi auni & abdul manan englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 95 reduplication adverb is only found in the formation of adverbs in il, and this system is not found in el. these reduplication adverbs are formed by reduplicating either partially or completely of the base form of adverbs (alwi, et al., 2003; chaer, 2008; setyaningsih & rahardi, 2020). il: kadang kadang-kadang sekali sekali-kali perlahan perlahan-lahan 4.1.3.3. adverbs formation from adverbs themselves with affixes in the formation of adverbs from adverbs themselves by the addition of affixes is quite different in both languages. in el, there are five negative prefixes such as, ‘dis-, un-, in-, im-, and irir-„ (cambridge, n.d.) used to form adverbs from adverbs themselves, which do not appear in il ones. il uses the word „not‟ (tidak and tak,) for expressing negation for all adverbs. other differences are that there are two prefixes such as, ‘se-, and ter-‘, in il that are used to form adverbs from adverbs themselves. further il adverbs can be formed from adverbs themselves by means of suffixes such as, ‘-nya, -pun, and –lah, and a confix as, ‘se—nya’ (alwi, et al., 2003; chaer, 2008). el: loyal – disloyal; happily – unhappily; perfectly – imperfectly; correctly – incorrectly; regularly – irregularly, etc. il: tak or tidak + adverbs (tak/tidak setia; tak/tidak bahagia; tak/ tidak sempurna; tak/tidak benar; tak/tidak beraturan), etc. il uses at least three kinds of affixes such as prefixes, confixes and suffixes in forming adverbs from adverbs themselves (chaer, 2008). this kind of affix system is not found in el, except the negative prefixes as have been depicted above. il: with prefixes se-, ter, and se-reduplication belum – sebelum; sudah-sesudah; mula-semula; kian-sekian lalu – terlalu; lampau -terlampau sekali – sesekali; mena – semena-mena il: with confix, se—nya and sereduplication -nya mesti – semestinya; pantas -sepantasnya lambat – selambat-lambatnya; cepat – secepat-cepatnya. il: with suffixes, -nya, -pun, and –lah maka makanya meski meskipun biar biarlah contrastive analysis of english and indonesian adverbs 96 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 from the above explanation and examples, we can draw a conclusion that both languages use prefixes with respective systems. then, el has pairs of negative prefixes, while indonesian has not. to denote the negative meaning as in el, il uses the word „not‟ (tidak) for adverbs. in addition to using prefixes, il also uses three prefixes, a confix and three suffixes. for sure this kind affix system is not found in the formation of adverbs from adverbs themselves in el. 4.1.3.4. derivational adverbs the derivative adverbs may be identified by their affixes, or by their compound or phrasal nature, being formed by combining or joining words in various ways. in this regard, both el and il use various affixes in forming derivational adverbs from adjectives, verbs and nouns. alwi, et al. (2003) mentions another class of word to this kind of indonesian adverb namely numeral adverb as he categorizes indonesian derivational adverbs into adverbial deverbal, adverbia deadjektival, adverbial denominal and adverbial denumeral. to their differences, here will be described one by one with a deep explanation and followed by their respective examples. 4.1.3.5. adverbs derived from adjectives in forming adverbs from adjectives, el and il have different nature and feature. in el, adverbs may be formed from adjectives by the addition of suffix „-ly‟ (givon, 1993), and a prefix „a-„ (huddleston, 1984; maguire, 1998). meanwhile in il, adverbs have the same form as adjectives or without any addition of affixes. el: he is slow. (adjective) he walks slowly. (adverb) it is a long story. (adjective) i come along. (adverb) my sister has a loud voice. (adjective) my brother reads aloud. (adverb) il: dia lambat. (adjective) dia berjalan lambat. (adverb) gedung itu tinggi. (adjective) kapal itu terbang tinggi. (adverb) kakakku memiliki suara keras (adjective) abangku membaca secara keras. (adverb) 4.1.3.6. adverbs derived from verbs as far i am concerned, it seems that el does not have any adjectives which are directly derived from verbs. but il has this feature or this adverb is derived from verb (alwi, et al., 2003). the way of forming this kind of adverbs is by reduplicating the base form of the verbs. el: not existed il: buru becomes buru-buru tahu becomes tahu-tahu luthfi auni & abdul manan englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 97 tiba becomes tiba-tiba kira becomes kira-kira 4.1.3.7. adverbs derived from nouns from a deep analysis on the source book of el and il, both languages have the nature of forming adverbs from nouns with affixes. el uses some suffixes such as. –ly, -ward(s), –ways and –wise (huddleston, 1984; thomson, martinet, & draycott, 1986) and a prefix a-. while il uses a prefix „se-, and a suffix –nya (chaer, 2009). el: day becomes daily. friend becomes friendly. length becomes lengthwise. clock becomes clockwise. back becomes backward(s) front becomes frontward (s) side becomes sideways. edge becomes edgeways. head becomes ahead part becomes apart il: rupa becomes serupa or rupanya. kali becomes sekali hati becomes sehati in addition to the above, as alwi, et.al. (2003) mentions that there is also another kind of il derivational adverb which are derived from numeral, by way of reduplicating the numeral words such as sedikit-sedikit mereka marah; kalau belajar jangan setengah-setengah; ambil buku itu dua-dua, etc. 4.1.4. classification of adverbs according to meanings in overall, both el and il share the quite different points of view when seeing the classification of adverbs according their meanings. in el, adverbs may be classified into adverb of manner, of place, of time, of frequency, of sentence, of degree, of interrogative and of relative (thomson, et al., 1986). meanwhile in il according its meaning, some grammarians have different points of view. alwi, et al., (2003) depict that there are eight kinds such as adverbs of quantitative, qualitative, limitative, frequency, time, manner, contrastive, and certainty. surana (1983) classifies the adverbs into six kinds as adverb of time, place, modality, degree, condition, and instrument. in this case, i tend to follow the classification stated by surana since the scope is the same even though they name differently. contrastive analysis of english and indonesian adverbs 98 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 after analyzing the data in both languages, the classification of adverbs according to their meaning is almost the same, except for several words which are called auxiliaries in el such as, will, must, have to, can, may, ought to, used to, etc, and some el verbs such as, like, need, want, and wish. in il, these words are included in adverb of modality whose function is real adverbs. el: he will go to market. aux she must study hard. aux my sister can speak english. aux her father needs a history book. v his brother likes swimming. v they want to study indonesian. v we wish you every success. v il: dia akan pergi ke pasar. adv dia mesti belajar rajin. adv kakakku dapat berbicara bahasa inggris. adv bapaknya perlu buku sejarah. adv abangnya suka berenang. adv mereka ingin belajar bahasa indonesia. adv kami ingin kamu sukses. adv 4.1.5. classification of adverbs according to positions generally, the positions of el and il adverbs are variable in sentences based on the types of adverbs. this means that the positions of adverbs cannot be used as a way of identifying them with certainty. el and il adverbs should be placed in a position that is natural for a native user of the language and that will represent his desired emphasis. luthfi auni & abdul manan englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 99 in general, as leech, cruickshank, and ivanic (2001) mention that there are three main positions of el adverbs in sentences as front position-before the subject, middle position, and end position-at the end of the clause. however, in il, they are more mobile and moveable such as can stand in front of subject, between subject and predicate, between two verbs, and at the end of sentences (parkamin, 1982; alwi, et.al, 2003). in order to see such differences, below are the description followed by examples of some kinds of adverbs showing the differences between el and il. 4.1.5.1 most common position of adverbs of time. el: we are working now or now we are working. she retuns from ohio today or today, she returns from ohio. il: kami sedang kerja sekarang or sekarang kami sedang kerja or kami sekarang sedang kerja. dia pulang dari ohio besok or besok dia pulang dari ohio or dia besok pulang dari ohio or dia pulang besok dari ohio. 4.1.5.2 position of adverb of frequency in el, adverbs of frequency have several common positions. in affirmative statements, they usually stand before the main verb when there no „be‟. they follow „be‟ when it is the main verb in a sentence. in negative statements, they follow „not‟, and. in questions, they follow the subject. however, in il, this kind of adverbs may take various positions, as illustrated below. el: john usually makes funny. he is seldom in time for meal. catherine doesn‟t often come to my house. does catherine ever come to your house? if the four examples above are transferred into il, they have more mobile positions in the il sentence structure. il: john selalu membuat kelucuan. john membuat kelucuan selalu selalu john membuat kelucuan. dia jarang makan tepat waktu. jarang dia makan tepat waktu. dia makan jarang tepat waktu. catherine tidak sering datang ke rumahku. tidak sering chaterine datang ke rumahku. contrastive analysis of english and indonesian adverbs 100 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 chaterine datang ke rumahku tidak sering. apakah john pernah datang ke rumahmu? pernahkah john datang ke rumahmu? apakah pernah john datang ke rumahmu? 4.1.5.3 positions of adverbs of manner or situation the most common position of el adverbs of manner is immediately after the verb when there is no object, or immediately after the object of a sentence (thomson et al., 1986). while in il, again this kind of adverbs is more mobile in il sentence structures (parkamin, 1982). el: she speaks politely. he called me gently. we learned english gradually. or gradually we learned english (for emphasis). if the examples above are transferred into il system, they may be placed in various ways without changing the meanings of the sentences. il: dia bicara dengan sopan. dia dengan sopan bicara. dengan sopan dia bicara. dia memanggil saya secara lembut. dia secara lembut memanggil saya. secara lembut dia memanggil saya. 4.1.5.4 positions of adverbs of degree el adverbs of degree occur in some positions. if it modifies an adjective or another adverb, it is placed before the adjective or adverb. in addition, some adverbs of degree can also be used to modify verbs. yet again, this kind of adverbs is more mobile in il sentences. el: today is too hot to work. the film was fairly good. i know him quite well. he played extremely badly. il: hari ini sangat panas untuk bekerja. sangat panas hari ini untuk bekerja. film itu sangat bagus. sangat bagus film itu. saya kenal dia sangat baik. saya sangat baik kenal dia. luthfi auni & abdul manan englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 101 or, sangat baik saya kenal dia. dia bermain sangat jelek. sangat jelek dia bermain. dia sangat jelek bermain. 4.1.5.5 positions of adverbs of place and direction in el, the most common position of adverbs of place and direction is after the verbs or at the end of the sentences. meanwhile, in il, this kind of adverbs may take various positions, as depicted in the following examples. el: john comes inside. she painted that picture here. il: john masuk ke dalam or ke dalam john masuk. dia lukis gambar itu di sini or di sini gambar itu dia lukis or dia di sini lukis gambar itu. 4.1.5.6 positions of adverbs of cause the position of adverbs of cause shares the same position both in el and il. the most usual position of this kind of adverbs is at the very beginning of a sentence. el: consequently he is leaving therefore i refer this case to you. il: akibatnya dia pergi. dengan demikian saya tunjukkan kasus ini pada anda. 5. discussion in accordance with adverb forms, both el and il share two same classifications as origin and derivation. however, in il there is another form called reduplication which is not found in el system. this reduplication adverbs in il will influence the mastering of el adverbs because el does not recognize this classification. the absence of this kind of adverb in el, indonesian students are quite difficult in expressing the il reduplication form into el. in short, the problems faced by indonesian students here is to change their habits when they study el adverbs according to their forms. referring to classification of adverbs according to their formations, at least there are seven problems faced by indonesian students when studying el adverbs according to their formations; first is the use of the same prefix –a to an adjective and to a noun. the fact is that there is a prefix ‘a-‘ in el which is used both forming adverbs from both adjectives and nouns represent one of difficulties in teaching this adverb to indonesian students. beside the use of the prefix ‘a-‘ can be applied to adjectives and nouns such loud – aloud and cross – ahead. beside this formation is not found in il, there are also several words which are after being formed into adverbs either from adjectives or from nouns have very different meanings from their original sources. second is adverb negative prefixes with their respective pairs of words in el. there are five negative prefixes, such as dis-, un-, in-, ir-, and im-, used to form adverbs from contrastive analysis of english and indonesian adverbs 102 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 adverbs themselves and every prefix has its own pair which cannot be freely used will also cause indonesian students difficult to study them. in il, to express this kind of adverbs is always used the word „not‟ (tak or tidak) to all il adverbs. third is forming adverbs from adverb themselves using different affixes. another difficulty which can be found in teaching el adverbs is that il has three prefixes as, ‘ter-, ber-, and se-‟ used to form adverbs from adverbs themselves, while el does not. in el, to present this form of adverbs need several particles to the source words of el such as hurriedly which comes from hurry-hurried-hurriedly? fourth is the same form of adjectives and adverbs in il without affixes. generally, il adverbs have the same form as adjectives or without any changing at all. the habits of using the two classes of word as in one way will make indonesian students difficult in studying el adverbs because in ef, except for some words, adverbs derived from adjectives are commonly added suffix ‘-ly’. fifth is the use of the suffix -ly with certain rules in el. beside the difficulties which have been illustrated above, there are also some other difficulties in teaching el adverbs which are derived from adjectives by the addition of suffix –ly, because there are some certain rules that must be understood well before the –ly ending is added. in other words, a few spelling rules need to be observed when adding –ly to adjectives such (a). adjectives with final „y‟ preceded by a consonant. the ‘y’ is changed to ‘i’; (b). with adjectives ending in, -ble, -ple,-tle, and –dle, the le is dropped before –ly; (c). with adjectives ending in ‘-ic. before adding –ly, it must be added –al after suffix –ic; and (d). with adjectives ending in ‘l’, the ‘l’ must be kept before adding the suffix –ly. the explanation and examples above are really difficult in teaching el adverbs with suffix –ly because if the rules are not understood well, it will cause a serious problem for indonesian students. finally, derivative reduplication adverbs from verbs in il which are not found in el. the fact is that there are some il reduplication adverbs from verbs which are not found in el will make indonesian students difficult in stating those words into el, e.g., tiba – tiba-tiba; buru – buru-buru english equivalent is suddenly and hurriedly. it is clear to us that this case will be difficult for indonesian students in changing the words into el because il adverbs, as written in the examples, derived from verbs, whereas, in english they are derived from adjectives. based on the comparison on their meaning in the previous discussion, there are many similarities found in both languages. however, according to the writer‟s search that there is a serious difficulty in teaching a group of words called auxiliaries in el which are placed as verbs functioning as predicates in the el sentences. but this group of words is placed as real adverbs functioning as qualifiers in il sentences. another difficulty which may be noticed is that there are some adverbs of place in el which cannot be preceded by a proposition. meanwhile, in il, all adverbs of place are always preceded by the preposition. again, this different view in both languages promotes luthfi auni & abdul manan englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 103 difficulty in the part of indonesian students such as his sister departs abroad (kakaknya berangkat ke luar negeri; he plays outside (dia bermain di luar). in connection with the positions of el adverbs, there are some difficulties found after analyzing and comparing the two languages. in il, adverbs can be placed more freely and mobile than el ones such as, they may stand before predicates, at the very beginning of sentences, between two verbs, or at the very end of sentences. it is clear to us that the teaching of el adverbs‟ positions will be one of serious problems faced by indonesian students because in el, they will be placed in certain positions. in other words, they must be placed in natural positions or cannot be put freely within the sentences. as a result, indonesian students have to understand well the standard features and certain rules of el adverbs based on their normal and common positions in el words order. otherwise, indonesian students tend to apply the il systems into el. 6. conclusion from analysis of the data and findings, it can be drawn some certain conclusions that various differences between el and il adverbs according to their forms, formations, meaning and positions obviously parts of the obstacles the indonesian students face. first, the habits of using reduplication words in il, for instance, will inevitably raises a problem. the students tend to transfer this form to the english utterances. second, in the formation of adverbs, there are several difficulties which are caused by different affixes systems which may create confusion for indonesian students. el uses the same prefixes lyand athat may be used to form adverbs from adjective and noun. further, there are some indonesian adverbs derived from nouns and verbs by reduplicating the base form of them, whereas they are not found in el. again, there are a set of negative prefixes with some special rules in forming adverbs from adjectives in el. this variety of negative prefixes is really difficult for indonesian students to master since they have to be able to memorize the complex rules in forming this kind of adverbs. third, in accordance with adverbs classification according to their meanings, there are three difficulties. firstly, there are the differences of the function of a group of words in both languages so far. this contrary concept of certain auxiliary words and certain verbs between el and il will be a serious problem for indonesian students when learning el. this is due to the fact that auxiliaries and some verbs in el are real adverbs in il. further, there are some of el adverbs which may not be added a preposition, while in il they must be added the prepositions, for instance (home, downtown, overseas, abroad, there, here, etc = ke rumah, ke kota, ke luar negeri, ke sana, ke sini). fourth, in terms of adverb positions, there is a serious problem due to different concept between el and il. syntactically, in el, adverbs should be placed in certain positions, while in il, they may be placed freely and moveable in sentences, except only for some words. in order to help the indonesian students in mastering el adverbs, it is necessary that the teachers should know, among other thing, what causes them is the interference of contrastive analysis of english and indonesian adverbs 104 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 student‟s native languages in learning the new language. they may not know properly all about this, unless they know what kinds of differences exist between el and the native language of the student. this implies that they have to analyze the student‟s native language. then, english teachers should know well the grammar of the student‟s native language. moreover, the teachers should pay a special attention in teaching and explaining the use of tenses and auxiliary verbs because il does not know either tenses or auxiliaries, and even the function of auxiliaries in both languages is contrary, in english as predicates, but in il as adverbs. references alwi, h., dardjowidjojo, s., lapoliwa, h., & moeliono, a. m. 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(1990). high school english grammar and composition. india: s chand. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2021. vol. 9, no. 1, 33-49 translation techniques used in translating a smartphone user manual faisal mustafa universitas syiah kuala, banda aceh, indonesia faisal.mustafa@unsyiah.ac.id zulfadli a. aziz * universitas syiah kuala, banda aceh, indonesia zulfadli.aziz@unsyiah.ac.id ihsanul khabri universitas syiah kuala, banda aceh, indonesia khabri1995@gmail.com manuscript received a u g u s t 2 , 2021, revised august 27, 2021, first published november 1, 2021, and available online november 7, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i1.10494 recommended apa citation mustafa, f., aziz, z. a., & khabri, i. (2021). translation techniques used in translating a smartphone user manual. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(1), 33-49. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i1.10494 abstract as many smartphones are imported from overseas and the user manuals are written in english, the translation of a user manual is, therefore, very important for the indonesian customers whose english is not their second language. good translation results are then very essential in order that the customers understand the information easily and clearly. the focus of this research is the bilingual english-indonesian samsung‟s gt-19500 user manual. this research aims to find translation techniques applied in the book. in this descriptive research, the sentences were the tokens that were recorded in microsoft excel. the tokens were then analyzed based on the categories of translation techniques in question. it was found that there were nine translation techniques used in the user manual. the translation techniques used in samsung‟s gt-19500 user manual are borrowing (41%), literal translation (25%), calque (13%), transposition (7%), equivalence (6%), adaptation (5.3%), modulation (3%), and omission (2%). therefore, the techniques used in translating a smartphone user manual are unique to this type of  corresponding author translation techniques used in translating a smartphone user manual 34 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 document because the document consists of many terms without indonesian equivalence. keywords: smartphone; translation techniques; user manual 1. introduction as the process of converting the original language into another language in written or spoken version (hatim & munday, 2004, p. 3), translation is therefore to preserve and finding equivalence when expressing source language into target language. translating a source text into acceptable target language that can be understood is the primary objective of a translator. however, there are cases where translation errors may occur. ranganathan (2007, p. 10) states that the errors may happen in translation because no texts can be translated the same way regardless of type. when there are nonequivalence words between source and target language, a translator might find it difficult in translating the text and ends up guessing the best equivalence for the text. alfaori (2017) suggests that the translator is aware of this purpose so that they can put their effort in delivering acceptable meaning in the target text because if one part of the translation is lost, the translation is a failure, and it may blur the meaning which creates a non-equivalent translation. therefore, to translate the source language into an acceptable form, proper techniques of translation are deemed to be employed. in fact, some translation techniques have been introduced. mahadi and moindjie (2006) categorize translation techniques into (1) literal translation, (2) borrowing, (3) transference, (4) calque, (5) transposition, (6) modulation, (7) equivalence, (8) adaptation, and (9) componential analysis, and each of which can be applied at the linguistic levels of lexis, grammar and text. some of these techniques also appears in newmark (1988). each of these techniques helps a translator categorizes and finds the equivalence of source language and target language. translation techniques are used in many areas such as translation of a book, translation of a movie, and translation of an electronic product user manuals. one of the aspects needed to consider when translating a source language to target language is culture. culture is a vehicle to any language since it describes manner of life, thinking, and perception of a society. due to its uniqueness from one place and the other, mahadi and moindjie (2006) state that cultural problems are factors that cause significant implications on translation and translators. culture as described by serrat (2017, p. 32) is the set of attitudes, values, beliefs, and behaviors shared by a group of people, communicated from one generation to the next. because the culture is different in every society, when translating a text, a translator should keep in mind what word will be acceptable and easy to understand for the target society. in this century, technology has been connected to us as an important aspect in life. al-zoubi and younes (2015, p. 82) state that people distant relationship has been faisal mustafa, zulfadli a. aziz, & ihsanul khabri englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 35 facilitated by technology, and people are aware of technology requirement in their life. smartphones coincidently have become one of the advances that help human communication and interaction. with many ranges of uses such as social media, meeting people trough video call, smartphone popularity has increased rapidly. according soomro and sarwar (2013, p. 216), smartphone was initially perceived as business-only tool because of the price and application, but today smartphone have many extended functions that make it very popular. as smartphone technology develops, people may need information about its new features, functions, facilities, etc. which users have yet known how to operate and use. therefore, smartphone companies need to provide users with a user manual. now that the smartphones are manufactured overseas with their user manuals written mostly in english, a translation is provided to inform the contents of the book to the customers. among many kinds of smartphones, samsung smartphone is the focus of this research. it is a very popular brand of smartphone that many people use in indonesia. therefore, the user manual of samsung smartphone model gt-19500 had been the subject of this study. the user manual is written two languages, and it is translated from english into indonesia. the user manual provides information and detail of a smartphone and how to use it. . there have been many studies on the translation techniques used in translating texts from english into indonesian, such as translation of magazine articles (mustafa & kholid, 2019), novels (aziz, 2015), web pages (kamil, 2014), and tourism news texts (ariyaningsih & santika, 2018). however, translation of a technology manual book is underresearched. therefore, this study analyzed the translation techniques used in a smartphone user manual to find out the most frequently used translation techniques to translate this type of document from english into indonesian. the results of the study are significant for translators to adjust their translation technique when they are working on documents involving technology device operation. 2. literature review in the translation process, according to darwish (2003, p. 3), a constant decision needs to be made by a translator, and knowledge in linguistic and cultural aspect is used in order to make a clear information in the target language. serova (2014, p. 48) believes that people get their understanding of language based on their environment such as “social scopes and culture”. translators will learn how to translate on their own, with exercise on translating a language, making “trial and error” of translating source text into target text, and acquiring knowledge from there (robinson, 2003, pp. 90-91). they instill their knowledge and experience to finish the translation of the text (remkhe & nefedova, 2014, p. 237). lederer (1994) then provided the steps on the process, i.e. reading and understanding, de-verbalization, and re-expression. reading and understanding mean that translators are tested on their knowledge and skills to understand the meaning of source language (sl). de-verbalization is the process of translation techniques used in translating a smartphone user manual 36 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 sensing without relying on words before it comes to there-expression process when a translator completes the translation to the target language (tl) based on the sense. in order to translate text correctly, some techniques are needed to apply. as a functional, discourse and contextual result of a translation process that is in proportion to original text (bardaji, 2009, p. 169), translation techniques need to be acquired by translators to ease their job. ordudari (2007, p. 2) has described the challenges with the issues of forms, meaning, styles, proverbs, idiom, etc. in translating a text into a target language. molina and albir (2002, p. 499), therefore, suggest that translation technique is proposed to help the process of translating. guerra (2012, p. 5) argues that the translators should be aware of cultural differences between languages and should use various methods or techniques to close the gap. 2.1. translation techniques there are some translation techniques that a translator can usually employ. different experts propose different techniques of translation. in this study, we only focus on some techniques proposed by molina and albir (2002) that the translator of our object of study has used in translating the user manual. 2.1.1. literal translation literal translation also known as word for word translation, and it is, according to walinski (2015, p. 60) the act of transferring source language and its grammatical rule directly into target language. according to molina and albir (2002, p. 510), literal translation is translating word to word from source language into target language. fang and lu (2012, p. 743) say that the work of literal translation always pin-points to its narrow form, like word to word through group to group, collocation to collation, clause to clause, and sentence to sentence. they also add that a translator cannot change the original message of what the author conveys in the text, so the translator must literally translate it even if it has badly written text. however, blake (2003, p. 22) suggests that lacking correspondence of words in the cultural aspect may result in translating the text literally, and it can cause the meaning or context to be lost. 2.1.2. borrowing borrowing is transferring the pure word or expression straight from the source language (guerra, 2012, p. 7). according to hoffer (2002, p. 2) borrowing can occur due to many factors, such as close contact of nations, the advent of media that introduce another type of language, cultural contact in linguistic and communicative elements and market spread of foreign products from another nation. borrowing is used to incorporate new element into the speakers‟ native language which causes transfer and copying process of foreign word (haspelmath, 2009, p. 36). faisal mustafa, zulfadli a. aziz, & ihsanul khabri englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 37 2.1.3. calque calque imitates the source language and reproduces the meaning to make use of its linguistic elements (larizgoitia, 2010, p. 15). dizier and garnier (2009, p. 20) say that calque covers three major situations: lexical calque, position calque, and temporal calque. lexical calque, according to dizier and garnier (2009, p. 20), occurs when specific word from source language is used as preposition to target language object. larizgoitia (2010, p. 22) adds that in the lexical calque the process involves analyzing the source word and later replaces it. furthermore, position calque is calque that occur if word or construction of word is misplaced (dizier & garnier, 2009, p. 20). walinski (2015, p. 59) says that this calque may create a new design of sentence. finally, temporal calque, dizier and garnier (2009, p. 20) say, is calque technique that occur temporarily because of its grammatical causes. they add that the affected grammatical clause is connected to the sentence clause or verbs, such as the future tense in english is changed into present tense in the target language. 2.1.4. transposition transposition is replacing one word with another without changing the meaning of the message. molina and albir (2002, p. 511) say that transposition is the act of replacing and changing a structure rule of the sentence. mahadi and moindjie (2006, p. 71) add it is categorized as transposition when a translator uses different expression of a word or construction of word without changing the message of the source text. according to munday (2009, p. 237) transposition assumes different expressions of target language grammar that have no change in meaning from the source language. 2.1.5. modulation modulation is the change of point of view in translation. molina and albir (2002, p. 510) suggest that modulation is presenting different point of views or focuses in target language that have relation with source language. different to transposition, modulation forms a change in “cognitive rank”, and the change in perspective can be considered obligatory or optional (munday, 2009, p. 209). modulation can also mean of translating a word or a sentence that is the opposite of source language to give a different point of view. 2.1.6. equivalence equivalence means describing the same situation by different stylistic or structural means. it is producing an equivalent of text in the target language into source language by using different style (walinski, 2015). equivalent is supposed to show that both source language and target language have some kind of similarities (panou, 2013, p. 2). yinhua (2011, p. 169) adds that equivalence achieved in different degrees and linguistic levels possibly diminishes the loss of meaning and reflects different cultures. translation techniques used in translating a smartphone user manual 38 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 mahadi and moindjie (2006, p. 73) say that what the target language speaker perceives in their culture greatly affects the equivalence. 2.1.7. adaptation adaptation is replacing the cultural word from the source language into the equivalent word of target language. guerra (2012, p. 7) says that adaptation is an alteration of cultural element in source language to another term that has a similar effect in target language. the basic goal of adaptation is to introduce the adapted text‟s cultural elements such as weigh, measures, or musical notation (guerra, 2012, p. 7). according to amorim (2003, p. 195), adaptation makes the source text somewhat translatable by creating new wordplays and equal meaning effects. 2.1.8. generalization generalization is replacing a text into something general and what people mostly know. this means that some translations are not always translated specifically. molina and albir (2002, p. 510) say that generalization is when the neutral word or general word that people mostly know is used instead. according to klaudy (2001, p. 8), when reading generalization word, a reader usually does not notice translation loss in it since the word is already translated to wider general term in the target language. if it causes misunderstanding, then a translator must make an effort to change it to a more specific word. 2.1.9. omission omission means not using the words that have no place in the target language. according to sharma (2015, p. 6), omission means concealing the word that does not have equivalence or they are not needed in the target language. dickins, hervey, and higgins (2002, p. 23) say that omission occurs when the word does not provide any important information in the target language and adding it would sometimes make it more difficult to understand because of different structures in the target language. dickins et al. (2002, p. 23) also add that culture differences may provide a case where omission technique is used. 2.2. translation problems translating a text is not an easy job for translators. problems in translation sometimes hinder the work of translation. according to ghazala (1995, p. 18), these problems are either due to phonological rules, lexical differences, grammar or style. in order to overcome translation problems, translators usually exploit their knowledge in life experience, or find the equivalence of said words that can help them to meet their goal in translating the source language (schwarz, stiegelbauer, & husar, 2016, p. 52). according to rahmatillah (2016, p. 17) problems in translation are usually connected with each other. each of the word in a translation text may cause an error which results faisal mustafa, zulfadli a. aziz, & ihsanul khabri englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 39 into error in translation, the solution for it is also connected to the problem caused by the translated word. problems in translation include linguistic and non-linguistics aspects. according to albakry (2005, pp. 162-164) linguistic issues in translation problem are narrative style, semantic, syntax and punctuation, and grammatical gender. sadiq (2008, p. 2) says that the lexical problem a translator will face may be related to changing a source text into target language that has no direct counterparts, but this can be solved by changing the source text into something of equivalent with the target text. syntactic errors happen when the translator misplaces the word order he/she is going to translate. sadiq (2008, p. 11) also adds that the other problem for translation is the syntactic problem, which is the word order and tense, where each of the languages has unique word order that differentiates one from another. many misspelling will reduce the credibility of the translation. punctuation mistakes are also the same case with misspellings. in the nonlinguistic aspects, yan and naikang (2011, p. 59) say that translation error in cultural aspect is very important for translators to realize, and they should avoid it by understanding the target text background and do some additions to help the target readers understand. to emphasis, putranti (2015 p. 168) adds that cultural differences between source text and target text may result in loss and gain of meanings. 3. method this study falls under the field of qualitative research in the form of descriptive study. the data for this research were qualitative data, taken from samsung gt-19500 smartphone user manual. 3.1. source of data the data for this study were collected from the samsung gt-19500 smartphone user manual. the manual was translated from english into indonesian by the samsung electronics company. both versions of the manual consist of 147 pages, divided into several sections, including getting started section and troubleshooting sections. the manual in the original english version was printed in 2013 and translated into indonesian in 2015. the manual is accessible for public in the samsung website download section (https://www.samsung.com/id/support/model/gti9500zkaxse/#downloads) 3.2. data collection procedure the data were collected by comparing english and indonesian versions of the user manual. each sentence, phrase, and word were read to match with the type of translation used to translate from sl to tl. the translation techniques proposed by molina and albir (2002) as presented in the literature review section above were used as the checklist to categorize the data in this study. translation techniques used in translating a smartphone user manual 40 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 3.3. data analysis document analysis method was used, and thus the data were analyzed using a document content analysis. the data were collected from words, phrases, and sentences in the user manual. the accuracy of translation techniques used was confirmed to be accepted as token, then the underlined tokens were analyzed. the analysis utilized some processes of data condensation, data display, and drawing conclusion and verification. following these steps, the data were recorded into tables along with the correspondent translation techniques. the categorized data were displayed in a table to identify and calculate the token accurately. afterwards, the number of tokens in each category was calculated for frequency. finally, before the conclusion was drawn and verified, the findings were elaborated and discussed in detail. 4. findings the objective of this research was to find out the translation techniques used in samsung gt-19500 user manual which was translated into indonesian as the target language. the data were classified based on the translation techniques proposed by molina and albir (2002). based on the results of data analysis, nine translation techniques were found in the user manual, as presented in table 1. table 1 translation techniques used in samsung gt-19500 user manual. no translation technique data percentage 1 borrowing 56 40.88% 2 literal translation 34 24.82% 3 calque 17 12.41% 4 transposition 9 6.57% 5 equivalence 8 5.84% 6 adaptation 7 5.11% 7 modulation 4 2.92% 8 omission 2 1.46% total 137 table 1 shows that many translation techniques were used in translating a technology user manual from english into indonesian. however, only three techniques were used frequently, totaling 78 percent of all techniques found. the rests were used less than 10 percent. all techniques are presented in the following. 4.1. borrowing borrowing technique is the most used translation technique in this study because translating electronic terms from source language into target language requires accuracy. many electronic terms in english do not have any accurate equivalence in faisal mustafa, zulfadli a. aziz, & ihsanul khabri englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 41 indonesian. the translator mainly used this technique to transfer the term as it is because its equivalent is not available in the target language. for example: sl: do not remove the memory card while the device is transferring or accessing information (p. 16) tl: jangan melepaskan kartu memori saat perangkat mentransfer atau mengakses informasi (p. 16) in the text above, the source language is translated into target language using borrowing translation technique. the word transfer is translated directly into transfer. the word is translated without any change in spelling from the source language into the target language. the borrowing technique occurred on verb –ing in the english structure which is men+ verb in indonesian structure. the word transfer can be translated directly into indonesian. transfer means the act of moving something from one place to another place. translator can translate it into memindahkan but he/she decided to keep the original word. the word transfer is associated with a smartphone because it is a common feature in a smartphone. therefore, the translator did not use its equivalence in indonesian. another extracted example of borrowing is provided in the following. sl: your device accepts memory cards with maximum capacities of 64 gb. (p. 15) tl: perangkat menerima kartu memori dengan kapasitas maksimum 64 gb. (p. 15) in the example above, the word maximum is translated into maksimum. the word was translated without any change in pronunciation and meaning from source language into target language. however, the spelling is adjusted to indonesian spelling system. 4.2. literal translation literal translation is directly translating the source language element into target language element, and it is also known as word for word translation. the translator mainly uses this technique because translator wants to keep each meaning of the words intact. this translation technique is preferred due to its simplicity. for example: sl : tap before entering a character. (p. 41) tl : ketuk sebelum memasukkan karakter. (p.41) in addition to imperative sentence as in the above example, this translation technique was also found in step-by-step statement as in the following example. sl: apps → settings → my device → motions and gestures → motion. (p. 23) tl: aplikasi → pengaturan → perangkat saya → gerakan dan gestur → gerakan. (p. 23) translation techniques used in translating a smartphone user manual 42 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 in this example, the source text is not a sentence, so the translator translated the words directly without considering language structural element. literal translation technique was also found in a dependent statement as in the following example. st: when you charge the battery while the device is off. (p.14) tl: ketika anda mengisi daya baterai saat perangkat dalam keadaan nonaktif. (p.14) in the source text above, the translator transferred the text directly into target language and adjusted the translation to the structural element in both languages. in english the basic structure of a sentence is subject + verb + object + identifier, which is also similar to that in indonesian for a dependent informative sentence. another example of literal translation technique can be found in a phrase, as in the following. sl: swapping images. (p. 55) tl: menukar gambar. (p. 55) the phrase swapping images and menukar gambar, in the example above, was translated word by word, where the phrase consists only a verb and its object. 4.3. calque calque translation technique is taking borrowed expression or word and imitates the structure of the language. calque becomes the second most used translation technique in this technology user manual. the translator used this technique because it is almost similar to borrowing, but there is a change in target language structure. . for example: sl: a computer can be also used to charge the device by connecting them via the usb cable. (p. 13) tl: komputer juga dapat digunakan untuk mengisi daya perangkat dengan menghubungkannya melalui kabel usb. (p.13) in the example above, usb cable was translated literally into kabel usb, but the word order has been changed to meet the word order rule in indonesian, with some adjustment in spelling. this translation technique was found in prohibition statement, as in the following example. sl: you cannot use widgets on the locked screen in easy mode. (p. 38) tl: anda tidak dapat menggunakan widget pada layar dikunci dalam mode mudah. (p. 38) in the text above, the translated version of mode mudah is the imitation of the expression in the source language, easy mode. the translator inverted the word order of the expression to match the structure of target language. calque translation technique was also used in translating verb phrases. for example: sl: using the samsung keyboard. (p. 41) tl: menggunakan keyboard samsung. (p. 41) faisal mustafa, zulfadli a. aziz, & ihsanul khabri englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 43 4.4. transposition transposition is to change the word or structure rules of the sentence without affecting the message. translators use this technique to make some changes in grammatical rule of target language that cannot be translated from source language. transposition technique is not completely relevant for a technical document, but translator used this technique to adjust the style in the target language to avoid awkwardness in translating some sentences. for example: sl: this may cause connectivity problems or drain the battery. (p. 18) tl: tindakan ini dapat mengganggu konektivitas atau menguras daya baterai. (p. 18) in the text above, the word problems (literarily means masalah in indonesian), which is a noun, was translated into mengganggu, a verb in indonesian. the translator‟s decision to transpose the noun into verbs makes the sentence sound more natural and easier to understand. 4.5. equivalence equivalence is a translation technique that produces an equivalent text in the target language that has same similarities with the source language. the equivalence technique in this user manual was used to avoid misunderstanding in the part of target language readers. the translator tried to establish equivalence between both languages to help reader understand the meaning of the words they do not know. for example: sl: so you must unplug the charger from the electric socket when not in use to avoid wasting power. (p. 14) tl: jadi anda harus mencabut pengisi daya dari steker ketika tidak digunakan agar tidak boros listrik. (p. 14) in this example, the focus of the sentence is the phrase electric socket which was translated into steker. the phrase electric socket can be translated directly into colokan listrik, but the translator selected steker, which also means colokan listrik, and it is commonly used in daily communication. another example is given below. sl: on the home screen, tap apps to open the applications screen. (p. 39) tl: pada home screen, ketuk aplikasi untuk membuka daftar aplikasi. (p. 39) in the text above, the phrase applications screen is translated into daftar aplikasi in the target language using equivalence technique. screen directly translates into layar, but in this case the translator used daftar „list‟ because the word layar aplikasi does not make sense to indonesian readers. layar aplikasi is understood as the screen of the active application. daftar aplikasi, which is literary means „application list‟, can be interpreted as the list of application which is equivalent with applications screen. translation techniques used in translating a smartphone user manual 44 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 4.6. adaptation adaptation is a translation technique that replaces the cultural element of a source language into an equivalent words or phrases in the target language. in this research, the translator used this technique to transfer cultural words of the electronic product which was difficult to understand into a casual text in the target language. this technique was not very productive because the adaptation word needs to be of equivalence to target language, and adaptation technique is not necessary if there is no equivalence. for example: sl: to move an icon, thumbnail, or preview to a new location, tap and hold it and drag it to the target position. (p. 21) tl: untuk memindahkan ikon, gambar kecil, atau pratinjau ke lokasi baru, ketuk dan tahan lalu seret ke posisi tujuan. (p. 21) the word thumbnail is translated into gambar kecil in the target language using adaptation technique. thumbnail is the culture element in a smartphone. the word thumbnail directly translates into kuku ibu jari. since this is a smartphone user manual, this translation is not relevant. the translator then adapted a new word that is related to visual object in smartphone which is recognized as thumbnail. a thumbnail is small picture that appears in gallery of the device. therefore, the translator decided to translate it as gambar kecil „small picture‟ which have the same meaning from source language. 4.7. modulation modulation is a translation technique that change the point of view, focus, or cognitive category in the target language. the purpose of modulation used in this book was to highlight the word and change its point of view to make the sentence sound natural. for example: sl: to avoid disconnecting from the network. (p. 13) tl: agar sambungan tidak terputus dari jaringan. (p. 13) the word avoid has a negative connotative meaning, while agar is a word with positive meaning in indonesia, and it is simpler. this changes the point of view from negative into positive. 4.8. omission omission is a translation technique that omits certain word that is not needed in target language. the translator used this technique because the meaning in the source language was already conveyed in target language. some long sentences can distract reader with more explanation, which can be omitted by translator in target language. for example: sl: push the memory card into the slot until it locks in place. (p. 16) faisal mustafa, zulfadli a. aziz, & ihsanul khabri englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 45 tl: dorong kartu memori ke dalam slot sampai terkunci. (p. 16) in the example above, the prepositional phrase in place has been left out from the translated version in indonesian. in this language, the equivalence for the word lock, i.e. menggunci, bears the meaning of in place, so including this phrase into the translated version makes it redundant. therefore, the translation omitted this phrase to make the sentence more natural without tempering with the message in the source text. 5. discussion the results of this study have showed that eight translation techniques have been used in translating the samsung gt-19500 user manual book from english into indonesian. from these techniques, borrowing is the most used translation technique in this user manual. the use of this translation technique is expected for this text genre because there are many new terms which have been invented following technological invention. according to aryati (2014, p. 228), information technology is used by many people in the world, and although some words have equivalence in indonesian, there are many terms that cannot be translated. this situation has made the use of original terms in the target text. in addition, the use of borrowing technique for some words which have equivalences in indonesian is to avoid misinterpretation because the borrowed terms are more familiar to smartphone users. in this case, borrowing technique is preferable to keep the word and expression intact into target language from the source language. this technique has also been found by farid (2019) when analyzing the word level translation of a smartphone manual book. farid (2019, p. 27) also found that the translator borrowed the words “konten, fitur, format, ikon, direktori, kontak, ketidakkompatibelan, kontrol, and notifikasi” because the words are more familiar among smartphone users. the second most used translation technique found in this study is literal translation, and it can be seen from the use of clause and verb phrase levels. the target language keeps naturalness after being translated using this technique because indonesian and english syntax have some similarities in clause structure levels, especially in simple sentence. literal translation is the starting point of translation because each word is translated directly (fang & lu, 2012, p. 743). it cannot be avoided because it is the default translation technique (arffman, 2012), and it serves as the basis of all other translation techniques (mustafa & kholid, 2019, p. 141). another translation technique which was used in this research was calque. larizgoitia (2010, pp. 32-33) said that calque is used for modernizing the vocabulary, term, phrase through imitation of target language and most effective to introduce technical terminology. this translation technique was usually used when the terms are phrases, where no equivalence is available. with the establishment of many new features of smartphone, new terms are being invented such as black mode, airplane more, silent mode, personal hotspot, etc. calque is the best technique to translate these translation techniques used in translating a smartphone user manual 46 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 terms because no other equivalences are available in the target language, although these translated versions need specific operational definition. stepanova (2017) also found that this technique was commonly used in translating legal documents. finally, another interesting result is that omission was very rarely-used in translating this type of document. omission is frequently found in translated versions into indonesian to achieve naturalness. in translating magazine articles, omission is used avoid redundant information because it has been implied in previous sentences or phrases (mustafa & kholid, 2019). however, this translation technique was infrequently used in translating the smartphone user manual. it can be understood because the user manual is different to a magazine article as the information provided in the user manual should be as accurately as possible without including irrelevant information. therefore, all information in the source text is required in order to express all the instructions to use the smartphone. this nature of smartphone user manual makes the translator avoid using omission technique when translating it into indonesian. 6. conclusion the objective of this study was to analyze the translation techniques used in samsung gt-19500 smartphone user manual. the data were collected from the user manual by comparing the english version and indonesian counterpart. the result of the study shows that there are eight translation technique used in translating the user manual. the most commonly used techniques include borrowing (41%), literal translation (25%), and calque (12%). other techniques were found less than 10%, including transposition (7%), equivalence (6%), adaptation (5%), modulation (3%), and omission (2%). this result suggests that the translation techniques used in translating a smartphone user manual are unique because the book consists of many terms without indonesian equivalence either in word or phrase level, and the book consists of brief, compacted, and accurate information without any redundancy or ambiguity. the study has revealed the most commonly used translation techniques in translating samsung gt-19500 user manual. the result of this study is expected to be transferable to other smartphone user manuals, or to technological devise user manuals. however, the generalizability of this research results is subject to some limitations. first, this research was a qualitative study, which is by nature not intended for generalization. second, only one user manual was analyzed in this study. smartphones come with many different features; therefore, translation techniques might be different for other smartphone, especially those with different features to samsung gt-19500 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(2011). equivalence in translation: features and necessity. international journal of humanities and social science, 1(10), 169-171. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2022. vol. 10, no.1, 168-181 integrated or separated: voicing indonesian efl teachers’ and student-teachers’ preferences in teaching grammar sibakhul milad malik hidayatulloh * , margana margana yogyakarta state university, indonesia manuscript received may 30, 2022, revised june 30, 2022, accepted july 7, 2022, and published online november 7, 2022. recommended apa citation hidayatulloh, s. m. m., & margana, m. (2022). integrated or separated: voicing indonesian efl teachers‟ and student-teachers‟ preferences in teaching grammar. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(1), 168-181. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.13393 abstract this research aimed at exploring the teachers and student-teachers‟ views on teaching grammar and their preferences. indeed, recognizing the teachers and student-teachers‟ views on teaching grammar and their preferences become a worthy source in constructing and providing the effective teaching grammar. this research invited twelve participants consisting of six high school teachers and six student-teachers from english department. a descriptive qualitative research design using an in-depth interview was applied to find out their views and preferences. the findings revealed that both teachers and student-teachers had same views on valuing the terms of grammar. however, they opposed each other on viewing the teaching grammar process. in terms of their preferences in teaching grammar, both teachers and student-teachers had same tendencies in which grammar must done by applying integrated teaching grammar approach. by using the findings of this research, some implications for teachers were also stated to develop the integrated grammar teaching process within the classroom setting. keywords: teaching grammar; integrated teaching approach; separated teaching approach * corresponding author: sibakhul milad malik hidayatulloh yogyakarta state university jl. colombo yogyakarta no.1, karang malang, caturtunggal, kabupaten sleman, daerah istimewa yogyakarta 55281, indonesia email: sibakhulmilad.2021@student.uny.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.13393 sibakhul milad malik hidayatulloh & margana margana englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 169 1. introduction “why does grammatical learning always be a boring part of learning english? should it be fun, should not it?” many students have been questioning and wondering about those two questions by joining grammatical learning in their class. unfortunately, lestari and azizah (2020) found that grammatical learning in the indonesian context is taught deductively: giving context or topic followed by drilling activities in discussing and predicting grammatical rules in the passage (present, past, future). additionally, scholars point out that the most time-consuming and exhausting part to be taught and learned in language learning is grammatical teaching and learning (ellis, 2005; jalali & dousti, 2012; uysal & bardakci, 2014). in another sense, teachers have been trying to conduct and formulate grammatical teaching into various teaching techniques. teachers sometimes applied eclectic combinations of several teaching techniques or disregarded all techniques. by far, the basis of grammatical teaching and learning can be understood as a scaffolding process where students are emphasized to be able in constructing and grasping rules in sentences to be used in some macro and micro-skills in english (hidayatulloh & murtiningsih, 2020; incecay & dollar, 2011; mart, 2013). grammar portrays an essential role in the english language teaching and learning process. grammar assists students in discovering the nature of language through a set of rules and regulations in speaking and writing activities (azar, 2007). thus, teachers should formulate sufficient grammatical learning to support students‟ grammatical mastery. besides since the essentiality and variety of grammatical learning, teachers are required to ensure the effectiveness of the teaching method. furthermore, some scholars argue that there are some variations of grammatical teaching methods. for instance, grammatical teaching methods presents as integrated and separated approach (ellis, 2006), focus on form and focus on forms approach (valeo & spada, 2016), and deductive and inductive approach (sik, 2015). even though teachers are provided with those mentioned varieties, they are not promising alternatives to confirm the success of grammatical learning development among students. indeed, there is no clear evidence on specific approach in teaching grammar (sik, 2015). thus, in facing this issue, identifying teachers‟ and students‟ preferences plays a significant role in solving the problem of finding effective teaching grammar approach. by doing so, grammatical learning can be constructed more effective since the practices are underpinned by both teachers‟ and students‟ preferences. however, songhori (2012) stated that teachers often neglect students‟ learning preferences since teachers use their method without any external consideration. thus, this current research intends as an intermediary in viewing grammar teaching, especially between teachers and students. furthermore, research on teachers‟ and student-teachers grammatical teaching and learning views has been carried out by some scholars. for instance, valeo and spada (2016) researched the teachers and student-teachers in two different contexts, efl and esl. the research finding revealed that both teachers and student-teachers in integrated or separated: voicing indonesian efl teachers’ and student-teachers’ preferences in teaching grammar 170 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 two contexts tended to teach and learn grammar integrated with communicative activities. however, in some of the qualitative data findings, they also noted that both teachers and student-teachers valued the separated learning grammar from communicative activities in certain activities. male (2011) investigated studentsteachers‟ tendency on explicit and implicit grammatical learning. the study found that student-teachers tended to have an explicit teaching grammar approach rather than an implicit one. thus, grammar teaching would be found separated from communicative activities. lastly, toprak (2019) studied teachers‟ beliefs in teaching grammar. in total, among ten teachers, most preferred the integrated teaching grammar approach to enhance students‟ grammatical skills. given the previous research result, the researchers notice the lack of research area exploration since several sub-populations have not much been explored and studied yet. for instance, efl teachers and student-teachers in the indonesian context view grammar teaching and their tendencies. this study becomes worthy exploration since the result will give valuable information for teachers and curriculum designer. indeed, to construct and provide practical teaching grammar, recognizing both teachers‟ and student-teachers‟ preferences notices is vital to gaining worthy fundamental information. therefore, this study aims to explore efl teachers‟ and student-teachers‟ preferences in teaching grammar in the light of integrated and separated teaching grammar approaches. then, the research questions can be recognized as 1) what are efl teachers and student-teachers‟ preferences in teaching grammar? 2) to what extent do the distinctions among them? 2. literature review 2.1. grammar and teaching grammar the term of grammar particularly in efl contexts has been discussed by many scholars and also categorized into several types. for instance, grammar is a set of regulations in order to get correction at the sentence level (nunan, 2003) and control the sentence structure (sheen, 2007). in addition, cook (2008) defined grammar into three types which are perspective, traditional, and structural grammar. perspective grammar can be described as grammar that has been determined by terms of what people should or not said. meaning that people will use grammar based on what they see and know. in addition, he also added that this type is an adequate step in grammatical learning. then, traditional grammar is the way a teacher gives students concerned by giving them sentences with part of speech. last, structural grammar means that how the sentences are made from the small step such as the phrases. in addition, this type will provide the learner how to breakdown a language as well. above all, grammar plays a significant role in language learning, particularly in english. “without grammar, we would have only individual words or sounds, pictures, and body expressions to communicate meaning” (azar, 2007, p.2) sibakhul milad malik hidayatulloh & margana margana englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 171 when it comes to teaching grammar, some researchers will argue that teaching grammar is teaching structural and order in language learning sentence. ellis (2006) asserted teaching grammar as the process of instructional techniques that give leaners information about some specific grammatical form. furthermore, kalsoom and akhtar (2013) stated that teaching grammar is debatable issue among language experts and teachers. in addition, mart (2013) stated that teaching grammar is the way to show how a language works and the purpose of teaching grammar is to guide the learners use the language correctly. furthermore, sultana (2017) stated that teaching grammar is observed as an activity to practice grammatical rules. those arguments come from the importance of grammar in language learning. in efl, grammar plays an influential role to avoid communication breakdown. by recognizing the importance of teaching grammar, ellis (2006) tried to explain grammatical learning that may occur in the classroom situation. he argued that there are three condition of grammatical lesson which are teachers give explanation about grammar, giving exercise to the students about grammar, and giving students an exposure about grammar. 2.2. integrated and separated teaching grammar the term of integrated teaching grammar approach has been accepted as the way to teaching grammar in efl classroom. according to iraji and gholami (2018) “integrated teaching grammar approach which has been accepted as a legitimate option in efl/esl classes and the challenge in esl/efl is to find diverse options to operationalize and implement alternative ways of drawing attention to language in primarily meaning oriented activities.” (p. 137). furthermore, abdollahzadeh (2015) revealed that there are three claims of implementing integrated teaching grammar approach in teaching grammar. first, l2 learners will perceive new forms of a context where the main goal is meaning focus. second, l2 learners may face the difficulties in focusing and producing the linguistic structures. last, l2 learners will get benefits from the chance that happen during the interaction to give specific attention to form. the use of integrated teaching grammar approach also seems that can direct learners' attention to linguistic elements within the context of meaning-based instruction, and such focus can happen in a variety of classroom activities, including when a learner provides corrective feedback in response to her conversational partner's l2 errors. “teaching grammar can be conducted by means of corrective feedback on learner errors when these arise in the context of performing some communicative task” (ellis, 2006, p. 84). on the other sense, the terms of separated teaching grammar refer to grammatical learning without communicative activities and the focus is to emphasize learners‟ accuracy level. ellis (2006) stated that separated teaching grammar approach is the condition of grammatical learning that directed intensively at a single grammatical structure. in addition, tsapikidou (2015) asserted that separated teaching grammar approach activity always be separated from communicative competence both activity and practices. meaning that, in a situation of grammatical learning, learners will be put integrated or separated: voicing indonesian efl teachers’ and student-teachers’ preferences in teaching grammar 172 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 in a class that focuses on discussing grammatical structure. by recognizing the terms of separated teaching grammar approach, some arguments raised as the differences between integrated and separated teaching grammar approach. the differences between integrated and separated teaching grammar approach has been discussed to the teaching of grammar but those approaches can be adapted easily to grammatical learning. integrated teaching grammar approach attends to lexical items (single words and multi-word units) within a communicative task environment, since these lexical items are necessary for the completion of a communicative or an authentic language task. separated teaching grammar approach, on the other hand, teaches and practices lexical items in non-communicative, non-authentic language tasks. in the benefit side, some researchers argued that the use of separated teaching grammar approach in teaching grammar will give more positive impact to the learners. laufer (2006) conducted a study in comparing those approaches, and the result finds that the learners given exposure english particularly in grammatical lesson have outperformed result rather than the one who use integrated teaching grammar approach. by knowing the pattern of separated teaching grammar approach, researchers argued that it also can be describe as teaching grammar explicitly, while integrated teaching grammar approach can be categorized as teaching grammar implicitly. ling (2015) stated that teaching grammar implicitly is when the learners learn grammar through a scene and happen naturally in the classroom situation, and explicit means that teachers as the main actor in the classroom and the activity mostly grammatical lesson. 2.3. teaching grammar in context in conducting this study, researchers tried to jump in the discourse of teaching grammar by looking and analyzing several past studies that related to comparison study on views and/or beliefs about teachers and student-teachers about teaching grammar. for example, ahmad et al. (2017) conducted a study about teachers‟ and studentteachers‟ views. the data were collected by spreading a questionnaire to 70 non-native efl teachers and 80 pre-service teachers. the result revealed that both in-service teachers and pre-service teachers put strong emphasize to integrate teaching grammar with the other learning process in language learning especially in english lesson. ahmad (2017)‟s findings were harmonized with underwood (2012) who found that that efl teachers in japan held positive beliefs about integration of grammar with communicative oriented teaching. further, deng and lin (2016) investigated the status of beliefs about grammar of senior high schools‟ students and their teachers in china. a mix method was used in their study. the data were collected using questionnaire to teachers and students, and interview session to the teachers. the result revealed that both teachers and student-teachers had a tendency on teaching grammar which integrated with the communicative activity. another previous research was conducted to find the role of grammar in language class. it was done by hos and kekec (2015) conducting a study about the differences between teachers‟ and student-teachers‟ views sibakhul milad malik hidayatulloh & margana margana englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 173 about grammar in language class. a total of 17 tutors and 60 pre-service teachers at private university in turkish partaken in this study. the outcome presented that between teachers and student-teachers had same preferences teaching grammar should be integrated with the other activities. lastly, valeo and spada (2016) researched about the views of teaching grammar among teachers and student-teachers in brazil and canada. by developing the questionnaire and interview guideline, at the end, they revealed that both teachers and student-teachers valued the practice of integrated teaching grammar exist in the classroom rather than separated teaching grammar approach. providing the previous research above, the research of recognizing the teachers and student-teachers‟ views in grammar and teaching grammar, also their preferences are needed. particularly, in indonesian context, little has been conducted this exploration. indeed, as an efl country, teaching grammar must be taught effectively. thus, finding out the views and preferences of teaching grammar will provide a worthy source of finding the effective teaching grammar approach presented in the classroom. besides, the findings also will be valuable for teachers to articulate their preferences in the form of teaching materials and methods. 3. method 3.1. research design since this research aims to know the view of teaching grammar, the researchers decided to apply the qualitative research method. furthermore, by using a qualitative research technique, it is possible to discover the motive, opinions, and viewpoints of the participants. consequently, the opinion, views, and fundamental reason would be gained thoroughly. creswell (2012) mentioned that qualitative research explores and understands an individual or group towards a phenomenon or social problem. therefore, we believe in teaching grammar problems; the qualitative approach is appropriate for finding out participants' preferences. furthermore, the researchers applied the descriptive qualitative research design in this current research. this research was conducted to find out the life experience of the participants descriptively. thus, the use of descriptive qualitative matched with the aim of this study. the objective of qualitative descriptive research is a wide-ranging summarization someone daily life pattern of specific events experienced by people (lambert & lambert, 2012). besides, nassaji (2015) added that the aim of descriptive research is to reveal and define a phenomenon and its attributes. thus, the use of descriptive would assist the researchers to achieve the aim of this current research. 3.2. research participants moreover, this research was voluntary and involved by six teachers and six student-teachers in special territory of yogyakarta. the teachers come from four high schools in yogyakarta. in the other sense, student-teachers‟ participant come from the english language education department in a private university in yogyakarta. the integrated or separated: voicing indonesian efl teachers’ and student-teachers’ preferences in teaching grammar 174 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 teachers‟ participants were english teachers who have been teaching english minimally five years teaching experiences. all teachers came from both state and private high schools. the selected teachers in this study were teachers' partner from the department where the student-teachers came from. thus, a bond is established between teachers and student-teachers‟ participants in which student-teachers do internships under teacher participants' supervisory. meanwhile, the chosen student-teachers‟ participants were fourth years students in which; each of them had already done the teaching practicum and passed the fundamental subjects in the department. to maintain the confidentiality, their names were labelled into t1, t2, t3, t4, t5, and t6. the participants were labelled becoming st1, st2, st3, st4, st5, and st6. additionally, all student-teachers‟ participants had varied level of experience, length of studying english, and fundamental grammar knowledge. some background differences found in participants were expected to be able to give various and rich nuances of teaching and learning grammar preferences. besides, the researchers believe that the involvement and length of study can give theoretical and experiential-based reasons and opinions on the ongoing topic being discussed deeply. 3.3. data collection and analysis in data collection, the researchers employed in-depth interviews for each participant. the length of each participant's in-depth interview was at least 20-30 minutes. by doing so, we could get specific and in-depth understanding information from participants. besides, interviews can give detailed information based on participants' experiences. cohen et al. (2011) stated that having interviews allows participants to converse their interpretations of the words they live and express how they regard situations from their point of view. after obtaining data, we conducted three steps of analysing data: transcribing, member checking, and coding. in member checking, all transcriptions were returned back to the participants to check whether there was mistake and error or not in transcribing. the results showed that all participants had no issues with the interview transcripts, thus the next process could be proceeded. then, the coding results were drawn in the result and strengthened by existing theories in the discussion section. firstly, the data were separated from each response. then, the keywords were noticed using label. after that, all keywords were classified into pre-determined themes. all pre-determined themes then grouped into several big themes which were used to set the conclusion. lastly, all conclusions were interconnected with the existing theories and previous research findings. 4. findings in deriving the finding of this current study, the researchers tried to present the views of grammar and teaching grammar and the preference of teaching grammar approaches. the arrangements were started with the teachers‟ point of view, followed by the student-teachers‟ point of view. sibakhul milad malik hidayatulloh & margana margana englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 175 4.1. teachers’ views on grammar and teaching grammar 4.1.1. grammar is a set of rules questioning the teachers about what is “grammar” becoming a piece of vital information since it will underpin their views on teaching grammar and their preferences. the terms “rules” in defining grammar were most teachers‟ findings. in total, four teachers stated that grammar could be understood as a rule of underlying construction of english sentences. the data were obtained from t2, t3, t4, and t5. for instance, t4 said that “grammar is an order of language starting from the simply one such as noun until a phrase”. furthermore, t5 tried connecting grammar in english with the terms of grammar in arabic named nahwu. t5 said that “in arabic we also recognize it as nahwu, the things that made a language readable and meaningful”. further, they also argued that grammar was not flexible, meaning that the time sequences in grammar determined the changes of the verbs. it had been said by t2 that “alike with bahasa indonesia, grammar in english had different view verb, in bahasa indonesia time sequences will not change the verb, but in english, it will be changed by following the time either present, past or future”. 4.1.2. grammar is a pattern while the majority teachers‟ participants argued that grammar is a set of rules, there was a different view from other participants that recognize grammar as a pattern. as what t1 said that “grammar for me is a pattern, pattern of a sentence, pattern of a vocabulary, and also the development of a sentence and vocabulary”. in short, teachers mostly saw grammar as the basic rule of sentencing in english, which they must follow to construct the sentences. since grammar was a basic rule, teachers‟ participants may notice it as the pattern in sentence construction in english. thus, they saw grammar as a sentence pattern. 4.1.3. not-independent teaching grammar after recognizing the way teachers saw the grammar, the subsequent finding was dealing with the views of teaching grammar. the researchers noticed that teachers were divided into two types, in which those who see teaching grammar as a process of teaching sentence structure within and without elt skills. in teaching grammar within elt skills, they tried to combine teaching grammar with the macro skill of english. for instance, t2 argued that “if we look at the previous curriculum especially in english teaching grammar only teach grammatical rules and structure, but now it is combined with reading and writing”. in addition, t5 said that “grammatical learning is a process that should be merged with other activities”. by noticing this finding, they tended to think that teaching grammar could not be independently taught to students. integrated or separated: voicing indonesian efl teachers’ and student-teachers’ preferences in teaching grammar 176 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 4.1.4. independent teaching grammar even though most of the teachers said that teaching grammar was a process of combining grammar and the other skills, the researchers also found that participants considered teaching grammar as only a teaching structure of grammar based on the established rules. for instance, t3 and t4 argued that grammatical learning only taught the structure of a language sentence. they said, “teaching grammar is teaching language structure in it”. besides, t4 added that teaching grammar could be done directly and indirectly. it means that even though teaching grammar only taught about the structure of language, the implementation could be varied. 4.2. teachers’ teaching grammar preferences 4.2.1. integrated teaching grammar in total, four teachers preferred to apply an integrated teaching grammar approach in their classroom setting. they argued that an integrated teaching approach would give students a general picture of using the grammar in the actual context. t2 supported it said that “integrated approach will make them enjoy because it teaches along with listening skill such as song, so they will be able to know the pronunciation and the grammar”. the process of integration grammar can be done by combining grammar with some skills such as listening, reading, and writing. for example, speaking skills, students learn how to speak and the sentences of the creation of the sentences that they will speak. furthermore, an integrated approach facilitates teachers to teach two topics or material simultaneously. as asserted by t6, “when teachers teach about a text, students can learn generic structure and grammar.” they also stated that grammar rules can be more understandable if students are given activities and grammar connected to the students' daily lives. 4.2.2. separated teaching grammar however, in the other sense, t1 preferred to use separated teaching grammar approach. she argued that integrated teaching grammar will burden students because they must learn about the other material and the grammar. so, to gain their focus and good result, the use of a separated teaching grammar approach is the best way to teach grammar. meanwhile, t5 preferred to combine the two approaches. with the sequence was integrated first followed by separated approach. further, the use of integrated was to give the other material space to be learnt. the next was separated to make a deep understanding for students in a particular material, particularly grammar. responding to t5, the researchers believed that was an integrated teaching grammar approach because there was a combination of communicative activities. 4.3. student-teachers’ views on grammar and teaching grammar 4.3.1. grammar is a rule sibakhul milad malik hidayatulloh & margana margana englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 177 all the student-teacher participants described grammar as “order or rules”. furthermore, the order or the rules they meant were rules in constructing a sentence in english. it had been said by st3 that “grammar is a structure in english, i see grammar also the part of linguistic because both of them are connected in constructing the sentence”. in addition, they argued that there was a resemblance between grammar in bahasa indonesia and english which sentences in bahasa indonesia consist of subject, predicate, object and compliment like english did. an exciting finding in this research was that most participants argued that grammar was essential in constructing a good sentence. when making a wrong sentence, the first comment would be put in their grammar first, not in their pronunciation or vocabulary. it had been proven by st4, “when i say or write a sentence, and my grammar is wrong, they will comment on my grammar even though it is understandable writing or spoken”. 4.3.2. language construction learning in teaching grammar second, the definition of teaching grammar based on student-teachers was a process of teaching language structure. the result showed that four student-teachers agreed that teaching grammar taught language structure to the students. it was supported by the statement of st3, “a process of teaching my students how to make right sentences and their sequences.”. however, they also added some topics to learn while teaching the students about language structure. those topics are meaning and vocabulary. in addition, they also argued that the structure of teaching grammar could be done as a combined activity of teaching tenses and vocabulary. 4.4. student-teachers’ teaching grammar preferences 4.4.1. integrated teaching grammar the teaching grammar preferences of student-teachers were that teaching grammar should be done using the integrated method and need to elaborate the activity in teaching grammar with the other activity, particularly communicative activity. as st4 said that “it is more suitable if speaking combine grammar with writing activity so that i will be able to know students‟ understanding”. the combination was not only with the writing activity but also could be combined with speaking and reading. as mentioned by st6 that “when i teach grammar, i feel that i am not teaching them about grammar, but i do it along with storytelling”. besides, those combinations also had been affected by the curriculum. for this case, st3 argued that “if we look at the syllabus and curriculum, we cannot specialize grammar in one meeting, there must be another material”. thus, teaching grammar using an integrated approach also contextualizes grammar into a real context and engages students‟ learning activities. 4.4.2. separated teaching grammar in contrast, st2 preferred to choose the separated teaching grammar approach. the majority reason said that separated teaching grammar approach would make integrated or separated: voicing indonesian efl teachers’ and student-teachers’ preferences in teaching grammar 178 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 students focus on what they are learning. in the interview process, st2 said, “separated teaching grammar will give students a chance to focus on only material, which is grammar”. meaning that when pre-service teachers used this method, they were only on particular topics about grammar, both the activity and the exercise. 5. discussion since the participants assumed that grammar is a set of rules, it was in line nunan (2003) who said that grammar as a set of regulations in order to get correction at the sentence level. also, it was in a linking idea with sheen (2007) who asserted that grammar is a control the sentence structure. additionally, the findings were also in line with cook‟s (2008) that assuming about types of grammar that grammar is the terms of what people should or not said. by referring with the findings, the researchers assume that both teachers and student-teachers were having same views about the term of grammar which is a set of rules in a sentence. the second discussion refers to teaching grammar. if we look at the teachers‟ findings, we will see that four teachers assumed that „teaching grammar‟ was process of teaching language structure along with the other skill. furthermore, the most used skill in the teaching grammar based on the in-service teachers‟ participants are reading, writing and listening. this finding interconnected with mart (2013) who stated that teaching grammar is the way to show how a language works and the purpose of teaching grammar is to guide the learners use the language correctly. the finding also concluded that no matter the grammar is taught with, the most essential in the teaching grammar is the process of the use grammar in general or in daily life. associated with this finding, it does not matter what the english skill that associated with the teaching grammar activity, but the way students‟ practicing how the language works are more important. another finding from the teachers was also supported by the scholars in which „teaching grammar‟ is a process of teaching language structure, which is supported by ellis (2006). he said that teaching grammar as the process of instructional techniques that give leaners information about some specific grammatical form. meanwhile, in student-teachers‟ findings, they assumed that „teaching grammar‟ was only a process of teaching language structure. if the teachers argued that there must be some elt macro skills involved, but it was contradicted in student-teachers‟ findings. likewise, the ideas from student-teachers also were in line with ellis (2006) who said that teaching grammar as the process of instructional techniques that give leaners information about some specific grammatical form instructional techniques that give leaners information about some specific grammatical form. in addition, it had been also supported by sultana (2017) that teaching grammar is observed as an activity to practice grammatical rules. above all, the finding also revealed that between in-service teachers and pre-service teachers had a different term in defining the terms of teaching grammar. sibakhul milad malik hidayatulloh & margana margana englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 179 the next discussion, teaching grammar method preferences based on the participants. in line with the teachers‟ finding, student-teachers‟ finding also revealed that they had same statement with the teachers in defining the terms of integrated and separated teaching grammar approach. on the other hand, their preferences were same by arguing that grammar should be done using integrated teaching grammar approach. this discussion revealed that between teachers and student-teachers had same preferences by arguing integrated teaching grammar approach was the most suitable teaching grammar approach. this last finding was supported by four previous studies who found that between teachers and student-teachers, they have same preferences in teaching grammar which is integrated teaching grammar approach (ahmad et al., 2017; deng & lin, 2016; hos & kekec, 2015; valeo & spada, 2016). 6. conclusion to create an effective teaching grammar practices, teachers and curriculum developers are expected to be able to realize and recognize the preferences of both teachers and student-teachers. thus, the provided teaching grammar can match with the expectations of teachers and student-teachers by articulating their preferences. therefore, this study aims to find out and explore the views of teachers and studentteachers in teaching grammar practices. after taking the data through in-depth interview with twelve participants, some findings were found throughout the data analysis. even though there was a cross view on seeing the teaching grammar process, however, both teachers and student-teachers had same views on how the grammar should be taught. by seeing the findings in their preferences, they agreed that grammar must be taught integrated with other skills in elt. recognizing the finding of this research, teachers are recommended to be more evaluative in giving the grammatical learning in the classroom. they may try to integrate grammatical learning with the macro skill learning activities such as writing and speaking. besides, the teaching materials for teaching grammar are suggested to be integrated, for instance, through a text, analysing song, and script writing for role play. by doing so, the integrated teaching grammar approach will be presented in the classroom. however, the result of this current result cannot be used to generate a big picture of the preferences of teaching grammar in a wide-range setting. the future researchers are suggested to conduct and integrate quantitative research to find out wide range of teaching grammar preferences. lastly, the observation, to some extent is needed in this topic. observation will assist to find out the manifestation of the teachers in the classroom teaching context. references abdollahzadeh, s. 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(2016). is there a better time to focus on form? teacher and learner views. tesol quarterly, 50(2), 314-339. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2022. vol. 10, no.1, 67-87 english vocabulary learning strategies of university students in papua komari komari 1* , suryanto suryanto 2 , upi laila hanum 1 1 universitas sains dan teknologi jayapura, jayapura-papua, indonesia 2 universitas muhammadiyah yogjakarta, yogjakarta, indonesia manuscript received april 19, 2022, revised september 3, 2022, accepted september 13, 2022, and published online november 7, 2022. recommended apa citation komari. k., suryanto, s., & hanum, u. l. (2022). english vocabulary learning strategies of university students in papua. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(1), 67-87. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.13117 abstract the goal of this study was to look into the vocabulary learning strategies (vsl) used by university students in papua. it employed both qualitative and quantitative methods. to collect quantitative data, takač's vls questionnaire was used, which was then analyzed using oxford's taxonomy of language learning strategies (lls). 336 students from the english and non-english departments completed the questionnaire. as qualitative data, twelve students and six english lecturers shared their perspectives on vocabulary acquisition and teaching at their respective institutions. students majoring in english used a broader range of strategies and used them more frequently than students majoring in other fields of study; high-achieving students used a broader range of strategies and used them more frequently than their low-achieving counterparts; and the majority of students were interested in learning new vocabulary through games, songs, and videos. keywords: english vocabulary; vocabulary learning; university students 1. introduction the shift in the emphasis of teaching and learning english at formal education institutions in indonesia as the national curriculum has changed several times during the last five decades have not yet significantly and substantially improved the english * corresponding author: komari universitas sains dan teknologi jayapura abepura, kota jayapura, papua 65144, indonesia email: arikom08@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i1.13117 english vocabulary learning strategies of university students in papua 68 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 language teaching (elt) outcomes (alwasilah, 2001; marcellino, 2008). in general, indonesian students are not able to use the english language effectively (alwasilah, 2001; marcellino, 2008; priyono, 2004). student’s lack an adequate vocabulary becomes one of the problems (nurweni & read, 1999; abrar et al., 2018). students often comment that the main source of difficulties in english language learning is the lack of vocabulary knowledge (nation, 1999). according to alwasilah (2001), indonesian students of high school levels should have acquired approximately 30005000 english words as specified in the english curricula after completing their study. nation (2001), asserted a learner needs to know 2,000-3,000 words to use english effectively. however, the study conducted by nurweni and read (1999) found that the average english vocabulary size of the university first-semester students was only 1,226, which was not very impressive. given the nation’s (1999) recommendation, this finding suggests that indonesian students have an insufficient vocabulary to communicate in english effectively. he, as well as other language scholars, indicated that one of several main factors for the success of vocabulary development is the use of vls. therefore, it is reasonable that the inadequate vocabulary of indonesian students might be caused by a lack of knowledge and ineffective use of vls. learning a large number of new english words and their meaning is not an easy task and it is also impossible for students to learn all words in the classroom. as a consequence, the task of learning new words and their meanings is typically left to the students to undertake primarily outside the classroom. given this situation, students need to be able to use effective strategies independently. although vocabulary plays a central role in successful language communication in a foreign language and that the use of vls is helpful for learning foreign language vocabulary, there has not been much evidence that vls are taught in classroom settings in indonesian universities (cahyono & widiati, 2008; ivone, 2005). 2. literature review 2.1. vocabulary knowledge and its importance for foreign language learners english vocabulary consists of three main aspects related to form, meaning, and use, as well as layers of meaning connected to the roots of individual words. to understand individual words, experts classify them in terms of various ways like content words (words carrying meaning like noun, adjective) (harrington, 2018) vs function words (like preposition, article), high-frequency vs low frequency words, and technical vs academic words (webb & nation, 2017). another classification proposed is spoken vs written words (crossley & kyle, 2018). this classification theoretically signifies the contexts of the word usages which learners should know them to better use the word. linguistically learners should know context words and function words to construct a sentence. in this respect, leaners should make a proper choice of whether the words are frequently used so they are easier for people to grasp the meanings as the words are common, or they should choose less frequent word to indicate the speciality of a certain komari komari , suryanto suryanto, & upi laila hanum englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 69 meaning like what frequently happen in academic writing. moreover, the learners should comprehend as well in using spoken words that embodies more contextual clues of intonation, facial expression, pitch, and other facilitating manners that help their communication counterparts understand more vividly the message they deliver (alsaawi, 2019). on another manner, learners should also learn to express ideas in written forms. they should struggle to express their ideas how to put more emphasis on the certain meaning in certain words in which the learners need to think on how to do it in written ways (alsaawi, 2019). the above classification conceals that the complexity in establishing vocabulary knowledge that learners must do. to obtain significant vocabulary knowledge, learners, especially english foreign learners, needs to unlock the complexity analysing every element of the classification to gain comprehensive vocabulary knowledge as vocabulary is really paramount in english language learning. vocabulary plays a crucial role as it is the basic element of any language that every foreign language learner has to possess to be able to communicate. wilkins (1972) a british linguist, argued "while without grammar very little can be conveyed, without vocabulary, nothing can be conveyed" (pp. 111–112). vocabulary is the heart of language comprehension and use and becomes the main contributor to comprehension, fluency, and achievement (nation, 2001; bromley, 2007). learners' strong vocabulary improvement has a direct and positive impact on their capacity to build their language proficiency and to develop the four skills in the language listening, speaking, reading, and writing (hu & nation, 2000; qian, 2002, allington, 2006; samuels, 2002; stæhr, 2009; wang, 2015; ibrahim, e.h.e. et al. (2016); taslim et al., 2019). as is the case for all foreign language learners, mastering an adequate number of english words is crucial for efl students in indonesian universities. for students either majoring in english or other disciplines, having adequate vocabulary is necessary to be proficient in all four skills (laufer, 1992; nation, 1999). studies on the relationship between vocabulary learning strategies and learners' success in language learning, which are often related to concepts of good/successful and poor/unsuccessful language learners' characteristics (e.g., gan et al., 2004; gu, 1994; mcgroarty & oxford & 1990), have revealed that successful language learners use a wider range of strategies than less successful counterparts. despite the importance of vocabulary learning strategies, there is not much evidence that these strategies are explicitly taught to students in classroom settings (al-darayseh, 2014). this is also the case in the indonesian context (subekti, 2007). 2.2.vls and its importance english learners need to know sufficient words to be able to communicate in the language well. however, learning a large number of english words is not an easy task. it is also impossible for students to learn a lot of words in time-limited classes. consequently, they should learn them independently outside the class. different students may use different strategies, and this can influence their vocabulary learning english vocabulary learning strategies of university students in papua 70 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 outcomes. therefore, they need to use appropriate vocabulary learning strategies to learn and retain english words efficiently and effectively. many studies have reported that vlss have a significant relationship with students' learning outcomes (gu & johnson, 1996; seddigh & shokrpur, 2012; wong, 2005). 2.3.classification of vls scholars have categorized vls differently. for example, cohen (1990) categorized vls into three different groups, namely strategies for remembering words, vocabulary learning strategies, and strategies for practicing words. however, the use of the term vls in this classification is very broad. besides, these three strategies seem to be used for discovering the meaning of a new word as proposed by oxford (1990) and schmitt (2000). based on oxford’s taxonomy, schmitt (2000) extended vls by making a fundamental distinction: 1) strategies for the discovery of a new word’s meaning which includes “determination”, i.e. discovering the meaning of a new word without reference to another person or authority, and “social”, i.e. asking others for a definition, paraphrase, synonym or translation; 2) strategies for consolidating a word once it has been encountered, which include oxford’s grouping, i.e. social, memory, cognitive, and metacognitive. however, schmitt did not include any metacognitive strategies for the discovery of word meanings. despite several shortcomings, oxford’s taxonomy is still considered the most comprehensive taxonomy and is well respected in the literature (ellis, 1994; radwan, 2011; rao, 2004; gao, 2019; habók & magyar, 2018). it offers a considerable variety of types of strategies, such as memory, cognitive compensation, metacognitive, affective, and social strategies, incorporating the learning strategies proposed by rubin (1987), bahman (1990), and o’malley and chamot (1990). many researchers, such as ellis (1994), rao (2004), and radwan (2011) have confirmed that oxford’s (1990) classification is more comprehensive since it offers a wider range of specific strategies. 2.4. studies on vls numerous studies on students' vls have been conducted in many different efl contexts and purposes in the last decades. gu and johnson (1996) investigated vls used by chinese university learners and the relationship between their strategies and learning outcomes. they found that most students use a variety of metacognitive vls. wen and johnson (1997) found that students often use memory and cognitive strategies (psycholinguistic strategies) and metacognitive strategies. wu and wang (1998) reported their comprehensive investigation of vls used by chinese learners. chinese learners, who were found to be active vls users, employed a large variety of both metacognitive and psycholinguistic strategies. these findings partially supported the findings of gu and johnson (1996). zhang (2009) investigated the vls of undergraduate students found that there were significant differences in the use of vls by grade and major. this finding is similar to the findings reported by jafari and ajideh komari komari , suryanto suryanto, & upi laila hanum englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 71 (2012) at the ava-ye-danesh language institute of iran. significant differences were found in the frequency of use of vls by proficiency levels among learners. another study conducted by asgari and mustapha (2011) found that learning words through reading, the use of a monolingual dictionary, the use of various english language media, and applying new english words in their daily conversation are common strategies used by learners. kafipour, yazdi, soori, and shokrpour (2011) found that medium strategy users and memory strategies were the most frequently used by students. habók and magyar (2018) demonstrate the complexity of language acquisition strategies, which include cognitive, affective, sociocultural, and meta-approaches. although a great number of studies on students' vls have been done in the asian efl context, very little research regarding the indonesian context has been published (e.g.subekti & lawson, 2007). also, despite diligent searches, no published research on vls of indonesian university students has been located. 2.5. vocabulary teaching practice vocabulary teaching requires considerable attention in english language instruction to enable learners to understand the concepts of unfamiliar words, acquire a greater number of words, and use words successfully for communicative purposes. the major question concerning vocabulary teaching is how words should be taught. seal (1991) divided vocabulary teaching into unplanned and planned vocabulary teaching. unplanned or incidental vocabulary teaching takes place when one or more students face a problem with a word emerging in the lesson or when the teacher thinks that an important word is unknown to the majority of the students. conversely, planned vocabulary teaching refers to vocabulary being taught systematically either as part of the objective of the lesson or in a specifically designed vocabulary lesson. similarly, hunt and beglar (2002) described three types of vocabulary teaching and learning, i.e. “incidental learning, explicit instruction, and independent strategy development”. incidental learning is learning vocabulary as a by-product of doing other language activities, for example, reading and writing. in contrast, explicit instruction refers to the intentional learning of vocabulary through instruction. finally, independent vocabulary development deals with equipping learners with strategies for vocabulary learning. lastly, involving the students in learning through individual participation, collaboration with classmates, and self-reflection, as well as training the students in using different dictionaries and in making vocabulary notebooks or vocabulary cards are example activities of independent learning strategies. dakhi and fitria (2019) stated that the relevance of vocabulary, its types, selection criteria, size and depth, and teaching methodologies lacked clarity. they intend to address such a matter. to achieve the aforementioned goals, they undertook an extensive analysis of relevant publications and theories. the results suggested that the vocabulary was more effective as a communication foundation, a reflection of social reality, a mood booster, and a predictor of academic achievement. it also shown that its english vocabulary learning strategies of university students in papua 72 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 contribution to basic language skills is vary. the concepts of teaching vocabulary, size and depth, and teaching and learning vocabulary materials (tlvms) were found to be associated with students' vocabulary mastery. studies that examine the effectiveness of particular techniques of presenting vocabulary items to students have been conducted. for example, studies conducted by azar (2012), rouhani and pourgharib (2013) revealed that games are effective in helping students to learn and improve their vocabulary-building skills. sonbul and schmitt (2010) found that direct instruction was effective for students' vocabulary learning especially in facilitating the deepest level of knowledge. this finding is consistent with a similar study conducted by mizumoto (2009) who investigated the effectiveness of explicit instruction of vocabulary learning strategies with japanese efl university students. file and adams (2010), who compared the effectiveness between integrated and isolated form-focused instruction for vocabulary development in esl reading lessons, found that both types of instructions led to more learning and retention of vocabulary knowledge than incidental exposure alone. 3. method 3.1. the present study the ultimate aim of this study was to explore vocabulary learning and teaching practices with a particular focus on vls used by efl indonesian university students in papua province. the mixed method of quantitative and qualitative approach was applied to comprehensively address the following research questions: (1) what vls do efl students use? (2) do students majoring in english and non-english differ in vls use? (3) do more successful and less successful learners differ in vls use? (4) how is vocabulary taught and learned in classes? 3.2. participant three hundred and thirty-six students majoring in english and non-english as well as 12 teachers participated in responding to the questionnaire of this study. a purposeful sampling technique, which is frequently used in qualitative research (neuman, 2007), was applied to select participants for the interviews (denzin & lincoln, 2005. of the 47 students who volunteered to participate in the interview, 12 students were selected, six of whom were more successful, and six were less successful english language learners. six out of twelve english teachers were invited purposefully for individual interviews. 3.3. research design to achieve the main aim of this study, the researcher used quantitative and qualitative research since the nature of the research questions called for comprehensive answers (morse & niehaus, 2009), which can provide a better understanding of the komari komari , suryanto suryanto, & upi laila hanum englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 73 phenomenon of students' vocabulary learning strategies (bryman, 2012; johnson & onwuegbuzie, 2004). a questionnaire a data collection method commonly used in quantitative research and semi-structured interviews a data collection method commonly used in qualitative research (creswell, 2012; greene, 2007; tashakkori & teddlie, 2010; teddlie & tashakkori, 2009), were used. 3.4. method of data collection two methods were used to collect data for this study, namely survey and interview. besides, students' grades in english subjects were accessed. a cross-sectional survey design was used by employing a closed-ended paper-based questionnaire adapted from pavičić takač's vocabulary learning strategies questionnaire (vlsq) (takač, 2008). the questionnaire consisted of 66 questions and used 5 response structure of a likert-type scale (never, seldom, sometimes, often, and always). meanwhile, semi-structured interviews were used to gather qualitative data from teachers and students. by using an interview guide (harvey-jordan & long, 2001) the selected teachers were asked questions about vocabulary teaching practices and vls that they have introduced to students when teaching new english words in the classrooms. 3.5. method of data analysis to perform the quantitative data analysis, several steps were undertaken. firstly, using the ibm spss program, value labels and codes of all items of the questionnaire were created before entering the data obtained from the questionnaire. secondly, grouping the 66 items of the vlsq (takač, 2008) items into six main categories as constructs of interest: direct strategies comprising three sub-strategies, i.e. memory strategies, cognitive strategies, and compensation strategies, and indirect strategies with three sub-strategies, i.e. metacognitive strategies, affective strategies, and social strategies. to ensure that the process of grouping items has been done appropriately and to measure the validity and reliability of the constructs, exploratory factor analysis was conducted. to analyse the qualitative data, by adopting corbin's and strauss's (2007) and saldana's (2010) steps, three stages of the coding process open coding, axial coding, and selective coding were undertaken. 4. findings and discussion descriptive analysis was undertaken to examine what vls students used and how frequently students used these strategies. the percentage of frequency scores, as well as, the means of all strategies were examined. the higher the frequency score or the mean a strategy has the more frequently the students used this strategy. the average mean score of all strategies used indicates whether the students are low, medium, or high strategy users. english vocabulary learning strategies of university students in papua 74 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 it was found that most students had used all four main vls of oxford's taxonomy – memory strategies, cognitive strategies, compensation strategies, and metacognitive strategies for learning new words, but with different frequencies. the descriptive statistics for the total mean score for overall strategy use, as displayed in table 1, revealed that the average mean score of frequency of the strategy usage was 3.0, which means that the students are medium strategy users. this finding was similar to the findings reported by other studies in efl indonesian contexts (annurahman, kurniawati, & ramadhiyanti, 2013; mattarima & hamdan, 2011; setiyadi, 2004; yusuf, 2012). for example, mistar (2001), who conducted a study in a university in malang-indonesia, and annurahman et al. (2013), who conducted a similar study in pontianak, indonesia, found that the average mean scores of frequencies of strategies use were respectively 3.34 and 3.25 which were all considered moderate level. these similar findings are reasonable in that the characteristics and modes of english language teaching and learning process in most indonesian universities were similar. among the four main strategies of oxford's taxonomy, as displayed in table 1, this study found that, in general, memory strategies and compensation strategies were the two most dominant strategies and then followed by cognitive strategies, while metacognitive strategies were the least frequently used strategies. table 4.1 frequency of strategy use. strategies n mean sd 1. memory strategies 336 2.98 1.24 reviewing well 336 3.14 1.16 creating mental linkage 336 3.06 1.24 employing action 336 2.96 1.28 applying images and sounds 336 2.77 1.27 2. cognitive strategies 336 2.93 1.23 practicing 336 3.05 1.08 receiving and sending messages 336 3.02 1.38 analysing and reasoning 336 2.90 1.35 creating structure for input and output 336 2.77 1.10 3. compensation strategies 336 2.98 1.22 overcoming limitation 336 3.04 1.27 guessing intelligently 336 2.93 1.17 4. metacognitive strategies 336 2.79 1.32 average 336 3.00 1.25 this finding was similar to those of the studies conducted by tahriri and fallah (2013) and kafipour et al. (2011) which also found that memory and cognitive strategies were two strategies most commonly used by students while metacognitive and social strategies were the least frequently used strategies. komari komari , suryanto suryanto, & upi laila hanum englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 75 4.1. do students majoring in english and non-english differ in vls use? an independent-sample t-test was used to compare the vls of students majoring in english with those majoring in other fields of study. since the tests were performed repeatedly on a single data set, bonferroni correction was conducted to adjust critical p values. students majoring in english used all kinds of strategies more frequently than those in other fields of study. an independent-samples t-test (see table 2), indicated that there were significant differences (p < .013) between students majoring in english and those majoring in other disciplines in using memory strategies, cognitive strategies, compensation strategies, and metacognitive strategies, with an indication of relatively small effect size (ŋ2). this significant difference means that students tend to have stronger motivation to learn the main topics in their field of study than other topics (bernardo & gonzales, 2009; siriwan, 2007; tsai & chang, 2009; wei, 2007). it was also discovered that students majoring in english were more highly motivated in english language learning than those of other majors (boonkongsaen & intaraprasert, 2014; kelly, 2005; liao, 2004; siriwan, 2007; tsai & chang, 2009; wei, 2007). table 4.2 the use of strategies by students majoring in english and non-english. strategies majors mean sd t p mean diff effect size memory strategies english 0.173 0.830 2.452 0.012 0.243 0.019 nonenglish -0.070 0.818 cognitive strategies english 0.337 0.623 6.269 0.001 0.474 0.077 non english -0.136 0.627 compensation strategies english 0.048 0.759 0.675 0.501 0.066 0.006 non english -0.019 0.837 0.703 0.483 0.066 metacognitive strategies english 0.399 1.038 4.74 0.001 0.557 0.063 non english -0.158 0.941 4.543 0.000 0.557 4.2. do more successful and less successful learners differ in vls use? it is commonly believed that successful learners differ from their less successful counterparts in using both lls and vls. anova was used to determine if there were differences in the use of vls between more successful and less successful students. the findings suggest that more successful (upper grade) learners tend to use vls more frequently than less successful (lower grade) learners. these findings were consistent with the findings of other studies by zhang (2009), chang and tsai (2009), kafipour et al. (2011), jafari (2013), and kirmizi (2014). english vocabulary learning strategies of university students in papua 76 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 4.3. how is vocabulary taught and learned in classes? two key findings emerged from the thematic analysis of teacher interviews, namely vocabulary teaching was integrated within the four language skills; and vocabulary was taught both deliberately and incidentally. all teacher respondents agreed that vocabulary should be taught in every lesson regardless of its skill. they believed that this would enable students to improve their vocabulary which eventually help them to listen, speak, read, and write, as shown in the following excerpt: you know this semester i teach grammar subject … but i always include new words in my lesson … especially when giving examples in sentences … usually students will ask when they don't understand the meaning of these words. similar to teacher 4, teacher 6 also believed that students' language proficiency improves when their vocabulary knowledge increases. for this reason, she always gives new words of any lesson. … because in my opinion, vocabulary is an important aspect that must be possessed by every student who is studying english and by giving new words at any lesson it is expected that student's vocabulary will increase … so that the student's proficiency will improve too… the respondents also argued that giving new words integrated within all skills is more effective than teaching them in isolation. they argued that vocabulary should be taught deliberately, regardless of the subject being taught, for several reasons. firstly, there is a clear target to achieve: what and how many words and when the words must be taught. secondly, this will benefit students in a way that they have clear direction about what is to be learned at a particular time. this can also help students to be wellorganized learners. lastly, a planned vocabulary teaching will enable teachers to conduct evaluations easily to find out the students' progress in learning. the excerpt below is one of their arguments: … especially when teaching the vocabulary subject, what words will be taught in one semester are planned both in the syllabus and lesson plans. this will benefit not only me but also the students. the target to achieve is obvious and it is very useful in conducting evaluations. students have clear scope about the words they need to learn and review before an evaluation is carried out … so… the above excerpt illustrates that intentional vocabulary teaching was employed mostly in teaching vocabulary as a subject in the english department. intentional vocabulary teaching, as previous studies, such as zandieh and jafarigohar (2012), and sonbul and schmitt (2010) reported, was effective especially in facilitating the students' vocabulary knowledge. however, they also stated that new vocabulary was also taught incidentally. the findings indicate that incidental vocabulary teaching sometimes cannot be avoided especially for subjects in which words are not the focus of teaching and learning new komari komari , suryanto suryanto, & upi laila hanum englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 77 words occurred while intending to learn other things. for example, new words were taught while teaching reading skills. in many cases, students asked about unknown words that they found in the texts. teachers employed several ways to explain the unknown words such as directing students to guess the meaning of those words using contexts or clues available in the texts, as stated in the excerpt below: more often i teach vocabulary incidentally, especially when teaching listening, reading, and writing skills. students usually ask about words they find in the text that they don't know. this excerpt illustrates that incidental vocabulary teaching, which often occurred as a result of extensive reading, is also an important approach to building students' vocabulary development. also, there are always unpredictable words that students may initiate to ask about during the lesson. many previous studies, such as by ahmad (2011), day, et al. (1991) revealed, incidental vocabulary learning is one of the effective strategies and performed significantly. employing both approaches may increase the strength and minimize the weaknesses. therefore, they agreed that teachers would be better to plan or prepare the words which are going to be taught, even if the focus of teaching is not on vocabulary. the statements below reflect their teaching experience: …. i agree that vocabulary teaching must be done by plan or good preparation… also … incidental vocabulary teaching is necessary because we cannot ban or limit students asking words that are not included in the preparation. ……in my opinion, we cannot depend only on one way of teaching new words to students … yes indeed, teaching words by a plan is better but many times students ask words that we do not expect before or the words that the students ask are not included in the plan … in this case incidental vocabulary teaching is needed, so the combination of the two is much better. in practice, teachers of english in this context combined explicit and incidental approaches, and with good reason, as research has shown that this combination is effective (sonbul & schmitt, 2010). employing a combination of intentional and incidental vocabulary teaching would be better for students to maximize their vocabulary learning and to promote deeper mental processing and better retention than employing only one of them (nation, 2008; zandieh & jafarigohar, 2012). 4.4. words were taught by using several techniques such as visual techniques, verbal techniques, translation, guessing strategy and using dictionary some teachers stated that they taught new words by using real objects when possible, such as pictures, photos, drawings, flashcards, slides, mimes, gestures, and actions. they believed teaching vocabulary using visual techniques is an interesting and effective way as well. unfortunately, however, not all words can be presented in this way. as such, teachers should not rely only on this single approach because there are english vocabulary learning strategies of university students in papua 78 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 still so many words, particularly abstract words, for advanced levels which might more easily and more effectively be presented using other techniques. well, …we usually present some new words by using different types of visual aids, such as real objects when available in the classroom. otherwise, we use pictures or drawings. we also often use flashcards. sometimes we also use actions, mimes or gestures … but we can’t use this technique for all words especially for abstract words … only limited words can be presented with this way……for beginning level i often use objects, pictures, flashcards, actions, and mimes. unfortunately, so many words especially for the advanced level cannot be explained by using this strategy. other ways that some teachers used to teach new words are verbal techniques. sometimes they used examples or illustrations to explain the meaning of words, as stated in the following excerpt: … to explain abstract words and when using pictures or objects are not possible, i try to give as many examples or illustrations as possible to explain the meaning of new words. but this needs extra effort and takes time and … many times i don’t want to spend too long, so. the findings revealed that all teachers used translation into the first language to convey meanings of new words as it is a simple way and saves time. interestingly, they used this technique as the last alternative or when there was not enough time to explain by using other techniques. i give the meaning of new words by translating it into the first language if other ways are difficult to do and i think there is nothing wrong with it as long as it is done carefully and appropriately. i use translation method to check the students’ understanding by asking them to translate the words into the indonesian language. it was found that students were trained with the written contextual guessing strategy to understand particular unknown words without using a dictionary. this evidence relates to the compensation strategies discussed previously. ……. many times, students asked about unknown words that they encountered in the text, and i think this is a good time to train students to guess the meaning of these words through context or using clues available in the text. of course it is not easy and takes time, but it will help students not to rely on a dictionary too often. once students get accustomed to this strategy, it will promote an extensive reading habit, which eventually improves their vocabulary as well as reading ability. the findings also indicate that the teachers also trained students to use word analysis strategy – a strategy that belongs to one of the sub-strategies of cognitive strategy, by which the students were trained to find out the meaning of a word by analysing it, whether it is a verb, noun, adjective, etc. or whether it contains a prefix or suffix. recognizing the prefix or suffix of a word can help students find out its meaning since each prefix or suffix has a certain meaning, as pointed out in the excerpt below: komari komari , suryanto suryanto, & upi laila hanum englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 79 …. i explained to students in order to find the meaning of a word is by analysing it. we analyse whether it’s a verb or a noun also whether it has a prefix or suffix. often a prefix or suffix determines whether a word is a verb or a noun and by recognising it, its meaning can be found. this excerpt illustrates that the analysing strategy is also an efficient strategy which can help students to be independent learners and increase their vocabulary knowledge naturally. this type of strategy relates closely with the sub-strategy of cognitive strategies, i.e. analysing and reasoning sub-strategy. since a lot of english words have been created through the combination of morphemic elements, that is, prefixes and suffixes with base words and word roots, it is essential for english language teachers to help and facilitate the students to understand how such a combinative process works. in this way, they will possess one of the most powerful understandings necessary for vocabulary development. lastly, a dictionary was used to learn new words. it is one of the most important and reliable sources to search and find the appropriate meaning of a word as it provides a wide range of word definitions following their particular contexts. the findings reveal that all teachers used and trained students how to use a dictionary effectively to learn new words. the dictionary is a very important tool for language learners to learn vocabulary. therefore, it is necessary to train the students how to use a good dictionary appropriately, so that they will be able to apply this skill autonomously outside the classroom. additionally, they pointed out that teachers play an important role and have the responsibility to guide students to choose a good dictionary and train them how to use it efficiently and appropriately. knowing a word includes knowing its written and spoken form, its meanings, its derivation, how it is used in different situations, its grammatical aspect, and how it can be used as a verb, noun, adverb, etc. therefore, as a teacher i have the responsibility to guide students to choose a good dictionary and to train them how to use it effectively. being able to use a good dictionary appropriately helps students understand a word comprehensively and thus develops their comprehensive vocabulary knowledge. it also helps students to be more autonomous and enhances language learner habits. “students need to have and use dictionaries to learn vocabulary autonomously because a good dictionary provides everything about words”. as the excerpts above illustrate, a dictionary is an essential tool for language learners as it provides helpful comprehensive information about words. it empowers learners to be self-sufficient in finding the appropriate usage of words to convey a message and encourages them to become responsible for their independent learning. english vocabulary learning strategies of university students in papua 80 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 4.5. students’ views about english vocabulary teaching and learning the key findings derived from student interviews include students enjoyed learning vocabulary through games and role-play, songs, or movies; students learned vocabulary outside the class when teachers gave them home assignments; vocabulary tests and feedbacks motivated students' learning, and speaking and writing tasks challenged students for productive vocabulary learning. 4.5.1. students enjoyed learning vocabulary in class through games and role-play for many students of efl learning english or memorizing new unfamiliar words is often boring and completing many exercises can be frustrating. students prefer vocabulary lessons as well as english lessons to be presented in interesting and attractive ways. the findings revealed that the majority of students were interested in learning vocabulary through games. they said that games make them enjoy learning, make fun, make relaxation, maintain and increase spirit (ramadharniati, 2016). honestly learning vocabulary is a difficult and boring activity, but we enjoy the lesson if the teachers make fun activities that make us active …we like activities such as games… for example, word guessing games. similar to student 2, student 10 also preferred learning vocabulary in class through games because it is more interesting and because games in which students interact with each other can rarely be played outside the class. we prefer learning vocabulary in class through games … because it is more interesting especially when we already feel tired and sleepy and it is almost impossible to play games for learning outside the class. other advantages of using games: well-chosen games can lower anxiety; they are a welcome break from the usual routine of the language class; they are amusing and entertaining and yet highly motivating and challenging. they help students make and sustain the effort of learning; games provide language practice in the various skills of the language; games encourage students to interact and communicate, and games create a meaningful context for language use. role-play or simulation is another approach that most students enjoyed. role-play is an artificial enactment of reality, which requires the students to speak properly in line with the contexts and their roles. thus, role-play is an effective technique to animate the teaching and learning atmosphere, arouses the interests of learners, and makes vocabulary acquisition successful. although it is more challenging and needs more time and effort for preparation, students are interested in this activity because it enables them to practice the language as if in a real situation. komari komari , suryanto suryanto, & upi laila hanum englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 81 role-play is also good activity, i like it … but it is quite hard … we need to prepare sentences that will be used to construct the dialogue according to the context or situation given ... so, of course, we need to look for suitable words and expressions. in an efl setting, it is difficult for learners to find real-world situations outside the classroom where they can practice the language they are learning. therefore, classroom activities should be created to provide opportunities for students to practice what they have learned. role-play is a good way of bringing a wide variety of situations from real life into the classroom and provides a model of what learners may use in real life, encouraging and promoting students' fluency (muhanna, 2012). 4.5.2. learning vocabulary through songs or movies the majority of students liked listening to songs or watching movies. teachers of listening as a subject sometimes used songs and movies as sources of teaching and learning vocabulary in the classroom. it was found that students appreciated teachers who used songs and movies for vocabulary learning for several reasons. the following excerpt of student 1 illustrates why she liked listening to songs to learn words: “i like listening to music very much … i listen to music everywhere … and i like it if the teacher plays a song in the class … it is fun and relaxing”. on the other hand, student 3 liked learning new words through watching movies. he not only learned new words but also enjoyed the movies. i enjoy very much when teacher brings and play movies in the class … not only to enjoy the movies but to learn the language as instructed by the teacher … what words or expressions used … how they are used … it is fun and interesting …not sleepy. these findings suggest that teachers should aware and use various teaching tools for teaching vocabulary that interests the students. songs and movies avoided developing a monotonous mood in the class, amused students, helped them feel relaxed, and get rid them of their negative attitudes towards a foreign language. they also provide a comfortable class environment, which can motivate students so that they can develop their linguistic skills more easily. 4.5.3. vocabulary cards were used to learn words outside the class it was found that students used vocabulary cards as an effective and efficient strategy to learn new words outside the class as suggested by their teachers. the following excerpts are examples of students' responses about the use of vocabulary cards to learn english words: english vocabulary learning strategies of university students in papua 82 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 i write new words in small cards. at the back of the cards is the meaning or definition of the words and sometimes an example … i can bring and read them anywhere … i read while in a taxi, canteen, or while waiting for the lecture to start. as the excerpts illustrated, students used cards to learn words outside the class as an effective and efficient strategy. word cards can be carried and read anywhere and anytime. this strategy closely relates to the sub-strategy of memory strategies, i.e. employing action sub-strategy. meanwhile, testing vocabulary based on student's word cards, which can be classified as reviewing well sub-strategy of memory strategies, could be motivating. 4.5.4. vocabulary tests motivate students’ learning the findings indicated that students were more serious about learning and reviewing words before the tests, especially when the result score of the tests contributes to their learning achievement grade, as stated by students in the following excerpts: i like teachers who give tests regularly because it improves my motivation. also, i will know my learning progress … yes, i will study more seriously especially if the result of the test will be used for the final grade. this finding supports the argument that testing is one important external factor that may improve students' motivation to learn english vocabulary. 4.5.5. speaking and writing tasks challenge students for productive vocabulary learning vocabulary might be classified into receptive and productive categories. speaking and writing tasks encourage and challenge students to pass through the three steps – learning, practicing, and producing language, within one activity. from the analysis, it was found that students were interested in doing speaking and writing tasks, as stated by student in the following excerpts: the teacher of the speaking subject usually gives us a task in which we should speak or present about a particular topic in front of the class in a limited time. … i feel this task is quite demanding but … i like it … i have the opportunity to practice the language … also when making preparation i must learn new words related to the given topic. other student responded, "writing is the most challenging skill". she found that the difficulty in writing tasks is not only on what appropriate words must be used to convey messages but also on how those words must be constructed into grammatically correct sentences. 5. conclusion this study has made several important findings. firstly, the most frequently used vocabulary learning strategies based on oxford's (1990) taxonomy were the memory komari komari , suryanto suryanto, & upi laila hanum englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.1, november 2022 | 83 strategy and compensation strategy with an average mean of 2.90. with an average mean of 2.79, the metacognitive strategy was the least frequently used vocabulary strategy. in 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(2012). the effects of hypertext gloss on comprehension and vocabulary retention under incidental and intentional learning conditions. english language teaching, 5(6), 62-71. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2023. vol.10, no.2, 71-91 professional development of indonesian in-service efl teachers: perceived impacts and challenges fidelis elleny averina*, paulus kuswandono english education master's program (eemp) sanata dharma university, yogyakarta, indonesia manuscript received november 11, 2022, revised december 16, 2022, accepted december 29, 2022, and published online may 7, 2023. recommended apa citation averina, f. e., & kuswandono, p. (2023). professional development of indonesian inservice efl teachers: perceived impacts and challenges. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(2), 71-91. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.15589 abstract despite the growing interest in research on teacher professional development (tpd) carried out by previous researchers, the voices of local efl teachers in different regions in indonesia in which top-down tpd activities are still prevalent remain underrepresented. as a result, in order to fill a gap in the literature, the current study sought to investigate the tpd activities undertaken by efl teachers, the extent to which those formal tpd programs had an impact on their professional development based on their perceptions, and the constraints that they encountered. this descriptive qualitative study utilized a questionnaire and semi-structured interview as the instruments to gather the data and ensure triangulation for trustworthiness. twenty-five english teachers from various junior high schools associated with mgmp in cirebon, west java were voluntarily involved in this research. the result revealed that tpd activities that the participants have undertaken all these times helped them improve self-efficacy, attitudes, beliefs, reflective competence, classroom practice and instructional skills, and teacher knowledge and skills. nevertheless, some challenges such as excessive workload as a teacher, time constraints or mismatched schedule, limited choices of tpd programs that were not in line with teachers’ interests, the mismatch between teachers’ needs and what the program offered, limited access and information about the programs, and less effective program duration remained prevalent during the tpd program implementation. keywords: challenges; efl; perceived impact; teacher professional development *corresponding author: fidelis elleny averina sanata dharma university, yogyakarta jl. affandi, mrican, caturtunggal, kabupaten sleman, daerah istimewa yogyakarta, 55281, indonesia email: fideliselleny@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.15589 professional development of indonesian in-service efl teachers: perceived impacts and challenges 72 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 1. introduction as the dynamics of education keep shifting and the demands to prepare students with 21st century skills and competencies have intensified, more sophisticated and complex ways of teaching are highly required (darling-hammond, hyler, & gardner, 2017). one of the ways to support the increasingly complex skills students need to learn in preparation for further education and work in the 21st century is by encouraging teachers to engage in effective professional development by continuously refining and improving their teaching practice, knowledge, and pedagogy to meet the intended demand. utami and prestridge (2018) argued that a well-designed and effective professional development program undertaken by teachers can lead to desirable changes in teachers’ practice and students’ outcomes. it is supported by utami (2018) who argued that developing and increasing teachers’ quality and professionalism are perceived as paramount and consequential since teachers are regarded to have “value-added impacts” on students’ learning and outcomes (p.1). furthermore, teacher professional development (tpd) also plays an essential role in enhancing teachers’ professional careers, determining the educational institution’s quality, and improving the quality of education as a whole (rahman, 2016; utami, 2018). teacher professional development (tpd) can be generally defined as structured and sustained activities undertaken by teachers to enhance their professional skills, knowledge and practice that will eventually lead to the improvement in the students’ learning outcomes (darling-hammond et al., 2017). as a matter of fact, every nation worldwide has its own program and regulation concerning teachers' professionalism. in indonesia, tpd is regulated under indonesia’s law number 14 year 2005 about teacher and lecturer in which one of the articles states the importance of teachers’ professionalism to continuously refine, develop, and sustain their professionalism as lifelong learners. furthermore, as the effort and realization of this law, in 2022 indonesia’s ministry of education, culture, research, and technology (henceforth: kemendikbudristek) issued a policy focussing on the teacher as a driving force (guru penggerak) to transform and improve the quality of education as a whole. this policy is issued under permendikbudristek number 26, year 2022 as part of the merdeka belajar program. this policy emphasizes facilitating the teachers with equal opportunities to join the program by continuously and actively being involved in reflection and professional development activities for themselves and others in their community of practice. however, the majority of efl teachers in indonesia still perceive tpd activities merely as a top-down process, carried out and organized by the government or formal educational institution as an “overly prescriptive one-size-fits-all solution” by inviting experts without grounded knowledge of the real context (cirocki & farrell, 2019). the formal tpd programs organized by the government and educational institutions usually hold the agenda to improve teachers’ practice by introducing them to innovative technology-based teaching media, novel teaching-learning instructions and fidelis elleny averina & paulus kuswandono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 73 methodologies, effective classroom management, and classroom-based research approach that might also benefit the educational institution as a whole (mccray, 2016). nonetheless, this formal type of tpd, which is usually characterized by externally defined agendas, is considered less effective and impactful since it was mostly compulsory for the teacher without considering each teacher’s needs, interests, and goals (utami & prestridge, 2018). previous research in indonesia revealed that indonesian teachers have been involved in repeated, ineffective and rather irrelevant tpd programs organized by either the government or formal educational institutions that have often yielded a gap and mismatch between the teachers’ real needs and the program goals (utami & prestridge, 2018). the lack of enactment and active participation in the formal-based tpd have been scrutinized to be one of the reasons why such a program failed to improve teachers’ actual teaching practice (kennedy, 2016). similarly, the study conducted by cirocki and farrell (2019) showed that efl teachers in indonesia defined tpd in terms of “a school-based learning, an academic undertaking, a professional pursuit outside school, self-directed learning, and a government scheme” (p.12). however, despite various tpd activities undertaken by the participants either formal or informal, only some of them reported positive benefits of tpd programs in both their personal and professional lives as english teachers. in addition, a slightly different study was conducted by utami, saukah, cahyono, and rachmajanti (2017) which revealed that the level of efl teachers’ formal tpd involvement was influenced by various factors including the frequency of participation and professional enthusiasm which encompassed “motivation and professional development attitude” (p.341). despite the growing interest in research on tpds carried out by previous researchers (cirocki & farrell, 2019; kennedy, 2016; utami & prestridge, 2018; utami et al., 2017), teachers’ perceived impacts of those tpd programs on their classroom practice and professional development remain under-research. furthermore, the voices of local efl teachers across different regions in indonesia where top-down tpd activities are still prevalent remain under-represented. this was strengthened by the results of the preliminary interview with one of the authoritative educational figures in cirebon who stated that teachers’ needs, challenges, and perceptions of the tpd programs that have been carried out all these times are barely voiced. therefore, to fill the gap in the literature, this present study aimed to explore the tpd activities undertaken by efl teachers in cirebon, the extent to which those formal tpd programs gave an impact on their professional development based on their perceptions, and the constraints that they encountered. moreover, stakeholders and policymakers of the department of education and culture may also benefit from this research to evaluate and improve the future tpd programs that would give more positive impacts on the efl teachers not only in cirebon but also across different regions in indonesia. thus, to reach the aforementioned aims, the researchers formulated two research questions as follows: (1) to what extent do the formal tpd activities make significant impacts on developing in-service efl teachers’ professional development of indonesian in-service efl teachers: perceived impacts and challenges 74 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 professionalism? (2) what are some challenges faced by in-service efl teachers in cirebon in undertaking formal tpd activities? 2. literature review 2.1. in-service teacher professional development in the indonesian context in order to be highly professional teachers who can keep up with the educational dynamics, indonesian efl teachers are required to have four competency standards which encompass:(1) professional, (2) pedagogical, (3) social, and (4) personality. these competency standards are issued under indonesia’s law number 14 year 2005 about teachers and lecturers. furthermore, this law also highlights the importance of teachers’ professionalism to continuously refine, develop, and sustain their professionalism as lifelong learners. from this, it is apparent that indonesian teachers should always engage in various teacher professional activities or programs. day (1999) defines professional development as deliberate, structured, and planned activities initiated by either a teacher as an active agent or as a collaborator with colleagues to review, renew, extend, and improve their quality, commitment, and practice intended to make direct and indirect contributions to the students, the community of practice, school, and larger educational contexts. teacher professional development activities can take many forms including formal and informal. formal tpd (top-down) involves training, workshop, teacher forums (mgmp), webinars, conferences, and seminars organized by either the ministry of education or other formal educational institutions (utami & prestridge, 2018). meanwhile, informal tpd (bottom-up) or what is usually called self-driven tpd can take many forms including engaging in self-reading, observing other teachers’ teaching, developing creative materials (i.e. worksheets, modules, lesson plans, and syllabus), engaging in professional conversation with colleagues, utilizing interactive teaching media and innovative teaching practice, learning from feedback given by supervisors or other teachers, enrolling to elf online course as self-driven professional development, and doing critical self-reflection to evaluate one’s practice (simegn, 2014; utami, 2018). recently, the emphasis has been put on the ongoing practice of tpd to engage the teachers to regularly re-evaluate and re-examine their practice in the classroom and expand their professional as well as personal understanding of life in the classroom context (cirocki & farrell, 2019). 2.2. the conceptual framework of tpd’s perceived impacts borg (2018) stipulated a framework encompassing different kinds of aspects to critically measure the perceived impacts of tpd activities on efl teachers. the first aspect concerns teachers' knowledge and skills. undoubtedly, teachers with a high level of knowledge and skills contribute positively to the quality of classroom practice and students’ learning outcomes (borg & edmett, 2018). teacher knowledge and skills encompass content and pedagogical knowledge, language and communication skill, ict integration in the language classroom, language assessment, and curriculum in the fidelis elleny averina & paulus kuswandono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 75 english language classroom. the second aspect deals with teachers’ self-efficacy, attitudes, and beliefs in teaching and learning. tpd activities are expected to improve not only the technical functions and roles of a teacher but also their attitudes, beliefs, and selfefficacy. castaneda (2011) argued that a teacher’s belief is manifested in their teaching practice as it indirectly affects the actions and decisions that they make in the classroom. thus, tpd activities should enable the teachers to strengthen their sense of professional belonging and job satisfaction; increase their self-efficacy in teaching and self-confidence as teachers; become mindful teachers who can emphasize and help students with learning problems and special learning needs; and encourage them to be effective, autonomous, life-long learners (borg, 2018). furthermore, the third aspect involves teachers’ reflective competence. reflection is the practice that enables teachers to critically ponder on their experience and practice, draw inference, and engage in the meaning-making process to evaluate and improve their practice which eventually leads to professional development (day, 1999; thompson, 2022). in the professional context, building a reflective habit and engaging in professional conversation with other teachers provide the opportunity to discuss, examine, and evaluate everyday ordinary experiences to be more meaningful; thus leading to transformative learning and teaching as the final goal (morgan, 2017). lastly, the fourth aspect of tpd perceived impact concerns with classroom practice and instructional skills. various tpd programs should enable the teachers to develop creative materials (worksheets, modules), lesson plans, and syllabus for teaching; to have better and more effective classroom management; to utilize interactive teaching media for classroom practice; to implement a new teaching method and interesting teaching activities by integrating technology in the language classroom; and to promote 21st century skills in the language classroom (borg & edmett, 2018). figure 1. the conceptual framework of tpd’s perceived impacts (borg, 2018) professional development of indonesian in-service efl teachers: perceived impacts and challenges 76 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 3. method 3.1. research design this descriptive qualitative study attempted to investigate the types of formal tpd activities that have been undertaken by efl in-service teachers along with the extent to which those programs made significant impacts in developing their professionalism. the descriptive qualitative study aims to assist the researchers to comprehend a certain phenomenon by providing descriptive accounts gathered through various data collection techniques such as questionnaires, observation, and interviews (ary, jacobs, & sorensen, 2010). in this study, a questionnaire in the form of a likert scale and open-ended questions was given beforehand, followed by a semi-structured interview. the use of a questionnaire aimed to obtain the general descriptions of the issue and select the prospective interview participants. meanwhile, interviews were conducted to obtain deeper and richer data which depicted each individual’s insights and perceptions of the phenomenon being studied. 3.2. research setting the research was conducted from march to may 2022 in cirebon, west java. prior to the research, an interview with the head of the association of teachers of subject matters (henceforth: mgmp) in cirebon was conducted to know the overall formal tpd programs that have been carried out and organized by either mgmp or the department of education and culture in cirebon as the collaborative programs. the data from the preliminary interview were used to partially construct the close-ended questionnaire. then, a close-ended questionnaire was distributed to the mgmp whatsapp group by utilizing a google form due to the distance and pandemic situation. the participants who voluntarily agreed to participate were provided with informed consent to ensure ethical conduct. as for the interview, the researchers utilized the zoom video conference platform. 3.3. research participants the purposive sampling method was employed to select the participants of the research (ary et al., 2010). twenty-five english teachers from various junior high schools associated with mgmp in cirebon, west java were voluntarily involved in this research. the researchers chose the participants with two major considerations. first, they were all members of the same teacher association. second, they were assumed to have undertaken various types of formal tpd activities organized by either mgmp or the department of education and culture in cirebon. by this, the researchers could obtain and ensure more nuanced and richer data as the teachers come from various educational settings. following up on the questionnaire, five participants were purposefully selected to be interviewed. the researchers chose 2 participants with less than 5 years of teaching experience and 3 participants with more than 10 years of teaching experience to represent the novice and senior teachers. fidelis elleny averina & paulus kuswandono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 77 table 1 participants’ demographic data. no demography n % 1 educational background bachelor's degree 21 84% master's degree 4 16% 2 age 20-30 years 9 36% 31-40 years 5 20% 41-50 years 6 24% >50 years 5 20% 3 years of teaching experience 1-5 years 9 36% 6-10 years 3 12% 11-15 years 3 12% 16-20 years 4 16% >20 years 6 24% 4 place of teaching private school 15 60% public school 10 40% 3.4. research instruments to ensure triangulation, a close-ended questionnaire and semi-structured interview were utilized as the data gathering techniques. the close-ended questionnaire was adapted from borg (2018) and simegn (2014). the researchers combined two aspects of borg’s (2018) questionnaire, namely “language proficiency” and “teacher knowledge” into one aspect “teacher knowledge and skills”. as for simegn's (2014) questionnaire, the researchers adjusted the language so that it was suitable for efl teachers in the indonesian context. the close-ended questionnaire was divided into three parts. in the first part, the participants were to choose some formal tpd activities that they have undertaken. the choices of the tpd activities were constructed based on the prior interview with the head of mgmp. they were allowed to choose more than one activity based on their participation. for the second part, the participants were to measure their perceived impacts of undertaking those tpd activities on their professional development by filling up the likert scale with five degrees of agreement ranging from “strongly disagree” to "strongly agree”. meanwhile, for the last part, they were presented with some common challenges of undertaking formal tpd activities based on the results of previous studies and were asked to choose some of them that were relevant to their experiences. however, in each part, they were also encouraged to elaborate on their experiences more by answering and responding to the open-ended questions. professional development of indonesian in-service efl teachers: perceived impacts and challenges 78 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 table 2 questionnaire blueprint. questionnaire aspects number of items tpd perceived impacts on teachers (adapted from borg, 2018) teachers’ knowledge and skills 3,4,5,6,7 self-efficacy, attitudes, and belief 8, 9,10,11,12 reflective competence 13,14,15,17 classroom practice and instructional skills 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 as for the semi-structured interview, nine questions were addressed exploring (1) the reasons for joining the formal tpd program, (2) the perception of the formal tpd program, (3) the expectation after undertaking formal tpd programs, (4) the perceived impacts, (5) the types of tpd program that were effective or less effective for them, and (6) things that need to be improved in the formal tpd programs. 3.5. data analysis descriptive statistics was employed to analyse the numerical data gathered through the close-ended questionnaire to find out the types of formal tpd programs undertaken by the teachers, the perceived impacts of tpd activities, and the challenges that they encountered. this process involved sequential data collection and analysis in which the results of the close-ended questionnaire were used as the building block to gather the qualitative data through the semi-structured interview (ary et al., 2010). after the researchers analysed the data gathered from the questionnaire, a semi-structured interview was conducted by choosing five participants under purposive sampling. the researchers chose 2 participants with less than 5 years of teaching experience and 3 participants with more than 10 years of teaching experience to represent the novice and senior teachersthe interview recordings were transcribed verbatim and were analysed under the coding technique by identifying, coding, and interpreting the emergent salient themes (creswell, 2002). the additional data gathered through open-ended questions were also analysed under the coding technique. for data presentation, the participants’ responses to the open-ended questions were labelled oeq (open-ended questions). meanwhile, for interview results, the data were labelled ssi (semi-structured interview). to ensure validity, member checking was conducted by sending the final report of major findings and salient themes found from the interview to each participant through email (creswell, 2002). the numerical and qualitative data were eventually triangulated and elaborated to build robust and comprehensive findings. fidelis elleny averina & paulus kuswandono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 79 4. findings 4.1. teacher professional development activities undertaken by the participants figure 2. tpd activities undertaken by the participants based on the questionnaire containing the list of various alternatives of tpd activities undertaken by the participants, it was found that webinars (n=21; 84%) followed by seminars (n=20; 80%) and workshops (n=20; 80%) became the most popular and common tpd activities that the participants engaged in and that were widely available for them. however, despite its popularity and availability, the answers to open-ended questions yielded a different result. of 25 participants, 9 of them mentioned workshops to be the most effective and motivating tpd compared to webinars and seminars. one of them stated: even though seminars and webinars are the most popular types of tpd activities, i am not really keen on them since they only discuss theories and have one way of communication. for me, i enjoy joining workshops since it gives me the opportunity to know the theory and implement it directly. (p.3/oeq) from the study, it was revealed that workshops became favourable as they stimulated the teachers to participate actively to think and produce concrete, applicable results. furthermore, the present study showed that the second most common tpd activities undertaken by the participants were mgmp meetings (n=17; 68%) followed by training (n=15; 60%) and conference (n=11; 44%). this is in line with the answers gathered from the open-ended question in which 6 out of 25 participants mentioned the benefit of mgmp to develop their professionalism. one of them argued: for me, the mgmp meeting is the most effective tpd since the mgmp itself has an agenda which includes various tpd activities that facilitate the english teachers to have on-going updates of the current trends in education. the other thing is that we also meet regularly so we can know what problems the teachers encounter and how to solve them. furthermore, becoming part of mgmp enables me to have support either intellectually or emotionally from other teachers. (p.25/oeq) the excerpt above highlighted the role of mgmp as it provided the continuous tpd programs that enabled them to develop their professionalism, build a network, and get practical solutions to solve the problems encountered in the classroom. moreover, this professional development of indonesian in-service efl teachers: perceived impacts and challenges 80 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 study also revealed that classroom action research (n=8; 32%) and community of interest became the least favoured tpd activities undertaken by the participants. car takes a long time and i don’t know where to start. i have already had a lot of administrative work outside teaching and i do not have time to conduct car. furthermore, workshops and training are more useful for me as they provide more practical insights which are easy to be applied in my class. (p.19/oeq) the excerpt above found that the limitation of time, the complex nature of research, and teachers’ excessive workload are the notable reasons why teachers ‘avoid’ conducting research to improve their practice and the education quality as a whole. further inquiry through interviews also found that teachers preferred implementing the ready-to-use teaching techniques, methods, and media that they learned from joining various tpd activities in their classroom to conducting research. 4.2. tpd perceived impacts as reported by the participants figure 3. tpd perceived impacts 4.2.1. self-efficacy, attitudes, and beliefs table 3 summary of participants’ self-efficacy, attitudes, and beliefs. statements disagreement neutral agreement mean n (%) n (%) n (%) the tpd activities that i joined... q8 strengthen the sense of professional belonging and job satisfaction 1 4.00 3 12.00 21 84.00 20.92 q9 strengthen my belief on my capacity in helping the students to value and optimize learning 1 4.00 1 4.00 23 92.00 q10 enable me to be a more confident english teacher 1 4.00 1 4.00 23 92.00 q11 enable me to be a mindful teacher who can help students with learning problems and special needs 0 0.00 4 16.00 21 84.00 q12 enable me to be an effective, autonomous, lifelong learner 1 4.00 3 12.00 21 84.00 *disagreement: strongly disagree to disagree **agreement: agree to strongly agree fidelis elleny averina & paulus kuswandono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 81 based on the participants’ responses in the self-reported questionnaire; selfefficacy, attitudes, and beliefs (mean=20.92) are the aspects that they perceived to be the most developed as a result of joining various tpd programs. this is in line with the results gathered from the interview. two of the participants mentioned: for me, i notice the improvement in my belief and ability especially in helping students with learning difficulties to value and optimize their learning. i feel like these skills are incredibly relevant in today's disruptive world as more students are diagnosed with physical, mental, or learning disabilities. (p.4/ssi) in the interview, participant four further elaborated that after joining some tpd programs that focused on diversity and inclusivity in education, she was able to broaden her view about education and became more confident in her ability to respect diversit y by providing her students with equal educational opportunities in her classroom. a similar response was also stated by participant one in the interview: i have joined various tpd activities, but one of the most motivating, inspiring, and memorable is gerakan sekolah menyenangkan. this community of learning enables me to create a creative, interesting, and child-friendly educational environment for my students......even though the result cannot be seen instantly, by implementing it bit by bit with other teachers, we can become the agents of change to improve the educational quality in cirebon. (p.1/ssi) from the excerpt above, the tpd activities that the participant joined strengthened her belief that learning could occur in a pleasant and supportive environment. furthermore, her sense of agency and self-efficacy were also increased as she was certain that by working collaboratively with other teachers, she could improve the educational quality in cirebon. 4.2.2. reflective competence table 4 summary of participants’ reflective competence. statements disagreement neutral agreement mean n (%) n (%) n (%) the tpd activities that i joined enable me to... q13 do critical self-reflection to evaluate my teaching practice 1 4.00 4 16.00 20 80.00 20.52 q14 build a reflective habit 1 4.00 5 20.00 19 76.00 q15 learn from the evaluation and feedback given by other teachers and students 1 4.00 3 12.00 21 84.00 q16 provide opportunities to engage in professional conversation with other 1 4.00 4 16.00 20 80.00 professional development of indonesian in-service efl teachers: perceived impacts and challenges 82 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 teachers to discuss, evaluate and improve each other teaching practice q17 learn about how others teach to improve my own practice 1 4.00 3 12.00 21 84.00 *disagreement: strongly disagree to disagree **agreement : agree to strongly agree from figure 3, it was apparent that reflective competence (mean=20.52) became the second aspect that the participants perceived to develop as a result of attending tpd programs. this is in accordance with the interview result. one of the participants stated: ...reflective practice has been ubiquitously implemented in education as a means to evaluate and improve teachers’ classroom practice. various tpd programs have emphasized this practice, even my school implements reflection as a habit...we usually have daily self-reflection and weekly reflection in the form of fgd with other teachers who teach the same subject. (p.5/ssi) 4.2.3. classroom practice and instructional skills table 5 summary of participants’ classroom practice and instructional skills. statements disagreement neutral agreement mean n (%) n (%) n (%) the tpd activities that i joined enable me to... q18 develop creative material (worksheet, module), lesson plan, and syllabus for teaching 1 4.00 4 16.00 20 80.00 20.16 q19 have a better and more effective classroom management 2 8.00 4 16.00 19 76.00 q20 utilize interactive teaching media for classroom practice 1 4.00 4 16.00 20 80.00 q21 implement new teaching method and interesting teaching activities by integrating technology in language classroom 1 4.00 3 12.00 21 84.00 q22 i have joined enable me to promote 21st century skills in the language classroom 2 8.00 6 24.00 17 68.00 *disagreement: strongly disagree to disagree **agreement : agree to strongly agree from figure 3, it was apparent that classroom practice and instructional skills (mean=20.16) became the third aspect that the participants perceived to be developed as a result of undertaking tpds. from the interview, it was revealed that even though the participants have had sufficient classroom practice and instructional skills as a result of joining tpds, they hoped that they could improve this aspect more. some of their responses were presented in the following excerpts: basically i know how to make syllabi, lesson plans, modules, and worksheets because those are part of my job. however, i realize that i lack creativity to make fidelis elleny averina & paulus kuswandono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 83 them look good and engaging. so, i often ended up making a plain module and worksheet with less interactive activities. (p.3/ssi) the excerpt above showed that the participant was aware that his current knowledge and skill in designing interactive and creative instructional materials were still insufficient. furthermore, a slightly different concern was expressed by another participant. he stated: ...the challenge is how to prepare the students with 21st century skills to face globalization in the future. furthermore, literacy skill in which digital literacy is included is also needed to help the students thrive in the real-world future workplace. i honestly still learn about it and i hope future tpd programs can accommodate this need. (p.2/ssi) in the interview, participant two explained that one of his concerns related to classroom practice and instructional skills was how to promote 21st century literacy skills in the teaching-learning process. realizing this situation, tpd programs aim to help the teachers to design creative materials and implement interactive activities which integrate the 21st century skills (i.e.’ critical thinking, collaboration, communication, creativity, innovation, self-direction, global connections, local connection, and technology integration). 4.2.4. teacher knowledge and skills table 6 summary of participants’ knowledge and skills. statements disagreement neutral agreement mean n (%) n (%) n (%) the tpd activities that i joined... q3 increase my pedagogical knowledge 1 4.00 4 16.00 20 80.00 19.68 q4 increase my english language and communication skills 3 12.00 4 16.00 18 72.00 q5 improve my ict skills (information and communication technology) for language classroom 1 4.00 3 12.00 21 84.00 q6 increase my understanding of language assessment 2 8.00 3 12.00 20 80.00 q7 increase my understanding of curriculum and its implementation in english language classroom 3 12.00 5 20.00 17 68.00 *disagreement: strongly disagree to disagree **agreement : agree to strongly agree lastly, based on the participants’ responses in the self-reported questionnaire, teacher knowledge and skills (mean=19.6) became the aspect that they perceived to be the least developed. from the participants’ responses in the self-reported questionnaire professional development of indonesian in-service efl teachers: perceived impacts and challenges 84 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 and interview, the participants perceived that the tpd activities that they have undertaken still couldn’t help them to improve this aspect optimally. two of them argued as follows: i expect to improve my ict skills more since this post-pandemic era has shifted the dynamics of education and required the teachers to be more tech-savvy in implementing technology in the language classroom. (p.2/ssi) i still need to learn more about kurikulum merdeka belajar, especially about the real implementation and assessment.....this curriculum is new and as far as i am concerned that many teachers are still confused with the implementation. (p.4/ssi) from the two excerpts above, participant two was aware of the current education need in which teachers are expected to have a good understanding and skill of tpack (technological pedagogical content knowledge) to prepare the students for the digital era. meanwhile, participant four expressed her need to learn more about the new curriculum reform in terms of its implementation and assessment policy. 4.3. the challenges of undertaking tpd activities figure 4. the challenges of undertaking tpd activities in undertaking various tpd programs organized by either mgmp or the department of education and culture in cirebon, the participants reported some difficulties that hindered them from fully participating in those programs. figure 3 showed six challenges of tpd encountered by the participants which encompassed excessive workload as a teacher (n=17; 68%), time constraints or mismatched schedule (n=16; 64%), limited choices of tpd programs that were not in accordance with teachers’ interests (n=13; 52%), the mismatch between teachers’ needs and what the program offered (n=12; 48%), limited access and information about the programs (n=7; 28%), and less effective program duration (n=5; 20%). furthermore, the answers from the interview also yielded similar results in which the participants mentioned excessive workload and time constraints or mismatched schedules as the main impediments to undertaking tpds. one participant stated: fidelis elleny averina & paulus kuswandono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 85 most of the time i get too busy making lesson plans and other administrative work at school so that i have only a little time to join tpd. in addition, the number of english teachers in my school is limited so sometimes i cannot attend the tpd activities due to the mismatched schedule. (p.3/ssi) furthermore, the other challenges that the participants encountered in undertaking tpds are limited choices of tpd programs that are not in accordance with teachers’ interests and the mismatch between teachers’ needs and what the program offered to be the hindrances of participating tpds. one participant argued: i'm a picky person and it is so difficult to find a program that matches my interests and needs. furthermore, sometimes there was a mismatch between what the program offered with the quality content of the program as some of them only discuss the topic at a skin-deep level with rather unclear objectives. (p.4/ssi) further inquiry through interviews identified that there were three additional challenges apart from those six mentioned above, those were: (1) complex administrative pre-requisite as some of the free programs from the government required nuptk or sim pkb as the requirements; (2) lack of funding as some of the programs required the participants to pay the registration fee; (3) lack of permission from the authoritative figures to leave the school and attend tpd programs during school hours. it usually happens in some schools with a limited number of teachers. 5. discussion this study aimed to explore the tpd activities undertaken by efl teachers, the extent to which those formal tpd programs gave impacts on their professional development based on their perceptions, and the constraints that they encountered. the following is the discussion of the result as well as the major takeaways that can be drawn from this study. first of all, regarding the types of tpd activities that the participants have undertaken, webinars (n=21; 84%) became the most popular and widely available for them followed by onsite workshops (n=20; 80%) and seminars (n=20; 80%). this result highlighted the trends of current tpds in which the focus has shifted from onsite seminars to digitalizing the teacher professional development in the form of webinars as a result of the covid-19 pandemic. similar results were also found in the study conducted by some researchers which revealed that during the lockdown due to the pandemic, webinars became one of the most widely used online platforms that facilitated teachers’ professional development and mediated the exchange of resources and ideas due to its flexibility, efficiency, and cost-benefit reasons (ramírez-montoya, andrade-vargas, rivera-rogel, & portuguez-castro, 2021; silvhiany, 2022). nonetheless, in terms of effectiveness, workshops still became the most favourable as they stimulated the teachers to participate actively to think and produce concrete, applicable results. it is supported by rahman (2016) who argued that teachers’ active participation and enactment were found professional development of indonesian in-service efl teachers: perceived impacts and challenges 86 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 to be stimulating and effective rather than “passive, one-shot and authoritative” types of tpd activities (p.2). moreover, this study also revealed that classroom action research (n=8; 32%) and community of interest (n=7; 28%) became the least favoured tpd activities undertaken by the participants. the plausible explanation for this is that the two activities required the teachers to invest more time, energy, and effort. manfra (2019) asserted that conducting classroom action research as a ‘systematic and intentional inquiry’ requires the teachers to engage in a critical and reflective thinking process that aims to bring forth change in teachers’ practice and students’ outcomes. despite its benefit, the findings showed that teachers seemed to be reluctant to conduct car. this showed teachers’ reluctance to engage in critical thinking to identify the problems found in the classroom and improve practice through interventions (manfra, 2019). in addition, this result was also in accordance with the study conducted by some researchers which found that conducting research was the least favoured tpd activities among indonesian teachers (cirocki & farrell, 2019; hustarna, melati, mardiah, rachmawati, & susanah, 2020). secondly, concerning the participants' perceived impacts of tpd on their professionalism, the present study revealed that self-efficacy, attitudes, and beliefs (mean=20.92) became the aspects that they perceived to be the most developed. according to borg (2018), tpds often target changes in teachers’ attitudes, beliefs, and efficacy. the result of the present study was similar to the study conducted by some researchers which revealed that teachers’ self-efficacy, attitudes, and beliefs were developed and evolved as a result of joining online tpd programs in which they acquired robust beliefs on their capacity in helping the students to value and optimize learning by designing innovative forms of classroom practice that could accommodate students coming from diverse backgrounds including academically and economically disadvantaged learners (philipsen, tondeur, roblin, vanslambrouck, & zhu, 2019; yoo, 2016). moreover, it was apparent that reflective competence (mean=20.52) became the second aspect that the participants perceived to be developed as a result of attending various tpds. thompson (2022) argued that reflection created ‘a safe forum’ for the teachers to be open and objective by allowing them to critically analyse their practice. in the reflection process, the teachers must possess some qualities which include “curiosity, critical thinking, intellectual perseverance, willingness to wonder, open-mindedness, and desire for growth” that become the keys to critical reflection (šarić & šteh, 2017, p.81). the result of the current study is in line with the studies conducted by some researchers which revealed that the tpd programs enabled the teachers to implement various strategies of reflective practice in the form of writing a daily journal, setting up the reflection group, conducting collaborative learning or action research, recording lessons, and receiving peer feedback as a result of classroom observation (gheith & aljaberi, 2018; mathew, mathew, & peechattu, 2017; mesa, 2018). furthermore, the study suggested that classroom practice and instructional skills (mean=20.16) became the third aspect that the participants perceived to be developed as fidelis elleny averina & paulus kuswandono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 87 a result of undertaking tpds. from the study, it was revealed that one of the emphases of teachers’ classroom practice and instructional skills was to promote 21st century skills in the classroom. promoting 21st century skills in the classroom is highly essential to prepare the students to solve complex problems through collaboration and communication with others, acquire a set of novel skills and information independently, and adapt to the ever-changing environment so that they are able to compete and thrive in the future’s global development (tindowen, bassig, & cagurangan, 2017). göker (2021) argued that the improvement of teachers’ instructional skills is greatly dependent on the awareness of their current practice. the larger their concern about a particular teaching-learning component, the more attention and effort they will invest to improve themselves. in addition, teacher knowledge and skills (mean=19.6) were found to be the aspects that the participants perceived to be the least developed. the study found that in terms of teacher knowledge and skills, teachers’ ict skills and knowledge about curriculum reform became the aspects that the participants lacked the most. hartshorne, baumgartner, kaplan-rakowski, mouza, and ferdig (2020) stated that there was a slight shift of focus on tpd after the covid-19 pandemic in which the emphasis was put on providing the teachers with systematic instruction and assistance on how to utilize technology in language learning, access a variety of accessible resources online, and design high-quality innovative learning either online or hybrid that are suitable with the curriculum. this should also be balanced with teachers’ knowledge about the new curriculum reform so that there is no misalignment between the curriculum and ict implementation in the classroom (borg, 2018). this finding is in accordance with the study conducted by borg et al. (2018) which revealed that the efect (english for education college trainers project), as a professional development program aimed to enhance teachers’ competence was still not able to “promote subject-specific knowledge including pedagogical content knowledge, deliver the content in meaningful ways, and utilize technology in teaching creatively” (p.82). analysing the results of the current study, it was highly recommended that future tpd programs should focus on assisting the efl teachers in representing linguistic content by utilizing technology in the appropriate pedagogical delivery that is suitable for the curriculum. lastly, regarding the challenges of undertaking tpds, the current study found that workload as a teacher, time constraints or mismatched schedule, limited choices of tpd programs that were not in accordance with teachers’ interests, the mismatch between teachers’ needs and what the program offered, limited access and information about the programs, and less effective program duration. these findings were coherent with the studies conducted by some researchers in the indonesian context. avillanova and kuswandono (2019) conducted a study which revealed that the lack of prerequisites for tpd, the lack of funds, the lack of employer support, mismatched schedule, time constraints, and the lack of information about the programs became the main challenges found among efl teachers in cilacap. however, slightly different results were found in the study conducted by tanang and abu (2014) in which time constraints, cost, professional development of indonesian in-service efl teachers: perceived impacts and challenges 88 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 opportunity to learn and bureaucratic matters became the main challenges which hindered the civil servant teachers in south sulawesi from joining tpds. concerning the discussion above, it could be inferred that effective and motivating tpd activities were those that: (1) involved the teachers in actively participating in producing concrete applicable results, getting involved in the discussion, and practicing the theory; (2) offered practical and applicable innovations and solutions; (3) provided continuous follow-up assistance. future tpds should also consider the challenges that are mostly faced by the teachers so that the teachers can optimally cultivate the positive impacts of tpds on their professionalism. 6. conclusion this study explored efl teachers’ tpd activities in cirebon, the extent to which those formal tpd programs affected their professional development based on their perceptions, and the constraints that they encountered. the current findings revealed that tpd activities that the participants have undertaken all these times helped them to improve self-efficacy, attitudes, beliefs, reflective competence, classroom practice and instructional skills, and teacher knowledge and skills. nevertheless, some challenges including excessive workload as a teacher, time constraints or mismatched schedule, limited choices of tpd programs, a mismatch between teachers’ needs and the program goal, limited access and information about the programs, and less effective program duration were still prevalent during the tpd program implementation. by considering the findings of this study as one of the sources of input, stakeholders and policymakers of the department of education and culture can evaluate and improve future tpd programs that would give more positive impacts on the efl teachers not only in cirebon but also across different regions in indonesia. undeniably, this study has some limitations. first of all, the results of this study cannot be generalized as this study involved only a limited number of participants. secondly, another potential limitation is related to the nature of the self-reported questionnaire to explore participants’ perceptions of the impacts of undertaking tpds. since it measures perception, some teachers might have given socially desirable responses. concerning this issue, further studies could cast light on different realizations of the components of tpd perceived impacts and explore the alignment between teachers’ perceptions of tpd and their classroom practices through collecting teachers’ lesson plans, observations, stimulated verbal and written reports, and reflective journals. references ary, d., jacobs, l. c., & sorensen, c. 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(2017). twenty-first-century skills of alternative learning system learners. sage open, 7(3), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244017726116 utami, i. g. a. l. ., & prestridge, s. (2018). how english teachers learn in indonesia: fidelis elleny averina & paulus kuswandono englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 91 tension between policy-driven and selfdriven professional development. teflin journal, 29(2), 245–265. utami, i. g. a. l. ., saukah, a., cahyono, b. y., & rachmajanti, s. (2017). levels of involvement in the english teachers’ cpd (continuous professional development): the degree of professional enthusiasm. journal of asia tefl, 14(2), 336–345. https://doi.org/10.18823/asiatefl.2017.14.2.10.336 utami, i. g. a. l. p. (2018). the alignment of perceptions and practices of effective english teaching by english teachers with different cpd involvement levels. universitas negeri malang, malang, indonesia. https://doi.org/10.13140/rg.2.2.15755.18725 yoo, j. h. (2016). the effect of professional development on teacher efficacy and teachers’ self-analysis of their efficacy change. journal of teacher education for sustainability, 18(1), 84–94. https://doi.org/10.1515/jtes-2016-0007 englisia may 2014 vol. 1 no.2, 232-244 correlative aspects of language  specific operation and arithmetic  processing in bilinguals’ brain; an  overview of behavioural and  neurological studies  erlyna abidasari universitas muhammadiyah malang abstract this study talks about what aspects correlated between the language specific operation and arithmetic processing skills that occur in bilingual people’s brains. some studies toward the behaviour and neurology’s aspects are discussed as well as their findings in order to answer the research questions of the study. the discussions reveal that both skills have a positive correlation and that both occur in the brain’s left hemisphere; however, the left hemisphere largely participates in automatic language specific operations and simple calculations, while the right hemisphere dominates advanced control processing operations in calculation (e.g. calculus, logarithm) and language information transfer. in addition, studies show that the bilinguals’ language dominance does not clearly determine the correlation between the language and arithmetic skills. further, in order to retain better arithmetic concepts, comprehensive and simultaneous training should be conducted in both languages and in the early stage of language development, especially during bilinguals’ critical age of language learning. keywords: bilingual, language specific operation, arithmetic processing, language development, language dominance, left hemisphere, right hemisphere introduction there has been a heated debate as to whether the development of language influences the calculation skill in bilingual cases, as been mentioned by tamamaki erlyna abidasari englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 233 (1993) that bilinguals have difficulties to solve mathematical problems in their nondominant language. baldo and dronkers (2007, p. 229) suggest the existence of common syntax for both language and arithmetic in which the systems influence the way bilinguals perceive understanding. if the bilingual person has weak syntactic knowledge of a language, it is assumed that the arithmetic skill is also in deficit state. this “common syntax” determines how language and mathematical entities be coded in the mental structure of human brain. however, some argue that these two systems are distinct in a way that each has different process as can be proven in several aphasia acalculia cases. aphasia is an impairment of language due to injury or illness in the brain, whereas acalculia is an inability to perform arithmetic calculation and numbering processes. in the first view, if both language and arithmetic share the common syntactic entities, which suggest the common overlapping area in the brain to be used for both development, one suffering from aphasia must also have a problem with counting and vice versa (baldo & dronkers, 2007, p. 230). the other study conducted by vitali et al. (2003), in contrast, showed significantly different results when several aphasic patients do not lose their ability in calculation. this proof strengthens the second view that recommends separate operational domains. in some other studies, however, types of aphasia determines kinds of acalculia which means they may share the same lobe to some extend but not always (semenza, dalazer, bertella, & grana, 2006, pp. 1-2). these findings arouse questions on the localisation of language and arithmetic skills in human brain whether they share the same section or placed in two distinct specific areas. the common finding derived from fmri, er-gmri, mit, tep, and intra-parietal sulcus neurological tests points that calculation operation and language development exist mostly in the left hemisphere of the brain, especially in the case of early bilinguals, adding the complication to observe separability of the two entities. thus, this paper tries to explore some knowledge of the bilinguals’ brain processing relevant to language-arithmetic correlation. context and research problems firstly, the writer needs to specify what language intended to be observed in this particular case. it is not the whole or general language of human communication; correlative aspects of language specific operation and arithmetic processing in bilinguals’ brain; an overview of behavioural and neurological studies 234 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 rather, the focus is narrowed down to the language of mathematical operation or referred as the language specific operation. cohen, dehaene, chockon, lehericy, and naccache (2000) mentions this specific language is used for problem solving in calculation, to interpret numerical and symbolic data into their verbal semantic functions (words). the focused operation is in both exact and approximate arithmetic processes involving mental semantic ability to construct calculation based on abstract concepts. the exact operations comprise simple addition, subtraction, and some simple functions of multiplication and divisions, as for approximate operations include advanced structural operation such as advanced triple digits multiplication, division, logarithm, square cubic, square root, and calculus. the bilingualism degrees in this observation vary from early simultaneous, consecutive bilinguals into late bilinguals, to compare the different effects of the language acquisition and learning on their arithmetic skill retention. the introduction of language arithmetic (la+) should be noted here, referring to the language in which bilinguals learn their first numbering process compared to language non-arithmetic (la-) where bilinguals do not have enough experience to learn number and calculation within this language. therefore la+ may not be their first language or their dominant language. to observe the correlation between language specific and arithmetic skills, most researchers use more than one test; the preferable tests are to combine both behavioural psychological assessments with neurological brain test. the comparison of the control group (healthy bilinguals) and aphasic/acalculic patients (impaired bilinguals) is to be made to explain the distribution and allocation of brain stimuli regarding its function on language specific and arithmetic entities. hence, the observation should fulfil answers to these following research problems: 1. to what extent does language specific operation correlate with the arithmetic skill of bilinguals? 2. in which preferable language and in what phase does the relation dominantly occur? erlyna abidasari englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 235 3. what strategy do bilinguals apply to preserve better arithmetic operation retention? literature review and discussion the correlation between the language specific operation and arithmetic skill development the dramatic increase of children’s arithmetic skill soon after they acquire language is one significant interest of the linguistic-arithmetic study. baldo and dronkers (2007, pp. 229-230) portray this phenomenon as a form of numerical range escalation experienced by the early bilingual children learning arithmetic operation in their first language. in line with this finding, cohen et al. (2000, p. 1426) explains two possible expansions of arithmetic skill development regarding the language specific skill in: 1) the acquisition of number in its verbal format and 2) the acknowledgement of “non-verbal number “ such as the symbolic form of numbers (e.g. arabic or latin) alongside the development of language acquisition. these two processes support the basic manipulation of quantity operations in bilingual children minds. the verbal recognition of numbering and its operations are described in dehaene, spelke, pinel, stanescu, and tsivkin (1999)s’ tests using “picture naming, word reading, and lexical decision” to examine which part of the brain corresponds to the process. the findings show that both left and right intra-parietal cortices of the brain surface are activated simultaneously and functionally meaning that both share spatial responses as well as controlled attention on the given tasks. on the other hand, the different performance of the brain activity is shown by another test conducted by benn, zheng, wilkinson, siegal, & varley (2012) which separates arithmetic operations into categories of rote-learning and advanced learning. rote learning consists of simple addition and single digit subtraction operations, while the latter induces more semantically complex operations such as multiplication and division (benn, zheng, wilkinson, siegal, & varley, 2012, pp. 25). the test shows that there is an interference of “verbal shadowing” involved in the complex mathematical operation. bilinguals need to perform additional mental imaging retention and language mediation in solving the advanced tasks. this process correlative aspects of language specific operation and arithmetic processing in bilinguals’ brain; an overview of behavioural and neurological studies 236 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 is different from the rote learning type because there is no necessity in processing further input into semantic understanding; bilinguals only need a so-called “look-up” automaticity system in their mental dictionaries. the left hemisphere, especially in the broca area, is proven to be more active in rote arithmetic operations, as for the advanced learning, the right hemisphere, as the expansion of the “superior parietal lobule”, takes a larger contribution. the test being used is a conventional versus abstract shape manipulations conducted in three consecutive phases. in addition, dehaene et al. (1999)’s observation on exact versus approximate calculation formats provides an outstanding view on the brain activation distinction. bilinguals perform better whenever they are given exact problems rather than the approximate ones. in the exact operations, bilinguals tend to activate faster their trained skill in word sequences as the representation of language specific emphasis directly linked to automatic language specific association. in the contrary, when dealing with approximate problems, bilinguals store the advanced knowledge in the format of number magnitude making it harder for them to interpret, understand, and link the mathematical problem with its language representation. dehaene’s test with fmri and event related potentials (erps) provide a clear picture of left hemispheric functioning during the exact problem solving; whereas the approximate case is represented by the minimum participation of the left hemisphere (lh) and the dominance of the right hemisphere (rh) parietal lobes. language dominance of arithmetic operation a neurological study by baldo and dronkers (2007) proposes the interdependence of language specific and arithmetic operation. both are mediated by fragmental overlapping within the brain networks. this contention is also supported by pica, lemer, izard, and dehaene (2004, pp. 500-503) suggesting that some people coming from non-numerical language cultures have difficulties in performing calculation. moreover, dahmen, hartje, bussing, and sturm (1982, pp. 146-150) claim that the occurrence of verbal deficiency influences to some extent the arithmetic ability in such a way that both entities are likely to share the correlating general structure named as “common syntax”. the understanding of thematic role, as baldo (2007) erlyna abidasari englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 237 mentions, concludes that the syntax of language specific and arithmetic operation is similar. however, surprisingly, another study brings quite an opposite argument towards what kind of syntactic interdependence does affect the arithmetic ability. when the proposed interdependence exists, there should be an absolute condition where aphasic patient has to always be acalculic and vice versa. the study of several aphasic and/or acalculic patients then proves three possible conditions: 1) aphasic patient may be well performed in calculation; 2) acalculic patient might have no problem with language interpretation, and 3) associative deficits of both aphasia and acalculia which is in line with the first assertion of the shared syntactic role (basso, caporali, & faglioni, 2005, pp. 99-103). now, the question is in what condition or requirement does the arithmetic operation be influenced by the language specific mode for bilinguals. salillas and wicha (2012) try to untie the above question by a thorough study on electrophysiological and behavioural response tests of spanish-english for both healthy and aphasic bilinguals. a reaction-time experiment and the brain electrical response test are conducted simultaneously for the participants learning arithmetic in one of their two languages. the electro-encephalogram records are performed to check the electrical wave functioning as the participants undergo the behavioural tests. the findings point out positive relevance between language proficiency and arithmetic retrieval strategy for both groups. the “multiple mapping” of bilinguals to interpret the same concept for two different productions always occurs in any case. the other significant finding of this study is related to the language dominance matter. the language in which bilinguals first experience the arithmetic learning (la+) influence strongly to the ability to process and solve numerical operations, even in the case of aphasic/acalculic recovery (salillas & wicha, 2012, p. 745). la+ does not necessarily be their first language, instead it may be their second language learned at school. the fast activation response of la+ brings an automatic answer needed in the reaction time test. in the case of la(language nonarithmetic), participants perform a weaker and slower reaction due to an indication of translating the mathematical function into the la+ to be easily solved then transcorrelative aspects of language specific operation and arithmetic processing in bilinguals’ brain; an overview of behavioural and neurological studies 238 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 ferring back to the lato provide the expected answer (dehaene et al., 1999). definitely, the second process takes longer time. thus, the arithmetic accuracy skill is not determined by language dominance nor language proficiency, instead the calculation skill is largely depends on arithmetic networks built during the first encounter with any language introducing the operands. the continuum of the bilinguals’ brain translation processes from lato la+ back to laoccurs in frontal parietal regions for both hemispheres with the dominant process in the right hemisphere. the mental calculation is supposed to add some extra works for the right lobe since the increase activity is required to translate and transfer information twice as hard as the original version occurring only in la+. the more bilinguals train themselves to solve mental arithmetic problems in la-, it might bring more efficiency in using neural resources; thus, the status of lais dynamic. a lacan be a la+ when bilinguals continuously operate in the non-arithmetic language. arithmetic memory networking for bilinguals salillas and wicha (2012) and basso et al. (2005) agree that the shaping of potentially strong arithmetic skill is first developed during the early stage of language specific learning. as mentioned earlier, the existence of la+ in the bilinguals’ brain is well maintained and preserved in the further production of both verbal and symbolic arithmetic data as long as it is learnt and practiced persistently. as been asserted by warbuton, price, swiburn, and wise (1999), the early arithmetic learning in the bilingual person acts as a glue towards mathematical operands, solution strategies as well as a language particular so that the stored information can be accessed easier. more controlled process such as translation (from and/or to la-, la+) can be reduced to optimize intuitive self regulating problem solving. in the monolingual brain networking, there is only a one to one interpretation between an arithmetic concept and its verbal representation (salillas & wicha, 2012, pp. 745-746). the case of bilingualism projects different networking designs since bilinguals undergo multiple mappings for one arithmetical concept, adding another cognitive component processing. for non-balanced bilinguals, more complex process will occur when the calculation is presented in their weaker language. erlyna abidasari englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 239 four operational arithmetic procedures, “identification of independent sub modules, recognition of quantity, operation of non-dedicated calculation, act of translation/interpretation” proposed by semenza et al. (2006, p. 287) are the common calculation operations experienced by non-balanced bilinguals which may inhibit the information discovery. if one of these four is blocked, it is assumed that a bilingual will find it hard to seek the answer or even to understand the mathematical semantic content. lin, imada, and kuhl (2012) as well as ischebeck, zamarian, egger, schocke, and delazer (2007) through fmri tests observe the brain activation of bilingual children before and after receiving extensive training. the left hemispheric gyrus is likely to be more active and sensitive after eight repetitive tasks and the arithmetical codes remain stable over the experiment. the brain activation investigation indicates that repetition of several stimuli in the early bilinguals profoundly affects the preservation of arithmetic code in the bilinguals’ language specific operation format. ischebeck, zamarian, egger, schocke, and delazer (2007), furthermore, suggest the balanced training of arithmetic repetitive problem solving in both languages to eliminate the activation of the fronto-parietal area which brings a controlled translation tool. in contrary, an extensive training for late bilinguals brings only little pattern changes in the fronto-parietal area of the brain which may not preserve memory for a long time. solutions, recommendations, and conclusion to answer the first question on the correlation of language specific operation with arithmetic skill of bilinguals, there are three points worth considering. firstly, bilingual children develop their arithmetic skill drastically soon after they acquire language. the implication is that there must be a positive correlation between the two cognitive aspects. secondly, behavioural and neurological tests prove that both language and number processing occur in the same brain region, which is in the lh. there is a factual overlapping activity in broca area in most cases of arithmetic operation and/or within language specific modules. however, different patterns of brain acticorrelative aspects of language specific operation and arithmetic processing in bilinguals’ brain; an overview of behavioural and neurological studies 240 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 vation appeared by the occurrence of advanced arithmetic functions requiring more control of language specific to interpret and transfer semantic content of the function. in this case, the fronto-parietal rh region is highly activated for additional mental imaging and translation. furthermore, the lh largely participates in an automatic language specific operation and in simple calculation; whereas the rh dominates advanced control processing operations in calculation (e.g. calculus, logarithm) and language information transfer. the second research problem concerns the language preference and dominance regarding the correlative aspects of numerical and verbal accesses. the language arithmetic (la+) is the absolute requisition for the language and arithmetic function to correlate each other. it is difficult for bilinguals to solve arithmetic problem in the language non-arithmetic (la-) as they need to transfer/re-transfer information for comprehension matter. the language dominance of bilinguals does not determine correlation between the two skills of language and arithmetic because the la+ can be acquired during the acquisition or learning of the later language. the case of movement of lainto la+ is always possible along the learning and extensive training for both early and late bilinguals. however, the pattern will be different; the former will activate the long term memory retention in the lh, while the later induces the activation of the frontal-lobe of rh which may not hold a long term memorisation. finally, the researchers’ attempt to find effective strategies or treatment to preserve arithmetic skill within the language specific operation comes to a deduction that teaching arithmetic skill in both languages starting from early development of language is seen to be a positive idea. simultaneous training in both languages is expected to provide better atmosphere to create la+ so that bilinguals can perform automatically as well as develop auto-sensitivity towards symbolic and verbal calculations. late bilinguals can also modify their brain activation by intensive regular training. however, if both early and late groups undergo the same process then being erlyna abidasari englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 241 compared, the result of the training is likely to be different. the late bilinguals are apt to stimulate the frontal-parietal lobe of the rh compared to the early bilinguals training that triggers the lh performance. the positive point of the training for the late bilinguals is that the simultaneous conduct of arithmetic problem solving may increase their lastatus into partial la+ and to prevent the lost of the arithmetic and language particular skills in their rh. to conclude, overlapping brain activation in the lh does occur in the case of simple exact mathematical operation with its language specific interpretation. a complementary distribution (distinct rh shift) will present when it comes to advanced approximate calculation applying controlled transfer of information in the interpretation of more sophisticated mathematical problems. in addition, the la+ is the language in which bilinguals encounter their first experience in learning numbering system, thus, they are likely to perform more efficient and automatic compared to the la-. in order to retain better arithmetic concepts, comprehensive and simultaneous training should be conducted in both languages and in the early stage of language development; especially it is best regulated during bilinguals’ critical age of language learning. in the aphasia/acalculia recovery pattern for late bilinguals, repetitive training on mathematical problem solving will help them regain better memory of numerical functioning although the process is different from the early bilinguals. correlative aspects of language specific operation and arithmetic processing in bilinguals’ brain; an overview of behavioural and neurological studies 242 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 references baldo, j. v., & dronkers, n. f. (2007). neural correlates of arithmetic and language comprehension: a common substrate. neuropsycholigia, 45, 229-235. basso, a., caporali, a., & faglioni, p. (2005). spontaneous recovery from acalculia. journal of international neuropsychological science, 11, 99-107. benn, y., zheng, y., wilkinson, j. d., siegal, m., & varley, r. (2012). language in calculation: a core mechanism neuropsycholigia, 50, 1-10. cohen, l., dehaene, s., chockon, f., lehericy, s., & naccache, l. (2000). language and calculation within the parietal lobe: a combined cognitive, anatomical, and fmri study. neuropsycholigia, 38, 1426-1440. dahmen, w., hartje, w., bussing, a., & sturm, w. (1982). disorders of calculation in aphasia patients-spatial and verbal components. neuropsycholigia, 20. 145-153. dehaene, s., spelke, e., pinel, p., stanescu, r., & tsivkin, s. (1999). source of mathematical thinking: behavioral and brain imaging evidence. science, 284, 970-974. ischebeck, a., zamarian, l., egger, k., schocke, m., & delazer, m. (2007). imaging early practice effects in arithmetic. neuroimage, 36(3), 993-1003. lin, j.-f. l., imada, t., & kuhl, p. k. (2012). mental addition in bilinguals: an fmri study of task-related and performance-related activation. cerebral cortex, 22, 1851-1861. pica, p., lemer, c., izard, v., & dehaene, s. (2004). exact and approximate arithmetic in an amazonian indigene group. science, 306(5695), 499-503. salillas, e., & wicha, n. y. y. (2012). early learning shapes the memory networks for arithmetic evidence from brain potentials in bilinguals. phychological science, 23(7), 745-755. semenza, c., dalazer, m., bertella, l., & grana, a. (2006). is math lateralized on the same side as language? ringht hemisphere aphasia and mathematical abilities. neuroscience letters, 406, 285-288. tamamaki, k. (1993). language dominance in bilinguals' arithmetic operations according to their language use. language learning, 43(2), 239-262. vitali, p., tettamanti, m., abutalebi, j., danna, m., ansaldo, a. i., perani, d., joanette, y. (2003). recovery from anomia: effects o specific rehabilitation on brain reorganization: an er-gmri study in 2 anomic patients. brain and language, 87, 126-127. erlyna abidasari englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 243 warbuton, e., price, c. j., swiburn, k., & wise, r. j. (1999). mechanism of recovery from aphasia: evidence from positron emmision tomography studies. journal of neurology, neuro-surgery and phychiatry, 66, 155-161. englisia november 2017 vol. 5, no. 1, 41-50 an analysis of acehnese efl students’ grammatical errors in writing recount texts qudwatin nisak m. isa universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia qudwatinnisak@gmail.com universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia risdaneva02@gmail.com smas babul maghfirah aceh besar, indonesia afid.a3363@gmail.com abstract this study aims at finding empirical evidence of the most common types of grammatical errors and sources of errors in recount texts written by the first-year students of smas babul maghfirah, aceh besar. the subject of the study was a collection of students’ personal writing documents of recount texts about their lives experience. the students’ recount texts were analyzed by referring to betty s. azar classification and richard’s theory on sources of errors. the findings showed that the total number of error is 436. two frequent types of grammatical errors were verb tense and word choice. the major sources of error were intralingual error, interference error and developmental error respectively. furthermore, the findings suggest that it is necessary for efl teachers to apply appropriate techniques and strategies in teaching recount texts, which focus on past tense and language features of the text in order to reduce the possible errors to be made by the student. keywords: grammatical errors; sources of errors; recount rext risdaneva affied alfayed an analysis of acehnese efl students’ grammatical errors in writing recount texts 42 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 introduction in indonesia, english has been taught as a foreign language. according to curriculum of 2013, english is learnt by students since they are in class seventh. when students learn english, they focus on mastering four macro skills of english; they are listening, speaking, reading and writing. listening and reading are receptive skills while speaking and writing are productive skills. among those four, writing is considered as the toughest skill as it requires a thorough process. as a productive skill, writing is not like speaking or other receptive skills. writing skill not only needs a lot of vocabulary in composing a paragraph, but also correct grammars, apart from other writing’s rules, in order to be comprehensible. therefore, composing a paragraph in writing activity takes a lot of times. harmer (2004) states that writing and speaking are totally different, where in writing students have a lot of time to brainstorm their ideas and organize them carefully in contrast to what they do in oral activities. in oral communication process, students can negotiate and confirm the meaning directly to those involved in the process, while to communicate through writing, a writer should carefully organize their ideas by properly using vocabulary and grammatical choices. this has to be done to ensure that the piece of writing can be coherent to any potential readers. in the context of second language (l2) or foreign language (efl) learning, the difficulties of writing do not only lie in creating and organizing the idea, but also in translating the idea into readable writing. richard and renandya (2002) explain that mastering writing skill is the most difficult for l2 learners. learners have to get involved on higher-level skills of planning and organizing as well as lower level skills of spelling, punctuation, word choices and so on. the different elements found between two languages are considered as the main problem. this leads students to make grammatical errors in a process of writing because most of the students tend to translate their ideas from l1 to l2. according to richard (1974) there are three categories of errors. l2 learners often misuse the element of a language when they speak another language. this is what is called interference errors. in addition, they make intralingual errors when generalizing characteristic of learning rules, for examples a general plural form of a qudwatin nisak m. isa, risdaneva & affied alfayed englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 | 43 noun in english is by adding –s or –es as the suffix. last, l2 learners whose basic knowledge is limited try creating a hypothesis of second language they learn. such an error is what comes to be known as developmental errors. these three sources of errors are frequently made by senior high-school students when writing some kinds of text obliged by the curriculum, including recount text. recount text is a text retelling past event. it begins by telling the readers who were involved, what happened, where it took place and when it happened. this text aims to list and describe past experiences by retelling events in which they happened chronologically. in order to achieve its aim the text should be written through a different set of stages. the earliest stage is orientation, which let the readers know about the background of the event, including who, when, where and why. the next one is a sequence event which refers to identifying and describing a chronological order. the last stage is a conclusion in which the writer concludes comments expressing a personal opinion about the events described (derewianka, 2004). in the process of writing recount text students should be aware of and understand about the language features of recount text. since recount text retells about past experiences, the text must use a past tense such as simple past, past perfect, past continuous, and past perfect continuous tense. to describe events the verbs used are made of verbs (action words) and adverbs, which describe and more details to verbs. and to describe events in chronological order students should use next, later, when, after, before, first, etc. there are some problems faced by students in writing recount text as reported by previous research findings. karani as cited in marda (2013) says that the grammatical error is the most serious problem made by high-school students in writing recount text. it comes up when students apply past tense with regular and irregular verbs. the organization of the text may also cause difficulty to students, particularly in composing coherent and cohesive texts. other problems come up in the part of content, vocabulary and spelling. this occurs when students develop the main ideas, focus on diction and concern on mechanism and punctuation. such a writing problem emerged seemingly due to the differences those two languages have in terms of sentence forms. an analysis of acehnese efl students’ grammatical errors in writing recount texts 44 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 a number of grammatical analysis studies have been carried out to analyze the grammatical errors phenomena in writing. first, a study entitled “grammatical errors analysis in students’ recount text (the case of twelfth year student of sman 1 slawi, tegal in the academic year 2006/2007)” was conducted by tony haryanto, a student of language and art faculty semarang state university. in this study the writers found that the total number of errors is 235 in which the most common errors in form of verbs. another previous study was conducted by fajariani emmaryana, a student of tarbiyah and teacher’s training faculty of syarif hidayatullah state islamic university on the title “an analysis of grammatical errors in students’ writings (a case study of first year students of sman cidegud bogor)”. the results show that 90% of students made errors in capitalization and punctuation. despite similarities that this study shares with the previous studies, there are still differences that make this study worth doing. the present study uses betty s. azar’s classification to classify types of errors in students’ writing recount texts. besides, the writer also uses richard’s theory to identify sources of errors. the richard’s theory consists of three sources; they are interference error, intralingual error, and developmental error. based on the problem that has been elaborated, this study aims at identifying the most common types of grammatical errors made by the students in writing recount texts and the sources of the identified errors. research methodology this research is an error analysis study, which uses inquiry approach useful for exploring and understanding a central phenomenon. to learn about this phenomenon, the inquirers ask participants broad and general questions, collects the detailed views of participants in the form of texts or images, and analyze the information for description and themes. from this data, the researchers interpret the meaning of information, drawing on personal reflection and past research. the final report is flexible, and it displays the researcher’s biases and thought (cresswell, 2008). qudwatin nisak m. isa, risdaneva & affied alfayed englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 | 45 moleong (2013) adds that qualitative research aims to understand something specifically, not always looking for the cause and effect of something, and to deepen comprehension about something that is being studied. in interpreting the findings of qualitative research, the writer employs descriptive analysis design. it is a study which gives a picture or description of a situation without giving a certain treatment (kountur, 2008). research subject the population of this study is the first year students of smas babul maghfirah, aceh besar. the students are divided into two classes (a and b). the writer took one of the two classes to collect the data using purposive sampling. it is used for specific purpose to generate a more efficient non-probability sample in term of monetary and/or time resources (teddlie & yu, 2007). the standard used in choosing group of participants is whether they are “information rich” for the research (patton, 2002, as cited in creswell, 2008). the “information rich” means that participants where data are collected have information that the writer needs for the research. in this case, the writer collected the data from class a. based on the writer’s observation and the interview with the teacher show that students of class a have abilities to write recount texts based on their own experiences to be analyzed by the writer. however, the subject of this research is document taken from the students’ assignment sheets (recount texts). according to creswell (2008), document consists of public and private document, which can include newspaper, journals, letters, notes, personal writing, and others. these sources provide valuable information in helping the researchers understand the phenomena in qualitative studies. the student’s recount text writings can be categorized as personal or private document in which the writer can use document analysis technique to obtain the data from the texts. research procedure in collecting the data of the research, the writer used a document analysis technique. some procedures or steps are explained as follow; an analysis of acehnese efl students’ grammatical errors in writing recount texts 46 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 1. the writer observed two classes (a and b) to determine the subject of research. he chose class a to collect the data because this class has criteria that are predetermined by the writer. 2. he came to school to ask the principle’s permission who has the authority to allow the writer in collecting the data. after getting the permission, the writer was allowed to meet the english teacher to consult about recount text materials and to make sure that the teacher teaches the recount text in his teaching. 3. the writer conducted his research in the class viii-a on may 01, 2016 by collecting the students assignment sheets (personal document) from the english teacher of the class. 4. after collecting the students’ assignment sheets, the writer checked the texts by circling the wrong words or sentences. 5. the writer returned the texts to the students on may 08, 2016. he commanded students to revise the words or sentences in the classroom that were circled. 6. then, the texts were collected and the writer checked them to find whether the students could correct the words or not, if students could correct it that means he/she did a mistake and vice versa means he/she did an error and then the writer identified the errors. 7. next, the writer analyzed the students’ errors to find the most common types of errors made by students based on betty s. azar’s classification of errors. 8. the writer calculated the total errors by drawing them up in a table based on the classification of errors then he made the result of total errors into percentages and charts. 9. the writer analyzed and classifies the sources of errors based on richard’s theory and then he explained the sources of errors that made by the students. the total number of the sources of errors were drawn up in a table and converted into percentages and chart. qudwatin nisak m. isa, risdaneva & affied alfayed englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 | 47 10. then he interpreted all of the data descriptively. 11. the last step, the writer made conclusion of his research. the technique of data analysis the writer used qualitative research in his study which the method is conveyed in descriptive analysis way to describe and to interpret the result of qualitative data. to present the percentage number of the findings, the data are calculated and drawn up in the table of percentage which the formula as follows; p = 𝐹 𝑁 𝑥100% p= percentages f= frequency of errors n= number of cases (total frequent, total individual) this formula is used to calculate the types of errors and sources of errors that students made in writing recount texts into percentages. before using this formula, the writer has to classify the students’ errors into thirteen categories as suggested by betty s. azar. discussion having analyzed all collected data, the writer intends to discuss the findings and how they answer the research questions proposed in this study. there are two research questions that are concerned respectively with the common types of errors and the sources of errors that student made in writing recount texts. the first question is about the common types of errors that the students made in writing recount texts. the findings of the analysis suggested that the thirteen classifications proposed by betty s. azar (1989) were found in the students’ recount an analysis of acehnese efl students’ grammatical errors in writing recount texts 48 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 texts. the thirteen types are respectively singular-plural, word form, word choice, verb tense, add or omit a word, word order, incomplete sentence, spelling punctuation, capitalization, article, meaning not clear and run-on sentence. the two most common types of grammatical errors out of those thirteen types in the students recount texts are verb tense and word choice. the first one is found 117 times or 27% of the total errors. the students mostly performed these errors due to the misuse of verbs in the texts. since the recount text talks about past experience, the students must use past tense in the texts. the following type of error is word choice. this error appeared in 48 times or 11% of the overall number. this kind of error happened when the students used inappropriate words in writing such as collected for gathered, studying for training and focused to for focused on, etc. moreover, the second research question is about the sources of errors that the students made in writing recount texts. based on the finding of the analysis, the three sources of errors that proposed by richard (1970) were found in the students’ recount texts; they are interference error, intralingual error and developmental error. intralingual error is the majority of source of error in which the students made 197 errors or 45% of the total number. this error deals with the faulty of characteristic of the second language itself, in this case is english. mostly, the misuse of verb tense or verb tense error is considered as the cause of intralingual error. the second source of error is interference error. this kind of error is caused by the influence of students’ first language. its number is highly different from the first one; it is only 127 errors or 29% of the total errors. according to the findings, the students tended to translate their ideas into the second language word by word, and they created the unclear meanings due to the different structure of the two languages. in addition, the words they used are out of the context. the last one of error that the students made in their recount texts is developmental error. this is the lowest number of sources of errors. its number is only 113 or 26% out of 436 errors. this source of error is caused by students’ hypotheses about the english language from his limited experience of it in the classroom or the text-book. most of this error laid in the used of comma in writing, qudwatin nisak m. isa, risdaneva & affied alfayed englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 | 49 along with use of capitalization in mentioning the name of the specific things such as the names of places and people. conclusion and implication in conclusion, the two most common types of errors in students’ recount texts are verb tense and word choice. regarding the sources of errors, the findings of the analysis suggest respectively that there are three sources of errors made by students in writing recount texts namely intralingual error, interference error and developmental error. the main aim of this study was to find empirical evidence of the most common types of grammatical errors and the sources of errors made by students in writing recount texts. the results from this study suggested that verb tense and word choice error are the frequent errors, and intralingual error, interference error and developmental error were found in students’ recount texts. this finding was supported by the previous study conducted by haryanto (2006) in regarding the common errors made by students in writing. accordingly, some important implication of this study derives from the findings of the present and the previous study. the first implication pointed out that the appropriate strategy and techniques in teaching recount text should be applied, past tense in particular. this implication leads the teacher to be aware of the students’ errors in writing to anticipate the errors to be made by students, either in types of errors or in sources of errors. applying effective strategies and techniques in teaching writing texts guides the students to be a good writer with minimal errors they make. consequently, the aim of learning writing texts is possible to be achieved by the teacher. in addition to the implication of the research, further research is suggested on error analysis in other specific areas of writing and grammar. also, the writers recommend the quantitative researcher to test these findings with certain theories as an attempt to increase learning and teaching quality for the students. an analysis of acehnese efl students’ grammatical errors in writing recount texts 50 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 references azar, b. s. (1989). understanding and using english grammar (2nd ed.). englewood cliffs, new jersey: prentice-hall, inc. creswell, j. w. (2008). educational research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research (3rd ed.). new jersey: pearson education, inc. depdiknas.(2004). kurikulum tingkat satuan pembelajaran. jakarta: author. derewianka, b. (2004). trends and issues in genre based-approach.recl journal, 34(2), 133-154. doi:10.1177/003368820303400202 emmaryana, f. (2010).an analysis on the grammatical errors in the students’ writing. bachelor’s skripsi, uin syarif hidayatullah, jakarta. harmer,j. (2004).how to teach writing. harlow. essex: pearson education, ltd. haryanto, t.(2007).grammatical error analysis in students’ recount texts. bachelor’s skripsi, unnes, semarang. karani, e. (2007). area of problem in writing recount text. master’s thesis, universitas palangka raya, palangka raya. kountur, r. (2008). metode penelitian pendidikan kuantitatif dan kualitatif. jakarta: raja grafindo. maleong, l. j. (2013). metode penelitian kualitatif. bandung: remaja rosdakarya. marza, l., & hafizd, m. (2013).teaching writing recount text to junior high-school students by using facebook peer-comment. journal of english language teaching, 1(2), 684-692. richards, j. c. (1970, may). a non-contrastive approach to error analysis. paper presented at the tesol convention, san franciso. (eric document reproduction service no. ed037721). richards, j. c. (1974). error analysis: perspectives on second language acquisition. london: longman. tedllie, c., & yu, l. (2007). mixed method sampling: a typology with examples. journal of mixed methods research, 1(1), 77-100. doi: 10.1177/2345678906292430 englisia may 2017 vol. 4, no. 2, 116-130 metaphors in the ex-gam’s political discourses during pre-public elections in aceh jarjani usman universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia jarjani@ar-raniry.ac.id abstract the free aceh movement, locally called gerakan aceh merdeka (gam), developed several unique political discourses after having signed a peace accord with the government of indonesia (goi) in helsinki in 2005. the discourses created are metaphorical in acehnese language, aimed to structure people’s mind and to be accepted and transformed into their actions that supported gam during pre-public election post conflicts. however, research on analyzing the metaphors is scant. this research used lakoff and johnson’s (1980a, 1980b) conceptual metaphor and fairclough’s framework of critical discourse analysis (cda) to critically analyze the political discourses in order to unveil the meaning and their ideology position. the research shows the most commonly used metaphor was election is a battle. however, the currently used political metaphors are more persuasive, urging people to voluntarily come back to their political party, than previously used ones that seemed to strongly force people to be on their side. keywords: metaphors; political discourses; language awareness; gam/partai aceh; critical discourse analysis (cda); ideology introduction aceh, an indonesian province located in the northern tip of sumatra island, has experienced several waves of political, armed conflicts against the government of indonesia (goi). one of them is the prolonged conflict between the free aceh jarjani usman englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 117 movement, which was at first locally called aceh merdeka (am) and later on gerakan aceh merdeka (gam), and the goi from 1976 to 2005 in order to free aceh from indonesia. the political conflict lasted for over 30 years, killing a lot of people, leaving thousands of children without parents, and burning countless people’s houses and other belongings. after having fight for such a long time, both sides agreed to sign a win-win solution peace accord in 2005 in helsinki, finland. following the signing of the memorandum of understanding (mou) mediated by the former president of finland, marty ahtisaari, who chaired the crisis management initiative (cmi) (aspinall, 2005), one of the points realized was establishing a locally-based political party named partai aceh (henceforth called pa) by the ex-combatants/politicians. having established the political party, the ex-gam politicians propagated that they intend to continue their struggle for aceh sovereignty through a soft political approach to replace the previous militaristic approach for over thirty years (aspinall & crouch, 2003). using the political party, many of them then successfully reached top positions in local and central governments such as senators, legislative members, and executives at provincial and district/municipality levels. i argue that the gam elites’ ability to reach top positions in the governments was not only because of the logistics they had, but also because of strong supports from the local people. their success to win the local people’s supports was partly due to the “language weapons” or creative political discourses they created in order to help shape people’s thinking towards their struggle, both before and after the mou signing. they propagated that it was only by having top positions within the government system that they could continually sustain their struggle for aceh’ people welfare (serambi indonesia, 2016). most of the candidates nominated were excombatants, either those who used to live in exile in several foreign countries (e.g., sweden, malaysia, singapore) to seek international political supports during the conflict or those who lived in aceh to keep fighting in guerrilla ways against the indonesian security and military officers as the representations of the goi. despite the political discourses developed in aceh, research aimed at making their meanings transparent has never been carried out or documented. analyzing metaphors in the ex-gam’s political discourses during pre-public elections in aceh 118 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 them is beneficial in that it can make explicit the hidden meanings and their ideology, and the change they make to their political discourses. moser (2000) argues that metaphor analysis is beneficial in that it can access tacit knowledge and explore “social and cultural processes of understanding” (p. 5). this research critically analyzes the political discourses in terms of metaphors created by the gam and pa politicians and their sympathizers during and post conflict in aceh. literature review political discourses many discourse theorists (e.g., fairclough, 2010) agree that discourse can be briefly defined as language in use in its social context. language plays a crucial role in politics as it is frequently used by politicians to communicate their political will. according to schaffner (1996), language can help prepare, control, and influence political actions. by political language, many researchers (e.g., charterisblack, 2005; carver & pikalo, 2008; taiwo, 2013) refer to rhetorical and figurative strategies, which are exemplified by circumlocution, irony, symbolisms, innuendos, euphemisms, and metaphors. language use is influenced by its social context. prepublic election is an instance of social contexts during which many kinds of political discourses are created and used to structure people’s thinking. political discourse serves various important functions. the most common functions of political discourse are: to compel, to oppose, to protest, to disguise, to legitimate, and to illegitimate (chilton & schaffner, 1997). these functions are commonly used by those who want to gain power or those who wish to sustain their power. if they can successfully employ and disseminate their political discourses and people accept them, the discourses will be transformed into actions intended to do (tingting, 2007). that there are intentions embedded in the political discourses suggest that discourses are not neutral. however, they look normal as they have been influenced by ideology (bourdieu, 1986). in critical perspective, ideology refers to “a modality which constitutes and sustains relations of power through producing consent or at least acquiescence, power through hegemony rather than power through violence and force” (fairclough, 2010, p. 73). some other researchers use legitimation jarjani usman englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 119 instead of hegemony as the strategies used by politicians to gain or sustain power. according to allen (2003), legitimation can be manifested in “discourse that promotes positive self-presentation” (p. 3). nevertheless, taiwo (2008) reminds that both strategies (legitimation and coercion) are sometimes practiced altogether. even though some politicians promote their positive image, they also use coercion techniques such as intimidation or treat in discourse. as language in use or discourse has been manipulated and looks normal without any social problem, its meaning needs to be made transparent. therefore, it is necessary to have knowledge on critical language awareness in order to uncover any possible social problems conveyed in the political discourse. according to fairclough (1995), critical language awareness can discover the relationship between the language use and its social perspectives. critical language awareness can make people aware of the language use including metaphors, through which social change in society can be made. metaphor metaphor is an indirect language use, which has sizably been employed in political discourses. according to early researcher, edelman (1971, as quoted in mio, 1997), metaphor refers to “devices for simplifying and giving meaning to complex and bewildering sets of observations and evoke concern” (p. 65). this suggests that political world is too complex and abstract to be understood by the general public. therefore, it is necessary for politicians to think about how to reduce its complexity and abstraction to be easily understood by citizens or voters (cammaerts, 2012; lippman, 1965; mio, 1997). that is why metaphor is important to use. with respect to this, lakoff and johnson (1980b) who coin cognitive semantic metaphor state that metaphor is inextricably related to the structure of our conceptual system. it can be regarded as a tool for understanding how one perceives the world. according to them, in the cognitive semantic approach, metaphor is treated as “a cross-domain mapping that is pervasive in our thought and reflected in our daily use of language” (li, 2016, p. 93). according to lakoff and johnson (1980b), essentially, metaphor refers to “understanding and metaphors in the ex-gam’s political discourses during pre-public elections in aceh 120 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another thing…[such as] argument is war” (p. 5). in the instance of argument is war, an abstract concept of argument is transferred to a concept of war because argument involves attacks and counterattacks by the speakers or writers. in another example, lakoff (1993) uses a metaphor of love as a journey. he identified this metaphor from the following everyday expressions: look how far we’ve come. it’s been a long, bumpy road. we can’t turn back now. we’re at a crossroads. we may have to go our separate ways. the relationship isn’t going anywhere. we’re spinning our wheels. our relationship is off the track. the marriage is on the rocks. we may have to bail out of this relationship. (lakoff, 1993, p. 205) it can be seen that all the words or phrases used by the lover in the expressions above utilize the entities in the domain of a journey. from then, lakoff (1993) develops a mapping which he means as “the set of correspondences” (p. 206). the set of ontological correspondences in the domain of love, for instance, is then transferred into those of journey. a love is usually composed such entities as the lovers, their common goals, their difficulties, the love relationship, and so forth, and those entities are then referred to the entities of journey (the travelers, the vehicle, destinations, etc.). from then, he develops the following mapping: “the love-as-journey mapping: the lovers correspond to travelers; the love relationship corresponds to the vehicle; the lovers’ common goals correspond to their common destinations on the journey; difficulties in the relationship correspond to impediments to travel” (lakoff, 1993, pp. 205-206). furthermore, lakoff and johnson (1980b) state that metaphor is not only about language, but also thoughts. nevertheless, lakoff (1993) reminds that not all metaphors, including political metaphors, are cognitively aware. this is so because our thoughts are composed of conscious and unconscious cognitive. lakoff and johnson (1999) note that only five percent is conscious and 95 percent is unconscious, and the unconscious thought structures the conscious. as such, the meaning metaphors need to be analyzed in order to understand their meanings. in political world, metaphor is like a mantra, which has been deliberately employed by politicians for a variety of purposes. it is used to structure political jarjani usman englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 121 mind of people (lakoff, 2008), to shape political categorization and argumentation (taiwo, 2013), and as a means “to communicate with their opponents through media” (cammaerts, 2012, p. 1). therefore, it is not surprising that beard (2000, as cited in otieno, 2016) makes a claim that if politicians understand the way of using metaphors, they can get or keep power. many studies have been carried out regarding the use of metaphors in political discourses. otieno (2016), for instance, reviewed seven studies on political metaphors and found that metaphors were used to serve persuasive and rhetorical purposes, and to show the politician’s ideology position. the same thing was also found by nickels (2013) who did research on the metaphors used in puerto rican political discourse during a 105th u.s. congressional hearing about the political status of the country. it was found that the metaphors were used to persuade and inform people through affective or cognitive approach. to do so, cognitive and affective ways were used including making justification, legitimation or framing, and fostering group solidarity, ridicule, or appeal to emotions, etc. with regards to elections, bratoz (2014) who analyzed the english corpus of metaphors found that there were six metaphors used including contest, fighting, gambling, journey, sea voyage, and show. of the metaphors used, elections were mostly conceptualized as battle (118 occurrences), as contest (76), as journey (21), as gambling (14), as show (6), and as sea voyage (6). metaphors have also been employed to sustain their power as revealed in many studies. navera (2011), for instance, critically analyzed the political speech by the philippine president arroyo on the war of terror as led by the u.s. using the critical discourse analysis (cda) tool, the research uncovered what is behind the president’s speech. according to the researcher, the metaphor “war on terror” used by arroyo was meant to get people’s supports for her government. one the one hand, people were expected to give supports for her in order to sustain her commitment to the war on terror, but at the same time she actually hid her government problems. a similar way was used by the president of indonesia, soeharto when he attempted to sustain his power (see nuryatno, 2005) by introducing the term metaphors in the ex-gam’s political discourses during pre-public elections in aceh 122 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 “tinggal landas” (in bahasa indonesia means “take off”). “take off” is a term in the domain of aircraft, which was used to conceptualize “indonesia as an aircraft” that will soon take off. it seems that by “take off” for indonesia he meant that indonesia which at that time was a developing country would “fly” soon to be a developed country. therefore, indonesian people as the passengers were required to support his administration to work and need to patiently wait for the aircraft to take off through the phase of repelita (rencana pembangunan lima tahun) or a fiveyear phase of soeharto’s development plan. however, after having spent six phases or over 30 years leading the goi, he was unable to steer indonesia to take off. he was even forced to step down through massive strikes by students across indonesia in 1988 when monetary crisis hit the country and made its economy collapsed. all the studies reviewed suggest that various metaphors have been used by politicians in order to reach their political goals. using cda in addition to using lakoff and johnson’s (1980b) cognitive semantic metaphor analysis plays an important role in unearthing hidden meaning of the political discourse used. research method this qualitative study employed document analysis and interview in collecting data. the data were collected from various sources such as newspapers, books, and pamphlets that documented the discourses used by gam and pa politicians in order to win the people’s heart post-conflict public elections in aceh. besides, people who understand political issues in aceh and used to live there during the prolonged political, armed conflict, and public election periods were also interviewed to collect their memories on the language use in written and oral forms during and post political armed conflict. in addition, i also became the source of information because i have lived in aceh during the armed political conflict, which means that i could serve both as a researcher and a research participant through the living memory i have had. the data were then critically analyzed by using lakoff and johnson’s (1980a, 1980b, 1993, 1999) conceptual metaphor and fairclough’s (1989, 1992, 2010) framework of critical discourse analysis (cda). as has been proposed by jarjani usman englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 123 fairclough, a discourse can be analyzed in three stages including textual analysis, discursive practice analysis, and social analysis. this is so because he considers that “every discursive event as being simultaneously a piece of text, an instance of discursive practice and an instance of social practice” (fairclough, 1992, p. 4). textual analysis described “what” linguistic properties (e.g., vocabulary) are used. in this research, metaphors used by the gam politicians were focused. the second stage was to interpret “how” the discourses were constructed by power relations and ideologies. this can be understood, such as, through analyzing the force. force is about using language to do something, as indicated in speech acts such as for giving an order, threatening, promising, and so on (fairclough, 1992). the last stage was to explain “why” in order to understand the effects of the broad, societal currents on the texts (locke, 2004). findings and discussions the metaphors that have been developed and distributed province-wide during and after the political conflicts are as follows. “bijeih sipai” and “awak droe” following the signing of the win-win peace accord between the goi and gam in helsinki in 2005, the metaphorical political discourses in acehnese“bijeih sipai” and “awak droe” were developed and publicly disseminated. “bijeih sipai” means the descents of enemy and “awak droe” means our own people. by using the phrase “awak droe”, they positioned themselves as acehnese very own politicians who kept doing their best for aceh after they had fight against the goi, represented by indonesian police and army forces, for over thirty years. hence, the goi was depicted as the enemy. it seems that the metaphors were not only to persuade but also to force people in aceh in order to support them to reach legislative and executive top positions in acehnese provincial government. they reasoned that their political struggle for aceh was no longer with weapons because it has killed thousands of people from both sides and left many orphans in aceh, but with soft political approach. therefore, people were encouraged to strongly support their struggle for metaphors in the ex-gam’s political discourses during pre-public elections in aceh 124 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 aceh. those who did not support them at that time were regarded as “bijeh sipai”. from the use of “bijeih sipai” and “awak droe”, they conceptualized that those who did not support them were against them or their enemies, and those who supported them were their own people. here, at least two metaphors can be identified: those not supporting “partai aceh” are the descents of the enemy; and thus, election is a battle since there are enemies against our own people. associated with those who are against the ex-gam party after the mou signing was frightening for those living in aceh. this was so because during the post conflict, not standing with gam’s ideology was deemed as supporting traitors or enemies. as such, the metaphors worked well in aceh at that time. the candidates nominated by pa successfully won the people’s heart and reached top positions at provincial and district governments in aceh, defeating other rivals from nationallybased political parties. “meunyo kon ie, leuhop; meunyo kon droe, gop.” the acehnese culturally-based proverb “meunyo kon ie, leuhop; meunyo kon droe, gop” literally means “if not water, it is mud; if not us, they are others”. however, this proverb in acehnese language cannot be translated literally in order to get the proper meaning because it is metaphorical. in terms of meaning, it is still strong. it can be understood that the metaphor was again intentionally created for the purpose of othering those who did not support pa and those who supported their own ideology to gain power. the use of the pronoun “droe”—means ourselves (us) and “gop”—means other(s) or non-acehnese people. this means that it is important to support our own people by voting them because we need our own people, or not relying on others, to keep politically fighting and developing our province. in the context of the public election, the use of the proverb meant that they persuaded and even forced people to stand with pa to vote for the candidates nominated by them to reach top positions in local governments or otherwise being regarded as others. thus, those not supporting “partai aceh” are others. jarjani usman englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 125 they persuaded that it was only pa that was the real political party in which gam fighters, who had always struggled for aceh as had been proved during armed political conflicts, resided. pa was conceptualized as the vehicle to continue the journey to reach the destination expected, the freedom of aceh. therefore, they needed the people’s supports. in that way, they conceptualized that aceh freedom is a journey and election is a battle. “peungkhianat perjuangan” “peungkhianat perjuangan” literally means the traitor(s) of the people’s long struggle in aceh. the slogan was used during the public election following the excombatant incumbent governor, irwandi yusuf, who was selected by pa for 20042009 aceh governor, initiated a new local political party named “partai nasional aceh” (pna/national aceh party), and nominated himself as a candidate for incoming period governor of aceh. this was certainly in contrast with the intent of pa that had selected the ex-gam health minister in exile, zaini abdullah, to be aceh governor candidate pairing with the former chief leader of gam army, muzakkir manaf. it seemed that the different ideologies between the ex-gam members had led the pa politicians to create the slogan “peungkhianat perjuangan”, referring to the traitors that destructed the acehnese people’s long struggle. in the political discourse, such metaphors can be taken out: “the struggle for aceh freedom is a journey” and “never support the traitors”. again, from the concepts used, it can be identified a metaphor: election is a battle. the metaphor was used as a linguistic tool to inform and persuade people that there were some people in aceh who had been dismissed from the line of collective struggle for aceh freedom. as such they were equated with apostates. this may mean “don’t vote for them”. it then appeared that the slogan had successfully won the people’s heart to vote for the candidates nominated by pa. zaini abdullah and muzakkir manaf were elected as the governor and vice governor of aceh for the period of 2012-2017, defeating the incumbent irwandi yusuf and other candidates of nationally-based political parties. at the district levels, many candidates in gamhome bases were elected as bupatis (regents) and deputies, even though some of them had low level education backgrounds. however, in the districts where metaphors in the ex-gam’s political discourses during pre-public elections in aceh 126 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 population were not acehnese tribe in majority such as in aceh tengah with gayo tribe, aceh tenggara with lues tribe, and other districts, candidates from pa did not successfully win the position of bupati. this can be concluded that the acehnese cultural-based metaphor created by pa did not work well there, whereas in gam home bases did. “woe bak rumoh droe” “woe bak rumoh droe” is a political metaphor created by pa politicians during the campaign for the 2017 general election to elect provincial and district leaders. “woe bak rumoh droe” is in acehnese language which means a call to “come back to our own home” or “let’s come back to our home”. the use of the verb “woe” or “to come back” in the beginning of the sentence means an imperative, a call, or a reminder. and, the place “rumoh droe” literally means our own home. in short, they used a persuasive approach with a metaphor: “partai aceh” is our own home. however, it should be considered that “a house” refers to the place where all family members have the rights to live together, love each other, and share things together. moreover, as a home of a family, it normally has parents with their “authority over their children and their exercise of punishment and care” (musolff, 2004, p. 2). regarding their authority practiced, it depends on the type of the parents: a strict father model or a nurturing parent model. unfortunately, the metaphor has lost its power during the 2017 gubernatorial election. the call for all ex-combatants and other sympathizing people in aceh to return home as they in recent years had scattered in other local or national political parties was ignored by more than half of the people. muzakkir manaf as the candidate nominated as well as the chair of pa did not win the election. he was defeated by another ex-gam fighter, who was also a former university lecturer and the founder of a local political party, pna, irwandi yusuf. in fact, pa’s politicians have attempted to apply several strategies in order to win the governor and district heads’ elections. even, the governor candidate, muzakkir manaf --who was the chief leader of gam army and now the chairman of jarjani usman englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 127 pa -was paired with the vice governor candidate from a national political party, t. a. khalid. t. a. khalid is a politician of gerindra party, a political party which at the national level is led by the retired chief army general prabowo subianto, a general involved in implementing repressive militaristic approach for handling the political conflicts in aceh. the pairing of the leaders of the local ex-combatant political party, pa, with the leader of national party for the governor and vice candidates, indicated a certain kind of positioning. prabowo with his gerindra party has been positioned as a partner rather than as an enemy as in the past during the conflict. this approach was certainly not in line with the goal of the struggle for aceh sovereignty. it was not likely for the indonesian national party to support aceh for freedom as expected by previous aceh free movement, gam. hence, it can be understood that the struggle of pa through their metaphor “woe bak rumoh droe” was not in line with the soft approach for aceh independence, but purely for the political benefits of winning the governor and regent/mayor candidates during the public election. “sajan panglima” the metaphor “sajan panglima” was used by the ex-gam politicians joining pa and reproduced by many local people during the pre-election of aceh governor in 2017. “sajan panglima” is a phrase in acehnese which means being with the commander-in-chief. using the concept mapping, it can be understood that commander-in-chief usually belongs to the domain of military or battle. panglima in this context was referred to muzakkir manaf, famously known as muallem, as the governor candidate nominated by pa in the election. manaf also insisted that he wanted to take rein of aceh by himself because his predecessors nominated by his party had failed to bring a success to aceh. in fact, during the armed political conflicts, he used to lead the free aceh movement following the death of the gam army chief tgk. abdullah syafii. hence, sajan panglima or along with the commander means that the pro muallim people were all fighters in the battle and would always obey what he commanded. metaphorically, by using the phrase “sajan panglima”, they intended to conceptualize that the “election is a battle” in which muzakkir manaf was metaphors in the ex-gam’s political discourses during pre-public elections in aceh 128 | englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 positioned as the commander-in-chief. when this metaphor was used to win the people’s heart in aceh, it might have expected that the acehnese people would voluntarily work together in the team of pa, support each other, and take any possible risks under the commander in struggling against the enemy. the enemy, in this context, were all those competing against muzakkir manaf. however, the metaphor did not work well in the 2017 gubernatorial election as muallem failed to win the place. the failure was likely partly due to their inability to realize their promises campaigned in previous elections. conclusion from the above analyses, there are several points to note. firstly, the use of metaphors in acehnese as the language of the majority in aceh has ignored the minority tribes of non-acehnese who were also the residents and potential voters. unconsciously, using the political language in acehnese can be seen as they only intended to inform their political will and persuade those speaking in acehnese to vote for them. secondly, there was a decreased tension embedded in the metaphors used to win the people’s heart during the periods of public elections post-conflict in aceh. the metaphors used in the first period tend to intimidate people to go with pa. otherwise, it would be deemed as being on the side of what they called enemies. in the second period, the metaphors being used tended to exclude and include the local people as those who were still with or against them. essentially, the metaphors were still forcing people to be with the party; or consequently, they would be excluded and considered as traitors. differently, in the latest public election, the metaphors used have been rather soft or persuasive in that the ex-combatants and acehnese people were called to come back home (to pa). the change of metaphors pa used from coercive to persuasive approach was likely because of the condition in the field at that time. the pa politicians or excombatants were not as solid as they used to. many ex-gam fighters have now joined and supported other governor and regent candidates from coalition parties such as sofyan dawod, who was once with pa chose to support tarmizi karim from non-pa as the latest governor candidate pairing with other non-pa, machsalmina jarjani usman englisia vol. 4, no. 2, may 2017 | 129 ali. other examples included muksalmina who supported irwandi yusuf, pairing with non-pa candidate nova iriansyah; ex-pa zaini abdullah who paired with nonpa nasaruddin in the election; and, ex-pa politician zakaria saman pairing with non-pa ir. alaidinsyah. references aspinall, e. 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(master thesis). shanghai: shanghai international studies university. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2022. vol. 9, no. 2, 109-129 unpacking the opportunities and challenges in learning speaking online during covid-19 outbreak: a case-study of indonesian efl college students putri rizki syafrayani universitas muhammadiyah sumatera utara, indonesia prizkisyafrayani@gmail.com pirman ginting * universitas muhammadiyah sumatera utara, indonesia pirmanginting@umsu.ac.id yenni hasnah universitas muhammadiyah sumatera utara, indonesia yennihasnah@umsu.ac.id mandra saragih universitas muhammadiyah sumatera utara, indonesia mandrasaragih@umsu.ac.id manuscript received september 29, 2021, revised january 19, 2022, first published may 1, 2022, and available online may 7, 2022. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i2.10940 recommended apa citation syafrayani, p. r., ginting, p., hasnah, y., & saragih, m. (2022). unpacking the opportunities and challenges in learning speaking online during covid-19 outbreak: a case-study of indonesian efl college students. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(2), 109-129. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.10940 abstract the challenges brought by covid-19 have threatened not only the economy and health fields but also the educational sectors. in light of education, this issue has led to the swift migration of the learning process from conventional mode to online learning which has resulted in another bottleneck. the current study explores the perception of efl indonesian college students about the challenges and benefits of learning speaking through the online system during the covid-19 outbreak. forty-five college students participated in this study and were inquired through a semi-structured questionnaire in the weeks following the final term examinations for the academic year 2020-2021. the data was probed by using grounded theory proposed by creswell. the findings exposed * corresponding author https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6622 https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i2.10940 unpacking the opportunities and challenges in learning speaking….. 110 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 that effectiveness, online benefits, and improvement opportunities were the benefits obtained by students from the online learning. meanwhile, distraction and information overload, a technical error in online learning technology and internet connectivity matters as well as limited interaction and inadequate support were hindrances that often hampered the students. consequently, this scholarly paper also provides advice on the essence of the readiness of adequate facilities and the collaboration from stakeholders; government, teachers, students, and parents to successfully implement online learning. keywords: challenges; opportunities; online learning; covid-19 pandemic 1. introduction the effect brought by the current pandemic is considered the greatest challenge since world war ii (müller & rau, 2021). it has disrupted the lives of people worldwide within a very short time (barai & dhar, 2021). the pandemic is caused by the spreading of a virus named coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) in late 2019. it is believed to be the cause of a large number of infection cases and deaths in people over the world (daly & robinson, 2021). in march 2020, the director-general of who declared that the virus spread rapidly and severely after the assessment (adedoyin & soykan, 2020) which brought about many people to live under lockdown to stop the spreading of the virus. the lockdown disrupts almost all sectors of life, particularly the educational system. the warning to undo activity with physical contact requires a drastic change in the teaching and learning process (bozkurt et al., 2020). the closure of educational institutions is done and forced to transfer the learning process into online learning system (almaiah, al-khasawneh, & althunibat, 2020). it provides opportunities such as the flexibility of time, place, access, and affordable cost (khan & abid, 2021). in this way, online learning becomes an alternative panacea for the education system in the midst of the current pandemic situation. however, it is not a simple thing to migrate conventional teaching directly into online mode. many educators are still new to online learning and also face difficulties in developing technical skills (shin, 2020). even though online learning has been known in academic terms, it still needs to be adapted either for the educators or the students. in indonesia, the challenge lies in the unavailability of access to online learning for many students because of the enormous diversity of geography and infrastructures (lee, 2020). hence, these challenges affect the teaching and learning process. in the efl context, the challenges of learning english as a foreign language have been existed prior to the implementation of online learning, such as lack of a supportive environment for learning english, lack of information on how to start learning english, problems related to textbook materials, assessments, and other related issues (akbari, 2015). other salient rumours are related to the financial condition and inadequate devices significant to support the online learning process (atmojo & nugroho, 2020). this inevitable predicament poses new challenges for learners to keep up with the putri rizki syafrayani, pirman ginting, yenni hasnah, & mandra saragih englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 111 learning activities, in particular, those relate to the speaking skills. this is also due to the fact that speaking skill is the most challenging skill to learn among other language skills (jamshidnejad, 2020). speaking skill in english becomes prime concern for many second and foreign learners. due to this fact, their success in learning language is often measured by how well their spoken language proficiency improves (richards, 2009). in indonesia, the speaking problems found are related to the lack of vocabulary, grammar mastery, correct pronunciation, low self-confidence, unsupportive environment for speaking english, and lack of language development in the curriculum as well (wahyuningsih & afandi, 2020). many types of research have been carried out to investigate the challenges that exist in the context of efl learning as well as the problems encountered during online learning (akbari, 2015; akhter, 2021; istifci, 2016; atmojo & nugroho, 2020), however, research in speaking instruction has appealed less attention (borg, 2006 cited in chen & goh, 2011). this limited work in this field has resulted in a marked gap in our understanding of english language teaching (chen & goh, 2011). the present study explores efl indonesian college students’ perception of the challenges and benefits of learning speaking through the online system during the covid-19 period. the investigation of how students perceive speaking learning through online learning platforms in terms of benefits and obstacles might be a useful reference for teachers, students, and parents to collaborate on more successful online learning processes, particularly in online speaking learning. 2. literature review 2.1. digital transformation digital transformation has become the first concern in higher education, more precisely in the decade of the 21st century (benavides et al., 2020). the term of digitalization is not new and has affected higher education institutions for some time (kopp, gröblinger, & adams 2019). it has become a trend for higher education to use digital technology since it gives a positive impact on the higher education institutions themselves such as becoming more widespread, covering a large number of people, strengthening the authority, raising the level of culture, and creating opportunities for experimentation and innovation which lead to the improvement of people’s quality of life (neborsky et al., 2020). moreover, the restriction of physical interaction which led to the mandatory lockdown has forced institutions to shift to online learning (bdair, 2021). by this, digital technology is used to organize and design learning experiences along with the creation of a distinctive learning environment during the covid-19 outbreak (rapanta, botturi, goodyear, guàrdia, & koole, 2020). of all the impacts digital technology has on education, in particular, the efforts to improve and even transform the learning experience, including flexibility, openness, disaggregation, and distributed learning, and connection and communication as well are often praised (xiao, 2019). unpacking the opportunities and challenges in learning speaking….. 112 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 exploratory empirical researches exploring digital transformation due to covid-19 in the context of basic education have been carried out in finland and india which have resulted that schools in both countries have transformed the learning process into digital seamlessly without being interrupted and have provided satisfaction for students and educators even for parents of students (iivari, sharma, & ventä-olkkonen, 2020). however, like two sides of a coin, it is the opposite in indonesia. previous researchers have found that many obstacles occur during online learning. these challenges, among others, are related to inadequate equipment which refers to digital devices that do not support learning activities (poor internet connection, inadequate devices) as well as challenges related to student psychology and health (feeling bored, dizzy from staring at the phone screen for too long) (atmojo & nugroho, 2020; ariyanti, 2020). in addition, there are five assumptions about the hindrances of digital transformation in higher education such as change (related to the massive change of process), pace (related to the time required to implement digital transformation), technology (related to the management task with an interdisciplinary team of experts), competences (related to the ability of students and teachers), and financing (related to the budget needed in digital transformation) (kopp, gröblinger, & adams 2019). hence, the university system needs to be able to provide quality education in digital transformation with disruptive technological innovations and accelerated changes in the educational framework (garcía-morales, garrido-moreno, & martín-rojas, 2021). digital transformation is a phase of adoption of the digital technology use in university learning classrooms that requires a change in focus and involves innovation in technology and modification of institutional culture to ensure the evolution of digital transformation to take advantage of emerging technologies (abad-segura et al., 2020). even though online learning system uses digital technology in its process, the term digitalization do not merely refer to the online learning as it is not the only one regarding digital transformation in higher education institutions (adedoyin & soykan, 2020). online learning has become a new process to substitute both distance learning and traditional face-to-face since it radically changes the nature of what is thought of as typical college courses and infiltrates regular face-to-face classes which is also viewed as a revolutionary change (hiltz & turoff, 2005). despite all the challenges and problems that came along during the process, it can be stated that online learning is such a panacea to continue the academic process at the time when the world is struggling in the current pandemic situation. 2.2. online learning in efl context the pandemic effect has also prompted language learning to switch to online mode particularly in the efl context. to begin with, online learning can be defined as a learning process via internet/online computers in a synchronous or asynchronous classroom where the interaction exists without a physical location or physical space (singh & thurman, 2019). based on the above view, online learning can be offered in putri rizki syafrayani, pirman ginting, yenni hasnah, & mandra saragih englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 113 two types; synchronous and asynchronous. synchronous learning is a form of online learning in which interaction happens through conferences or online chats, meanwhile asynchronous means that the learning process occurs indirectly (no interaction at the same time) using an independent learning approach (aliyyah et al., 2020). 2.3. learning speaking through online 2.3.1. the opportunities online learning provides some advantages for both students and teachers. a study in pakistan found results that online learning provides flexibility and an effective source of teaching and learning since it eases the administration and accessibility and resources and time (mukhtar et al., 2020). time flexibility is the foremost advantage of the synchronous mode where material can be accessed multiple times and assessment can be given in a flexible time frame. moreover, the synchronous online learning mode is also beneficial for virtual classes using video conferencing which can be exciting and useful for students (khan & abid, 2021). in respect of learning english as a foreign language (efl), the use of online platforms is developed for the improvement of students’ language skills. video conferencing utilizing apps such as zoom, skype, adobe connect, big blue button, etc. offer opportunities to improve students’ speaking skills. it gives learners a small-group video conferencing which allows them to speak more intensively than in regular class (blake, 2017). another study also discovered that online learning can improve students' oral skills and their self-efficacy compared to conventional learning (ghabeli et al., 2021). more precisely, online learning is perceived as the best option for teaching and learning, especially in the context of efl in response to the current pandemic crisis. 2.3.2. the challenges despite all the opportunities online learning provides, it is undeniable that this system is still a challenge for both teachers and students. from students’ perspectives, the challenges can be found in terms of the availability of internet access, financial issues and the implementation of online learning associated with the distribution of learning materials and instructions. (allo, 2020; yandell, 2020). similarly, teachers discern online teaching as a hassle, where the lack of intensive interaction with students becomes one of the rumours. furthermore, the fact that some teachers have no experience in accessing technology provokes defiance in the teaching process as well when carried out online (evans et al., 2020). cognate concerns were as well as encountered in efl classes, in particular, in teaching speaking skills. the disquietudes include the technical problems and lack of knowledge related to the computer use, unmotivated students and having no independent work skills, unsuitable tools, and home responsibilities which reduce the time of the study (salieva, 2020). another fact reveals that the challenges in conducting online learning for speaking skills are because students are not comfortable having a silent mode when conducting video conferences, unpacking the opportunities and challenges in learning speaking….. 114 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 lack of student participation, and lack of student involvement to speak through voice notes for fear of making mistakes (puspitasari, nofianto, & huda, 2021). in short, despite the benefits, online learning is still a challenge, therefore, teachers and students need to adapt to sudden transformations like this and get used to using online learning in their virtual classrooms, as well as take advantage of relevant strategies for the success of learning itself (bhuana & apriliyanti, 2021). 3. method a qualitative research practice through interview study was employed to obtain an in-depth understanding of the topic under investigation. an interview is theorized as the best-suited method because it is commonly used as a resource for investigating truths, facts, experiences, beliefs, attitudes, and/or feelings of respondents (talmy, 2010). pertaining to the present study, students' experience in learning speaking skills online including challenges and opportunities was probed. since the pandemic prohibited the face-to-face meeting, the researcher chose to interview the participants by utilizing a synchronous communication such as google form, a free online software that allows us to create surveys, quizzes which has wide access to the participants without limitation of place (opdenakker, 2006). the respondents of this study comprised 45 efl students of university of muhammadiyah north sumatra in the province of north sumatra. all of the respondents are now pursuing their bachelor degree in english education in a full-time basis where the researchers are currently learning and teaching. these participants were recruited through convenience sampling on the basis of the ease of contact via social media (galloway, 2005). this sampling technique is considered as one of the best alternatives without any meetings with the individuals involved due to the restrictions on physical interaction that the government has implemented in preventing the spread of the covid-19 virus. the questionnaire administered in a synchronous setting (google form) allowed the researchers to verify students’ perceptions or ideas about the challenges and positive impacts on the learning of speaking skills online during the covid-19. the questionnaire consisted of the participants' identity and open-ended questions about their perceptions of online speaking class. for confidentiality, the responses from each participant were only seen by the researcher. this is evidence that there is no interference from other participants. the data gained were analysed by using grounded theory approach by creswell (2014). this is considered as the appropriate approach since the results were generated through a general explanation (theory) without assuming the existing theoretical framework. there were four stages in analysing the data. firstly, the open coding was committed by construing the essays to identify the codes of challenges and opportunities towards speaking online learning. the second stage was grouping the similar codes to form a concept. later, the concepts were clustered into categories before the final stage as the theory formation based on the categories emerged. after the putri rizki syafrayani, pirman ginting, yenni hasnah, & mandra saragih englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 115 third stage, the statements of the challenges and opportunities towards speaking online learning were created in accordance with the analysis of the data (hinrichs et al., 2017). 4. findings forty-five participants filled the questionnaire created through google forms. the participants were undergraduate students in the english education department who had taken and finished the speaking course through online. the questionnaire consisted of 2 sections including participants’ identity, and nine open-ended questions. the openended questions were analysed by applying grounded theory to identify the opportunities and challenges of online speaking classes. the perceptions were coded according to stages proposed by hinrichs et al. (2017) where responses denoting opportunities marked as positive code and challenges marked as negative codes. table 1 and table 2 present coding schemes for opportunities and challenges. these codes emerged from the analysis of sample answers and were then triangulated in previous studies unpacking students’ attitudes towards the emergency of online learning (hussein et al., 2020; potra et al., 2021). table 1 coding scheme for opportunities. main codes categories from the data positive aspects codes frequency getting a discount from university for tuition fee saving cost for tuition fee effectiveness (time and cost) 3 being able to save money for gasoline saving cost for transportation no need a lot of preparation to start learning saving the time for getting ready being able to attend class from anywhere having easier access to class online benefit 23 being able to attend class from home being able to access the learning from anywhere having easier access to materials and recordings being able to access the materials anytime being able to read the material anytime more practical and flexible in accessing learning having easier to reaccess the learning materials being able to practice english via online unpacking the opportunities and challenges in learning speaking….. 116 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 clear explanation from lecturer adequate instruction to access the learning being more relax to do other activities being able to do other activities being able to work while studying being able to access web of translation having access to many learning sources being able to access a lot of information and learning sources from social media platforms and articles being able to access many references for learning materials and making argument knowing how to make an argument, reject an argument, and speak completely improving motivation and speaking skills improvement opportunities 19 improving motivation in learning speaking being able to talk with foreigners via online being able to practice and speak english knowing how to speak correctly getting the higher grade improving communication technology skill improving technology skills being able to utilize social platforms in learning reducing nervousness in speaking feeling less nervous to speak being more confident in speaking and expressing idea increasing vocabulary in english improving vocabulary increasing the ability in time management and challenging self in speaking efficiently improving time management putri rizki syafrayani, pirman ginting, yenni hasnah, & mandra saragih englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 117 table 2 coding scheme for challenges. main codes categories from the data negative aspects code frequency being unable to focus because of noise getting easily distracted distraction and information overload 11 being unable to focus because of the distraction from phone notification feeling bored and more burdened because more assignments were given more assignments were given stress because of the difficulty in understanding the materials stress due to incomprehensible materials not excited because of inability to understand the materials getting confused about the tasks because of the incomprehensible materials having difficulty in understanding the material being unable to answer the questions from lecturer because of poor signal poor connectivity technology and internet connectivity 26 stress because of internet connection having difficulty interacting with lecturers and peers due to internet connection problems being passive because of bad signal having trouble delivering speeches due to poor connections having trouble listening and speaking due to bad connection getting slower in answering questions due to bad signal having difficulty joining the lessons due to poor signal stress due to internet connection having problems in internet network due to bad unpacking the opportunities and challenges in learning speaking….. 118 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 weather technical error on the social platforms used in the learning process lack of adequate social platforms consuming more battery and internet data due to the application of online learning having no access to practice speaking in public lack of practice limited interaction and inadequate support 8 waiting for responses from lecturers or peers about assignments lack of support from peers and lecturer having no one to have a conversation with having limited access to interact with other students limited time to submit assignments limited time in the learning process limited time to think about the answer unable to understand the material due to insufficient time limited time to ask about material and answer quizzes 5. discussion 5.1. the opportunities of online speaking class one important fact about students’ responses obtained from open-ended questions is that three categories of data emerged including effectiveness, online benefit, and improvement opportunities. table 3 below presents the frequency and percentages of opportunities in online speaking class revealed from students’ perspectives. table 3 frequency and percentage of positive aspect in online speaking classes. no. positive aspects of code frequency percentage 1. effectiveness 3 6.7% 2. online benefit 23 51.1% 3. improvement opportunities 19 42.2% putri rizki syafrayani, pirman ginting, yenni hasnah, & mandra saragih englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 119 5.1.1. effectiveness the effectiveness addressed by 3 students was served as one of the opportunities in learning speaking through online platform. this category was in connection with time and cost-effectiveness. one male student claimed that he could save time before classes began since it did not require much preparation to start learning. this finding indicates that online learning can help students manage their time effectively and efficiently (hussein et al., 2020; fidalgo et al., 2020). another obvious benefit is dealing with costeffectiveness. as another male student pointed out, the practice of online learning systems particularly speaking classes was worthwhile for putting aside more money inasmuch as university offered discounts on tuition fees. the fee deduction put forward by university is a form of empathy or moral responsibility towards students during the disruptive situations due to the emergence of covid-16. in addition, the transportation expenses could also be saved since students did not necessitate to pay for commuting, as a female student remarked, “…i can save money on gasoline costs to go to campus.” the administration of online classes handled from home paid out low-budget for students are not necessary to attend classes like regular classes requiring expenses for transportation. these favorable outcomes were amongst the positive outputs of online learning enforcement in which cost-effectiveness and efficiency are benefited (fidalgo et al., 2020; khan & abid, 2021; maqableh & alia, 2021). 5.2. online benefit since online learning is implemented during the recent outbreak, it offers benefits all along the learning process to achieve the multiple goals to sustain the education system (castle & mcguire, 2010). twenty-three students in the present study acquired the advantages regarding the online learning. it was found that 5 categories emerged in the code. having easier access to class was the first category cited by 8 students. among these, one male student clarified that he could listen to the explanation while being relax and lying on the bed. this implied that the students have flexibility in terms of place in joining a class (potra et al., 2021; mishra, gupta, & shree, 2020). the easier access to materials and recordings constitutes the other online benefit declared by 7 participants. one out of 7 participants pointed out that she could access the learning materials anytime and anywhere. this concept is corresponding with several findings which unpacked easily accessible materials as an important advantage (mukhtar et al., 2020; hussein, et al., 2020). the adequate instruction to access the learning was also viewed as a benefit during online class. one student admitted that the lecturer explained the material clearly so as to facilitate understanding and access to the learning process. this satisfaction is a result that can be gained in an online learning environment (fedynich, bradley, & bradley, 2015; oraif & elyas, 2021). moreover, partaking an online class also allows students to do other activities such as working while attending class (hussein et al., 2020). this was considered by 2 students unpacking the opportunities and challenges in learning speaking….. 120 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 affirming that they could work while attending class which was impossible to do in traditional learning. the last category included as the positive outcomes of online learning was having access to many learning sources. it provides various effective sources of learning fruitful for students (mukhtar et al., 2020; potra et al., 2021). the participants acknowledged that the available learning resources helped them dig up more information related to current issues through social media, get the opportunity to access many supportive learning resources, and use web translators. these advantages can help them develop ideas and skills, particularly to boost their speaking skills. 5.2.1. improvement opportunities the improvement opportunity code is related to how the learning process improves through online learning (potra et al., 2021). with respect to the current study, the finding disclosed that many students experience an increase in ability during the learning process. nineteen out of 45 respondents obtained betterment on their skills. the categories in this section are divided into five terms. to begin with, 8 participants could improve their motivation along with their speaking skills. making effective use of social platforms in learning speaking can provide them with small groups of videoconferencing which allows them to speak more intensively than in regular class (blake, 2017). thereunto, the virtual environment in a videoconference can be exciting and useful for students (khan & abid, 2021). along with this, students explained that they could increase their enthusiasm for learning as well as their ability to speak as a result of using the applications during online speaking lessons. as digital technology is utilized to organize and design learning experiences during the covid-19 outbreak (rapanta et al., 2020), upgrading students' technology skills is possible. hermida (2020) briefly explains that the intensive use of social platforms and online educational tools after the transition to online learning can increase students' knowledge of technology. this is in line with the statement asserted by 2 participants that they felt happy finding a use for digital learning platforms for it could enhance their technology skills. furthermore, during the virtual process, students felt less nervous to speak. they felt a sense of confidence to express their ideas compared to conventional learning systems. this leads to the fact that students' self-efficacy increases when following online learning rather than studying with conventional modes. this view is consistent with several studies which have found that online learning can elevate students' selfefficacy (ghabeli et al., 2021; ningias & indriani, 2021). among the participants, 6 students pointed out that they felt more confident to speak virtually since there was no one around them. it is also undeniable that the speaking classes over virtual systems help them increase their vocabulary. this was benefited from the intensive utilization of web-based translation apps as a participant commented. hence, utilizing online applications is fruitful for the enhancement of learners’ language skills (blake, 2017). putri rizki syafrayani, pirman ginting, yenni hasnah, & mandra saragih englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 121 additionally, students’ capability of managing time effectively was a merit of the distance learning process. two respondents convinced that they could organize and adjust their schedules properly and even be able to compete to the time running to deliver their ideas. by joining online classes, students can use their time efficiently (fong chang et al., 2021). this result is quantitatively proven by its significant higher average score than regular classes with p. values < 0.05. 5.3. the challenges of online speaking class on the subject of the challenges, of the 45 data, the facets represented in the table below were the most recurrent stumbling blocks faced by the students. table 4 presents the negative aspects along with the percentage and frequency of each category. table 4 percentage of negative aspects in online speaking class. no negative aspects frequency percentage 1. distraction and information overload 11 24.4% 2. technology and internet connectivity 26 57.8% 3. limited interaction and inadequate support 8 17.8% 5.3.1. distraction and information overload the findings unpacked that distractions and information overload were experienced by participants resulting from varying aspects. two students stated that they could not focus on studying because they were disturbed by noise from their home environment. they narrated that they found it difficult to seek cushioned place where they could activate the sound and camera during video conferencing. yandell (2020) in his study also uncovered that it was arduous to find a comfortable place to study in online classes. the other two students felt that the virtual class was unconducive and the nuance was uncomfortable. it was, likewise, found by baticulon et al. (2021) that the limited space conducive for learning was encountered during the online learning and was involved in the category of domestic barriers. moreover, the standout distraction was induced by the notifications from mobile phones as well (yan et al., 2021) as remarked by a student as follows, “what makes me stress is that i cannot be focused because when i study, i use my phone and that makes us play phone while paying attention to the lesson.” unpacking the opportunities and challenges in learning speaking….. 122 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 in addition, a female student stated that large number of tasks seriously destructed them. she affirmed that she enjoyed online speaking classes, however after a long time, she felt bored and burdened on the recurrently given tasks. worse still, she was of the view that the large amount of assignment assigned had haunted her and got her to be stressed and panicked. lemay, bazelais, and doleck, (2021) contend that increased workload was the second-highest number of learning challenges after demotivation. another negative aspect of the online session was the incomprehensive explanation of materials as asserted by 5 students. the strenuous subject matters discourage them to keep up with the learning and to accomplish the work assigned from college. according to potra et al., (2021), the difficulty in understanding the material is linked into the category of information overload. 5.3.2. technology and internet connectivity technology and internet connectivity problems became the most cited among other challenges (26 students). these problems mainly comprise two categories; poor connectivity and lack of adequate social platforms. the category of poor connectivity was the most-faced problem. twenty-four of the respondents complained that the unstable internet signal hampered them to go along with the learning process. the hindrances include the inability to answer the questions from lecturers. moreover, they perceived that it was difficult to deliver speeches and listen to explanations as the voices were unclear or distracted. studies reports that the lack of connectivity became a major abstraction in online learning along with data limit and data speed had troubled many students (muthuprasad et al., 2021; allo, 2020; salieva, 2020; mahyoob, 2020). the technical issues that arose amidst the learning were not only about the connectivity but also the social platforms used. two students mentioned that the application often crashed, and consumed more battery and internet data. hendrawaty, angkarini, and retnomurti (2021) on the study of efl undergraduate students’ perceptions of online learning application during the covid-19 outbreak found that many students experienced difficulties in using the applications during the learning process. excess consumption of quota internet and unstable connection became the issues of concern. hence, educational instructors are recommended to apply two or three online learning applications which are favorable, economical, and being proficient by all students. 5.3.3. limited interaction and inadequate support limited interaction and inadequate support referred to the fact that online learning cannot provide adequate time and space regarding communication and social interaction. these aspects of challenges include lack of practice, lack of support from peers and lecturers, and limited time for the learning process. eleven respondents cited limited interaction and inadequate support as an issue of concern. regarding the lack of practice, the unavailability of the real setting in speaking, specifically in public places, putri rizki syafrayani, pirman ginting, yenni hasnah, & mandra saragih englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 | 123 hinders the students to challenge their own capability. a student remarked, “the thing that makes me stressed is when we can’t explore more, and train ourselves to speak in public to know how far our capability and confidence in public speaking is.” lacking chance of speaking practices in a real environment has deterred them from enlightening their speaking skills and this unpleasant circumstance of learning has frustrated them. this response seems contradictory to the students’ statements that they felt less nervous during speaking in a virtual class. this is because the online environment provides different nuance in terms of social communication from real-life situation. khalil et al., (2020) uncovered a similar state of affairs about the ineffectiveness of online learning when carrying out the classroom practices via virtual platforms of learning. they claimed that learning experience in actual conditions such as human interactions is important for practice. this is related with the practice of speaking which requires direct interaction without an intermediary medium to measure a person's speaking ability. the following category as revealed by 3 students was the lack of support from peers and lecturers. one of the learners clarified the matter by saying, “i find challenges when i have an assignment that i don't know. this is because i have to wait for responses from my friends or lecturers.” the scarce opportunities to interact with classmates and lecturers prevent students from cross-checking to get a good understanding of the assignments they are working on. less opportunity to receive feedback or answers for their questions in which they need to wait for a bit longer to get a response is a frequently appeared matter in e-learning (kim, liu, & bonk, 2005; mahyoob, 2020). hereinafter, the limited time in the learning process also becomes the hindrance for students. four of them testified that the duration in online learning was insufficient. short supply of time results in incomplete descriptions of learning material affecting students’ comprehension. the factor that has an effect on the lack of time was due to incompatible learning access devices. saha, dutta, and sifat, (2021) argue that most undergraduate students rely on smartphones rather than other devices. the findings of this study also unveil the magnitude number of smartphone uses in accessing learning as shown in figure 1 below. figure 1. the devices used by students unpacking the opportunities and challenges in learning speaking….. 124 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.2, may 2022 moreover, video conferencing consumes a lot of data quota which burdened students. from this burden, the length of time for learning needed to be reduced. if the conventional learning took about 50 minutes for one meeting, then it should be reduced to 30 minutes. reducing the duration was considered as the best possible solution to overcome the issue regarding the large internet data consumption and incompatible devices during virtual meetings (saha, dutta, & sifat, 2021). in consequence, the lecturers are enforced to sum up and shorten the teachings to cover up all the lessons. it was also hard for lecturers to spend certain moment for the question-and-answer session due to the insufficient term for explaining the material. these obstacles impede students to hold conversational practices. 6. conclusion the covid-19 pandemic has shocked and affected all aspects of human life. in only a couple of weeks, most educational institutions around the world had to emergently migrate to digital mode. these sudden shifts put pressure on all elements, but it also provides opportunities for lecturers and students in experiencing online learning (hussein et al., 2020). the pandemic has given us an insight into proper preparedness to maintain the quality and continue the education process when unpredictable conditions hit. hence, after investigating the opportunities and challenges of speaking classes via online platforms from students' perspectives, the present study showed the result of obstacle for learners such as information overload disorder, technical problems on the online social platforms used for learning, and internet connection issues as well as the lack of support of a learning environment and interaction between students and lecturers. despite those cases, online learning still generates positive outcomes such as effectiveness in terms of cost and time, increased students' skills, and easier access to the learning activities. in light of students’ responses, this study recommends that lecturers should provide online applications that are available for all students. in addition, it is also necessary that students pay attention on the devices used in accessing the learning and avoid using smartphone for they cause many distractions from the app notification. it is better to use devices such as laptops or personal computers because they have fewer distractions. references abad-segura, e., gonzález-zamar, m. d., infante-moro, j. c., & garcía, g. r. 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(2020). learning under lockdown: english teaching in the time of covid-19. changing english: studies in culture and education, 27(3), 262–269. https://doi.org/10.1080/1358684x.2020.1779029 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jad.2021.07.045 https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?partnerid=hzoxme3b&scp=85085188375&origin=inward https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?partnerid=hzoxme3b&scp=85085188375&origin=inward https://doi.org/10.1002/tesj.547 https://doi.org/10.1080/08923647.2019.1663082 https://doi.org/10.1017/s0267190510000085 https://doi.org/10.12973/eu-jer.9.3.967 https://doi.org/10.1080/01587919.2019.1680272 https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13102 https://doi.org/10.1080/1358684x.2020.1779029 englisia november 2018 vol. 6, no. 1, 43-51 rethinking the use of l1 in l2 classroom zulfikar paragon technology and innovation, indonesia paragon4all@gmail.com manuscript received february 09, 2018, revised december 29, 2018, first published december 30, 2018, and available online january 12, 2019. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.22373/ej.v6i1.2514 abstract using mother tongue (l1) in a foreign language (l2) classrooms is inevitable. despite the debate over the adequacy of using l1 in the teaching of l2, this paper argues using l1 in the classroom does not hinder learning, and that l1 has a facilitating role to play in the classroom and can help l2 learning and acquisition. this paper shows that l1 is an inseparable part of language teaching, and it has several functions for both the students and teachers in english language learning and teaching. therefore, those who believe l1 has a minimal role to play in the teaching of a foreign language are invited to think again of its role and contributions it makes to the fields of language learning and teaching. keywords: mother tongue; foreign language; language learning; language teaching introduction the emergence of the communicative language teaching (clt) in language pedagogy has caused many english teachers and instructors worldwide to disregard the use of learners’ mother tongue (l1) in teaching english. clt, also referred to as the communicative approach, strongly advocates that “the target language system is learned through the process of struggling to communicate” (brown, 1994, p. 45). some proponents of this approach also believe that “l1 use actually interfered with l2 learning and brought about “error transference” (pacek, 2003, as cited in miles, 2004, p. 9), and thus, hampering language acquisition and learning. the approach, however, has also brought about a serious and long-standing debate rethinking the use of l1 in l2 classroom 44 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 about whether learners’ mother tongue can be used when they are learning a second or foreign language (l2). while the proponents of the communicative approach firmly argue that the use of l1 may hinder l2 learning, its opponents claim that the use of l1 can actually facilitate the acquisition of l2 (schweers, 1999). some other researchers, however, take a more neutral standing by saying that mother-tongue use should not be banned, nor be encouraged. in the author’s point of view, an appropriate use of l1 in an l2 learning classroom can be beneficial and does not obstruct l2 learning. in fact, the careful use of l1 can facilitate l2 learning because it has a number of benefits. advantages of l1 use in english classrooms while many teachers and heads of department prohibit the use of l1 in language learning contexts on the grounds that an english-only environment actively promotes communication in english, there are also good reasons for using l1 in l2 classrooms. first, efl or esl learners, especially low proficiency ones, can utter more clear and effective expressions their l1 (atkinson, 1987 as cited in wharton, 2004). many confusions and communication breakdown in a monolingual language classroom occur due to a teacher’s strict adherence to l2-only policy. for learners with limited l2 proficiency, this situation can be restraining since they are unable to express themselves very well. they may have difficulty understanding a concept, but fear of being reprimanded for using their l1 to show their confusion prevents them from speaking up. in this case, teachers themselves will find it difficult to determine whether learners have fully understood the introduced concepts. in contrast, when l1 use is allowed, learners will feel more secured to “… express themselves, [and] teachers can diagnose what has been learned, what remains to be taught and which students need further assistance” (benson, 2004, p. 3). according to auerbach (1993, p. 13), the integration of l1 into l2 classroom improved classroom dynamics as it “… provides a sense of security and validates the learner’s lived experiences, allowing them to express themselves”. ghorbani (2012) supports this notion, stating, “creating a sense of security and bridging from the familiar to unfamiliar are the responsibilities of l1 in the classroom. … this role has been zulfikar englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 45 heightened to a point where some sessions of the class can be devoted to learners to express their feelings in their native language” (p. 65-66). further, shamash (1990, as cited in auerbach, 1993), in teaching esl students at the invergarry learning center, provided an example case of how his ells could benefit when they were allowed to work using their l1. in assigning a writing assignment, he prompted the learners to start by writing about themselves in their l1 or a mixture of their l1 and english before getting the texts translated into english by more proficient english speakers. he describes such approach as “a natural bridge for overcoming problems of vocabulary, sentence structure and language confidence.” thus, as stated by bowles and seedhouse (2007), “one of the key pedagogic goals of classroom… is to allow learners to express themselves clearly” (p. 126), and by letting them explain ideas or make inquiry in their l1, teachers have shown their commitment to reach the objective. second, using l1 can stimulate collaborative dialogue among l2 learners in classes. collaborative dialogue, according to swain (2000, as cited in vanderheijden, 2010, p. 29), occurs when learners are producing utterances and responding to their partners as they work together to solve a language task. in collaborative dialogue, learners are engaged in exchanging information with their partners or teachers to clarify meaning and develop an understanding of a given linguistic task. more specifically, in collaborative interaction, they “discuss how to approach specific problems, and build upon one another’s partial solutions” (yough, 2010, p. 29). in this interaction, efl or esl learners will usually have conversations in their l1 discussing the task’s important elements, such as an appropriate word choice and register, before performing it. in this case, learners could compare and contrast their responses in order to get a better understanding of the l2. in other words, l1 functions as a means for them “to control interactive discourse with one another, which supports l2 production” (williams, 2010, p. 24), which eventually leads them to the mastery of the target language. during the discussion, l1 use is especially valuable since it “… provides scaffolding for the students to help each other” (cook, 2001, as cited in gomathi & kiruthika, 2013, p. 25) and “… acts as a critical psychological tool that enables learners to construct rethinking the use of l1 in l2 classroom 46 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 effective collaborative dialogue in the completion of meaning-based language tasks by performing” (cook, 2001, as cited in vanderheijden, 2010, p. 7). in their study on the importance of l1 in esl class, antón and dicamilla (1999) concluded that “to prohibit the use of l1 in the classroom situations... removes, in effect, two powerful tools for learning: the l1 and effective collaboration” (as cited in yough, 2010, p. 29). similarly, in an attempt to investigate the use of l1 in mediating malaysian efl learners’ understanding of the english tense, harun, massari, and behak (2014) reported that l1 use allowed learners to discover and to understand the l2 grammatical concept. their findings were in line with the vygotskian view: language serves not only as a tool for communication but also as a psychological tool in developing an individual’s cognitive process. furthermore, in a qualitative study on the role of l1 in french and spanish l2 classes, scott and fuente (2008) highlighted that in the group where the learners were allowed to use the l1, in contrast to the one where the learners were required to use the l2, there was “continuous interaction; few pauses, balanced contribution to interaction, ample evidence of collaborative dialogue, [and] use of metalinguistic terminology” (p. 106). third, l1 use can save classroom time. harbord (1992, as cited in miles, 2004, p. 14) states that the use of l1 saves time and avoids confusion and this is, “perhaps[,] the biggest reason for using l1 in the classroom”. when a teacher is trying to introduce and confirm the meaning of new vocabulary, for instance, using learners’ l1 might save time and effort. garcia (2007, as cited in hidayati 2012) highlighted the importance of the teacher’s use of l1 in breaking communication barriers, emphasizing key ideas, and managing the classroom in order to save time. correspondingly, tang (2002) in his investigation on teachers and learners’ perception on chinese l1 use in english l2 classroom, conducted a study in eighteen chinese schools and reported that l1 was predominantly used in the classroom to explain the meaning of new vocabulary, and partially to highlight grammar points. the chinese teachers based their practice on the belief that the use of l1 saved class time and was more efficient. likewise, zakaria (2013) remarked zulfikar englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 47 how letting his english l2 learners use their l1 helped him save time in his class, stating: when i taught english in my country (indonesia), i always tried not to use my students’ mother tongue during the teaching/learning process especially when facilitating speaking activities. however, i also had to end up using students’ l1 when i explained students’ errors, grammatical rules, and meaning of difficult words. if i insisted using l2, students seemed not to be receptive and enthusiastic to our classroom activities. based on this experience, i believe, in these particular cases, l1 will aid students’ comprehension and save time for both students and teacher. i am convinced that l1 is an effective tool to help students understand l2 more comprehensibly in non-threatening ways. when i was learning english myself, my first language helped me learn complicated linguistic features or difficult words more comprehensively in a fast manner (pp. 380-381). in a similar tone, al-buraiki (2008, as cited in al sharaeai, 2012) found that the majority of the teachers who provide task direction and explanation in their learners’ l1 agreed that using l1 could accelerate l2 learning and improve learners’ linguistic competence as well. using l1, those teachers argued, could save valuable time in explaining key ideas that otherwise would take a lot more time if explained in l2. fourth, while the limited exposure to l2 outside of classroom in efl learning setting has been used as a reason to expose the learners only with english l2 in class (wharton, 2004), the use of english only in an efl setting is far from being authentic. as opposed to an esl context, where “the process of acquiring an additional language [occurs] within the context of a language community which dominantly includes members who speak it natively” (saville-troike, 2010, p. 204), english l2 learned in an efl setting “… is not widely used in the community” (lightbown & spada, 2013, p. 217) and, therefore, hardly has any immediate association with the l2 speaking community. forman (2010) mentions that “in many efl contexts, students do share a first language (and culture) with each other and their teacher, and bilingual teaching in fact operates as a default mode” (p. 56). in a study on the use of bahasa indonesia l1 in efl classroom, hidayati (2012) found that the majority of the efl learners believed that the use of their l1 was needed in their learning. further, in a study on the use of translation in efl learning context, rethinking the use of l1 in l2 classroom 48 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 heltai (1989, as cited in wharton, 2004) found that, in learners’ real life use of english l2, they were often faced with the task of converting texts or statements in l1 into english l2. he, then, conclusively insisted that, while language teachers had been too reliant on the use of translation in the past that their lessons were too formfocused, dull and unproductive, appropriate use of translation could actually motivate high-proficiency efl learners; in fact, it allowed the learners to understand the distinction between their l1 and l2. wharton (2004) also supported this finding, stating: a few examples immediately come to mind from my own advanced classes this year where students have been asked to translate restaurant menus, company brochures, and even letters from african children to their japanese sponsors. others have also been asked to be interpreters for foreign guests and visiting dignitaries. it is truly an unavoidable fact of the efl context (p. 15). additionally, in supporting the use of korean l1 in the efl context, williams (2010) believed that his korean learners’ l1 played a significant role in l2 classroom, especially when learners were tasked to work in pairs to complete an oral assignment. thus, when allowing an l1 use in an english l2 classroom, a language teacher should make a well-grounded decision as to when and why it can be used. as stated by clanfield and foord (2000, as cited in zakaria, 2013, p. 383), “if a teacher can do this, the classroom will probably be more authentic in regard to reflection of ‘the natural interplay of l1 and l2’.” leaving out l1 will raise “input modification (e.g. repetition, speaking more slowly, substituting basic words for more complex ones, simplifying syntax, etc.)” which negatively impacts interactions and eventually creates “less realistic” conversation (macaro, 2001, as cited in mart, 2013, p. 10). perhaps, the ‘inauthencity’ of imposing an english-only policy in a classroom is best summed up by stern (1992, as cited in mart, 2013, p. 9), who believed that teachers who tried to fend off l1 from l2 classroom are fighting a losing battle because “the l1-l2 connection is an undisputable fact of life; whether we like it or not the new knowledge is learnt on the basis of the previously acquired language.” zulfikar englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 49 last but not least, l1 use can help a teacher explain or clarify concepts, tasks, assignments, instructions, or activities more clearly. if using the learners’ l1 enables a teacher to describe these necessities better, l1 should not be avoided. this is particularly true because “… it is more important for students to understand a concept than it is for that concept to be explained exclusively in english” (schweers, 1999, p. 9). efl or esl learners can surely perform more effectively in the classroom if they clearly understand what their teachers instruct them to do. in this regard, yough (2010) states that: … l1 use is appropriate in making explanations of assignments and activities clear. a student who is using all of her or his available cognitive resources to understand the method of the assignment may not have the capacity to also address the purpose of the assignment. in other words, a student who fully comprehends the expectations is free to focus on the task at hand (p. 30). in a similar vein cook (2001) (as cited in al sharaeai, 2012, p. 9), l1 can be an alternative for teachers in dealing with such scenarios as “explaining and checking meaning; explaining and teaching grammar; class management; explaining class activities and tasks; and maintaining contact with the students”. further, cook (2001) also adds that a teacher should resort to learners’ l1 “to provide a short-cut for giving instructions and explanations where the cost of the l2 is too great” (as cited in mart, 2013, p. 11) in order to make sure that they completely comprehend directions and lessons. similarly, atkinson (1987) and mitchell (1988) (as cited in miles, 2004) agreed that there are several classroom situations in which l1 is preferable. these circumstances include the talk about classroom discipline, stimulation of schemata, comprehension check. references al sharaeai, w. a. a. (2012). students’ perspectives on the use of l1 in english classrooms (unpublished master’s thesis). iowa state university, usa. auerbach, e. r. (1993). reexamining english only in the esl classroom. tesol quarterly, 27(1), 1-18. doi:10.2307/3586949 benson, c. (2004). the importance of mother tongue-based schooling for educational quality. commissioned study for efa global monitoring report rethinking the use of l1 in l2 classroom 50 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 2005, 1(1). retrieved from https://learningportal.iiep.unesco.org/ en/notice/t1422892154 bowles, h. & seedhouse, p. (eds) (2007). conversation analysis and language for specific purposes (vol. 63). bern; new york, ny: peter lang. brown, h. d. (1994). teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy. englewood cliffs, nj: prentice hall regents. forman, r. (2010). the principles of bilingual pedagogy in efl. in mahboob, a. (ed.). the nnest lens: non native english speakers in tesol. (pp. 54-86). newcastle, uk: cambridge scholars publishing. ghorbani, a. (2012). mother tongue in the efl classroom. advances in language and literary studies, 3(2), 63-75. gomathi, b., & kiruthika, p. (2013). role of l1 in english language teaching to rural area students with reference to erode region. international journal of humanities and social science invention 2(12), 24-26. retrieved from: http://www.ijhssi.org/papers/v2(12)/version-1/c021201024026.pdf harun, h., massari, n., & behak, f. p. (2014). use of l1 as a mediational tool for understanding tense/aspect marking in english: an application of conceptbased instruction. procedia social and behavioral sciences, 134, 134-139. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.04.231 hidayati, i. n. (2012). evaluating the role of l1 in teaching receptive skills and grammar in efl classes. indonesian journal of applied linguistics, 1(2), 17-32. doi:10.17509/ijal.v1i2.82 lightbown, p. & spada, n. m. (2013). how languages are learned (3rd ed.). oxford, uk: oxford university press. mart, ç. t. (2013). the facilitating role of l1 in esl classes. international journal of academic research in business and social sciences, 3(1), 9-14. miles, r. (2004). evaluating the use of l1 in the english language classroom. birmingham: university of birmingham. saville-troike, m. (2010). introducing second language acquisition. cambridge, uk: cambridge univ. press. schweers, c. w. (1999). using l1 in the l2 classroom. english teaching forum, 37(2), 6-13. retrieved from: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej601576 scott, v. m., & fuente, m. j. (2008). what’s the problem? l2 learner’s use of the l1 during consciousness-raising, form-focused tasks. the modern language journal, 92(1), 100-113. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4781.2008.00689.x zulfikar englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 51 swain, m. & lapkin, s. (2005). the evolving sociopolitical context of immersion education in canada: some implications for program development1. international journal of applied linguistics, 15(2), 169-186. tang, j. (2002). using l1 in the english classroom. english teaching forum, 40(1), 36-43. vanderheijden, v. (2010). “is that english i hear over there?” rethinking the prohibition on l1 use in foreign language learning. texas papers in foreign language education. 14(1), 3-17. retrieved from: http://studentorgs.utexas.edu/flesa/tpfle_new/issues/summer%202010/2_vi ncent%20vanderh eijden.pdf. wharton, c. (2004). informed use of the mother tongue in the english language classroom (doctoral dissertation). retrieved from https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/documents/.../secondlanguage/wharton-pgrammar.pdf williams, d. g. (2010). evaluating the l1 use of adult intermediate korean english language learners during collaborative oral tasks (master’s thesis). university of manchester. retrieved from http://asian-efl-journal.com/thesis/thesiswilliams.pdf yough, m. s. (2010). keeping native languages in esl class: accounting for the role beliefs play toward mastery. mid-western educational researcher, 23(2), 2732. retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej942897 zakaria, f. (2013). the role of first language in efl classroom. jurnal ilmiah didaktika, 13(2). 373-383. doi:10.22373/jid.v13i2.484 englisia may 2018 vol. 5, no. 2, 102-114 pre-service teachers’ performance post microteaching class in field experience program putri dini meutia, ferlya elyza universitas abulyatama aceh besar, indonesia putri.dinimutia @gmail.com universitas abulyatama aceh besar, indonesia ferlyail@yahoo.com universitas abulyatama aceh besar, indonesia yusnila21balqis@gmail.com abstract the aim of this study was to investigate the pre-service teachers’ performance in the field experience program after taking a microteaching class. the sample of this study was ten (10) pre-service teachers. the data collected were taken from preservice teachers’ report books. the results of this study showed that microteaching helped the pre-service teachers in improving and achieving a good teaching performance in classroom during their field experience program. in addition, after the pre-service teachers had a microteaching class, they were able to use appropriate learning methods and classroom management in order to achieve a better performance in the program. it can be concluded that the microteaching class has played a role to the pre-service teachers in enhancing their teaching performance in the field experience program. keywords: pre-service teachers’ performance; field experience program; microteaching introduction prior to undertaking any professional teaching experience, student teachers are already expected to be good teachers in the future. hence, during their yusnila putri dini meutia, ferlya elyza, & yusnila englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 103 education program, the student teachers are prepared to study some relevant learning methods and approaches in order to improve their teaching skills. in connecting the gap between the theory and the practice, the teacher education program is required to provide these student teachers with a proper and reliable learning environment. as such, two courses called microteaching and field experience program (praktek pengalaman lapangan/ppl) are developed to meet this need in indonesia. microteaching was first established at stanford teacher education, stanford university, california in 1963 (akanbi & usman, 2014; ismail, 2011). microteaching involves planning, teaching, observing, and criticizing (ismail, 2011). it can also include these five steps: teaching, feedback, re-planning, re-teaching, and re-feedback (mahmud & rawshon, 2013). in addition, a microteaching class also arranges the simulation to the pre-service teachers by combining the theory and practice and develops their confidence in teaching (ismail, 2011). moreover, the pre-service teachers do not only learn and reflect the various teaching procedures but also they will have additional practical experiences in the microteaching class. microteaching provides the pre-service teachers with valuable teaching experiences and makes them aware of the benefits and relationships between theories and practices (bell, 2007). microteaching is also set up as a reliable training environment where the pre-service teachers are able to practice their teaching skills before taking over the real classroom (akanbi & usman, 2014). after completing the microteaching course, the pre-service teachers will conduct real teaching in the classroom. this is considered as a teaching internship or more commonly known in indonesia as praktik pengalaman lapangan (ppl) – field experience program. like any other indonesian universities, the faculty of teacher training and education of the university of abulyatama also requires its senior students or pre-service teachers to take the ppl course. the ppl is one learning environment where the pre-service teachers can implement their knowledge in the real classroom. there, the pre-service teachers will face the real classroom conditions in which they need to manifest their knowledge such as teaching, pre-service teachers’ performance post microteaching class in field experience program 104 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 socializing, negotiating, and other managerial skills. in principal, the implementation of the ppl is aimed at obtaining the relevant competencies, as stated in the law no. 20 of 2003 on education, with the teacher duties in terms of learning, training, and supervising (hapsari & widhianningrum, 2014). in the ppl, the performance of the pre-service teachers will be greatly assessed by their supervisor/mentor from the school they are assigned to. the performance will be determined by the way they teach in the classroom as well as the way the manage the classroom and the students. therefore, in the ppl, the preservice teachers are allowed to have the total control in the classroom by managing the classroom activities (da luz, 2015). jones and jones (2004) as cited by da luz (2015) identify several areas of knowledge and skills in the conceptualization of classroom management, including building a supportive environment by establishing teacher-student and peer relationships, optimizing learning by using instructional methods, gaining a commitment from students to appropriate behavior standards, creating a safe and caring classroom community, and using counseling and behavioral methods to change students’ inappropriate behaviors. thus, in order to be an effective educator/teacher, a pre-service teacher generally should master the classroom management as it is the most essential aspect of the teaching and learning process. however, teacher educators who prepare the pre-service teachers should also display effective teaching and reflect on the sequence and consequence of their teaching, and to facilitate the assimilation between theory and practice through field teaching experiences (amobi & irwin, 2009). hence, in order to figure out whether or not the microteaching class prepared by the teacher educators helped the preservice teachers’ teaching experience, the study then investigated the performance of the pre-service teachers in the field experience program. research methods this study was a quantitative study, analyzing the components of the preservice teachers’ report books. these report books were assessed by the school teachers who acted as the mentors/supervisors for the-service teachers during their putri dini meutia, ferlya elyza, & yusnila englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 105 teaching practice in the field experience program in the respective schools. the report books helped inform the study about the influence of microteaching for the pre-service teachers in the program. there were eight components in a report book comprising teaching practice 1 (tp1), teaching practice 2 (tp2), teaching practice 3 (tp3), teaching practice 4 (tp4), teaching practice 5 (tp5), teaching practice 6 (tp6), teaching practice 7 (tp7), teaching practice 8 (tp8), and teaching examination (te). the following table describes the components of teaching practice and teaching examination assessed by the mentors. table 1. the assessed components of teaching practice and teaching examination no. the assessed components a. the planning of learning activities 1. clarity of formulation of learning objectives 2 conformity between teaching materials and learning objectives 3. organizing teaching materials 4. conformity between sources/learning aids/instructional media and learning objectives as well as teaching material 5. clarity of learning activities (initial, core, and closing activities) 6. reflecting of strategy/approach/method/model and time allocation in the stage of activities. 7. completeness of assessment instruments (test, answer keys, and rubric score) 8. orderliness of lesson plans the skills to carry out learning activities b. initial activities 9. preparing students to study 10 conducting apperception, motivation, and pretest and connecting the learning materials in the real life. c. core activities 11. delivering the learning materials clearly and appropriately between the achieved competences. 12. carrying out the learning coherently. 13. implementing the contextual learning. 14. conducting the learning in accordance with the planned allocation of time. 15. fostering of joy, enthusiasm, and active participation of students in learning. 16. mastering the class and be positive towards the students’ responses. 17 monitoring the students’ learning progress and conducting the assessments during the learning process. 18 using indonesian language properly and correctly as well as appropriate style. 19. using media effectively, efficiently, attractively and involving the students in its utilization. pre-service teachers’ performance post microteaching class in field experience program 106 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 d. closing activities 20. conducting the reflection, summary, and follow-up of learning by involving the students. in addition to teaching practice and teaching examination, the mentors also assessed the pre-service teacher personality (pstp), and the pre-service teacher social relationship (pstsr), as shown in the following tables. table 2. the assessed components of pre-service teacher personality no. the assessed components 1. discipline in carrying out the tasks assigned by headmaster, mentor, and supervisor. 2. wisdom in handling the tasks and problems encountered in the classroom or school. 3. responsibility in conducting the tasks. 4. accuracy of presence at school and teaching. 5. participation in all school activities (co-curricular, extracurricular, administration and picket). 6. ethics (cloth, action, hair, speech, etc.) table 3. the assessed components of pre-service teacher social relationship no. the assessed components 1. the quality of relationship with the students. 2. the quality of relationship with the headmaster and other teachers. 3. the quality of relationship with the administrative staff or other staff. 4. the quality of relationship with other pre-service teacher the scoring system for each of the components follows the scale of 1-5 (as shown in table 4), and the mentors were asked to circle the score according to their assessment on the pre-service teachers’ performance. table 4. the scoring system of pre-service teacher’s performance scale of score criteria 1 very poor 2 poor 3 adequate 4 good 5 very good putri dini meutia, ferlya elyza, & yusnila englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 107 for the average score of the tp and te, the mentors calculated all component scores of the pre-service teachers’ performance. on the other hand, for the pstp and pstsr, the mentors used the following formulas to get the average score. the average scores provided in the report books became the data source for the analysis of this study. average score = component scores x 10 / 3 (for pstp) average score = component scores x 4 (for pstsr) research subjects the subjects of this study were ten (10) student teachers/ pre-service teachers of the department of english education of the faculty of teacher training and education of the university of abulyatama who had completed the microteaching course and then took the field experience program (ppl) in the academic year 2016/2017 in seven (7) different schools in aceh besar (great aceh district) of aceh province). the subjects were selected based on the saturated sampling technique (sugiyono, 2013). data collection the study compiled the data needed by gaining the copies of the report books of the pre-service teachers after getting approval from the head of the department of english education. the data were the scores available in the report books. data analysis the study used descriptive statistics to analyze and interpret the results of the scoring from the report books. the scores that the pre-service teachers achieved in each assessment including teaching practice, teaching examination, and preservice teacher personality and social relationship were calculated in order to find the percentage by using this formula: 100% f p x n = (sudijono, 2005) in which, p = percentage f = frequency n = number pre-service teachers’ performance post microteaching class in field experience program 108 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 results and discussion based on the report books of the pre-service teachers, the collected data were presented in the following table. table 5. data based on the report book no. initial score of teaching practice (tp) score of te score of pstp score of pstsr 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. dw 40 42 45 52 60 66 76 88 96 87 92 2. yo 24 30 45 47 54 63 74 88 90 90 96 3. dr 46 50 57 61 63 66 72 80 85 93 80 4. as 80 84 85 86 86 86 87 88 88 96 92 5. hm 72 73 78 77 80 84 83 86 87 83 88 6. dr 76 78 80 83 85 86 88 90 92 83 84 7. ks 60 61 62 63 62 63 63 67 73 63 72 8. ns 64 74 74 77 78 80 79 80 89 96 24 9. nh 74 86 85 81 85 93 92 10. aa 73 77 80 82 95 75 88 percentage (%) 61 66 69 71 71 74 78 83 88 83 88 the samples of the mentors’ assessment are shown in the following figures for clearer understanding of the scoring system. figure 1. the mentor’s scoring of teaching practice and teaching examination putri dini meutia, ferlya elyza, & yusnila englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 109 figure 2. the mentor’s scoring of pre-service teacher personality and social relationship looking at table 5 above, it was found that in the tp1, the average score of ten pre-service teachers was 61%. here, the score means that these student teachers did not make a good lesson plan in teaching. there was no association between learning materials and learning objectives. this was the first performance for them in teaching at school so, perhaps, they did not feel confident enough in teaching activities. thus, the application of their teaching skills was not truly shown in this meeting. the pre-service teacher trainings then somewhat developed their performance in the tp2 by getting 66% in average. they had a slighly better performance in preparing their students for studying, doing apperception, motivation and pretest, and connecting the learning materials in the real life. however, they still did not know how to make a good lesson plan, learning activities, and reflection. in the next tp3, the pre-service teachers could explain the learning objectives and their association with the learning materials. in other words, they could organize the learning materials. however, they still maintain an average score of 66% in this session. the association between learning media and learning objectivs, the comprehension of learning activities, and the application of learning approaches were better shown in the tp4. in addition, the pre-service teachers could also pre-service teachers’ performance post microteaching class in field experience program 110 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 manage the time allotted in every activity. here, they reached an average score of 71%. likewise, the same score of 71% was also shown in the tp5. the pre-service teachers could make a good assessment in teaching and learning process such as making questions, answer keys, and scoring procedures. in addition, they could present a good lesson plan. the score then raised a little in the tp6 of 74%. the learning materials were conveyed clearly and appropriately by these pre-service teachers along with the learning competencies achieved. moreover, they also taught systematically and contextually in the classroom. there was a good association between the learning activities and time allocation as stated in the lesson plan in the tp7. the pre-service teachers also built the happiness, enthusiasm, and active participation of the students in learning. the classroom management was well conducted, so they were able to control and give positive responses to the learners’ questions. for the last tp8, the improvement of teaching was illustrated by as high as 83% average in the report books. the preservice teachers applied an assessment during the learning process in addition to implementing the learning media effectively, efficiently, and interestingly. after completing eight meetings for teaching practices, the pre-service teachers were required to take the teaching examination. the result for the teaching examination showed that they obtained an average score of 88%. this indicated that the teaching performance of the pre-service teachers had improved. they managed to teach in the classroom properly by following their lesson plans. however, there were some missing data for the scores of two pre-service teachers in the tp5, tp6, tp7, and tp8 as the scores were somehow not stated in their report books. therefore, in these four practices, the average scores were taken only from the remaining eight. in terms of the pre-service teacher personality, the average score was 83%. the score reflected that the pre-service teachers were discipline enough and also respectful towards to the other members of the assigned schools. they also showed putri dini meutia, ferlya elyza, & yusnila englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 111 responsibilities in finishing their tasks as well as participated in other school activities such as in co-curricular, extracurricular, administration, and on duty activities. further, in the pre-service teacher social relationship, it was found an average score of 88%. this suggested that in the aspect of the social relationship, the pre-service teachers could interact well with the students, teachers, headmasters, and other staff at school. it showed that they gained a quality relationship. based on the data of report books, the study found that the overall average of these pre-service teachers was 76%. this suggests that the student teachers/ preservice teachers have obtained a good achievement in teaching performance after microteaching class during their field experience program. in other words, it can be concluded that there was a significant improvement in the students’ teaching performance in the program after they had completed the microteaching class. conclusion in the field experience program (ppl), the pre-service teachers were found to perform well in teaching, in preparing their students for learning, in doing apperception, in giving motivation and pre-test, and in connecting the learning materials to the real life. they were able to associate between the learning media and the learning objectives, to understand the learning activities, and to apply the learning approaches during the teaching and learning process. in addition, they could manage the time allocated in every activity as well as teach systematically and contextually in the classroom. they were also capable of delivering the learning materials appropriately according to the learning competencies. at the end of the class, they managed to conduct the learning assessment and reflection about the lesson to the students. on the other hand, they could also gain a good relationship with the students, teachers, headmasters, and other staff in their assigned schools. therefore, it can be concluded that the performance of the pre-service teachers have been very good and it can be considered that the microteaching class has played a role in their teaching performance as well. pre-service teachers’ performance post microteaching class in field experience program 112 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 references akanbi, a. o., & usman, r. s. (2014). a correlational study of nce physics students' performances in micro teaching and teaching practice. journal of education research and behavioral sciences, 3(2), 60-64. amobi, f. a., & irwin, l. (2009). implementing on-campus microteaching to elicit preservice teachers’ reflection on teaching actions: fresh perspective on an established practice. journal of the scholarship of teaching and learning, 9(1), 27-34. bell, n. (2007). microteaching: what is going on here? linguistics and education, 24-40. da luz, f. s. (2015, may 1). the relationship between teachers and students in the classroom: communicative language teaching approach and cooperative learning strategy to improve learning. in bsu master’s theses and projects. item 22. retrieved from virtual commons the open-access institutional repository of bridgewater state university: http://vc.bridgew.edu/theses/22 hapsari, p., & widhianningrum, p. (2014). pengaruh praktik pengalaman lapangan terhadap kinerja mahasiswa calon guru [the influence of field experience program on student teachers’ performance]. journal of accounting and business education, 1-10. ismail, s. a. (2011). student teachers’ microteaching experiences in a preservice english teacher education program. journal of language teaching and research, 2(5), 1043-1051. mahmud, i., & rawshon, s. (2013). micro teaching to improve teaching method: an analysis on students’ perspectives. iosr journal of research & method in education (iosr-jrme), 69-76. sudijino, a. (2005). pangantar statistik pendidikan [introduction to educational statistics]. jakarta: rajawali press. sugiyono. (2013). metode penelitian kuantitatif, kualitatif dan r & d [quantitative, qualitative, and r & d research methods]. bandung: alfabeta englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2023. vol.10, no.2, 137-147 when english language matters: internationalizing phd research by indonesian political scientists jürgen rüland university of freiburg, germany juergen.rueland@politik.uni-freiburg.de manuscript received march 31, 2023, revised april 21, 2023, accepted april 26, 2023, and published online may 7, 2023. recommended apa citation rüland, j. (2023). when english language matters: internationalizing phd research by indonesian political scientists. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(2), 137-147. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.17607 abstract the essay traces frequent language problems and un(der)developed academic writing skills of indonesian phd students in the field of political science and international relations. the author thereby draws on personal experiences as a thesis supervisor. apart from problematic scope conditions in the indonesian university system, he identifies a lack of training in academic writing at the undergraduate and graduate levels of education and a missing research and publication culture in social sciences. the remainder of the essay reflects about how the problem of deficient language and academic writing skills can be remedied. it argues that both indonesian universities and also host universities abroad must develop measures to overcome the identified problems. keywords: english language; ph.d. research; indonesia; political scientists 1. introduction thousands of bright and determined indonesian students seek tertiary education abroad. north america and the united kingdom are particularly popular study destinations, closely followed by australia, the netherlands, germany and the scandinavian countries. students pursuing religious studies seek tertiary education in the middle east. more recently, asian universities—in japan, china, south korea, taiwan, singapore, and to a lesser extent, malaysia and india—have attracted indonesian phd students. with the exception of middle eastern universities, in almost all other cases, a precondition for successful enrollment in a doctoral program at a foreign university is mailto:juergen.rueland@politik.uni-freiburg.de https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.17607 when english language matters: internationalizing phd research by indonesian political scientists 138 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 good proficiency in english. a toefl test score of at least 80 or an ielts result higher than 6.5 is usually required for admission to overseas phd programs. the indonesian government supports this educational mobility. it is, together with a number of other measures, part of a national strategy to internationalize research and university education. the indonesian government thereby responds to often criticized quality deficiencies in the indonesian tertiary education system (rakhmani & siregar, 2016; achwan, 2017; prasetiamartai et al, 2018). according to the annual british times higher education survey, few indonesian universities qualify among the world’s 2,000 best. the two highest-ranked indonesian universities, the university of indonesia and universitas airlangga, are positioned in the 1001–1200 bracket.* indonesia thus trails other southeast asian countries such as singapore, malaysia, the philippines, thailand and brunei darussalam. apart from stringent reforms in the career patterns of indonesian academics, such as a 2017 regulation obliging full professors to regularly publish in double-blind, peer-reviewed, scopus-listed international journals,† the government has also expanded its scholarship programs. between 2013 and 2021, the ministry of finance provided 13,388 scholarships for graduate and phd studies under the lembaga pengelola dana pendidikan (lpdp) scheme,‡ which reduces the pressure on young indonesian researchers to find phd scholarships abroad. germany has been one of the traditional destinations for indonesian phd students, especially in engineering disciplines and natural sciences. apart from the quality of the phd programs, german universities attract foreign students because they do not charge tuition fees. moreover, a number of german organizations—in particular the german academic exchange service (daad)—provide scholarships for indonesian phd students. currently, 5,393 (2021) indonesians study in germany (daad, 2021), many of whom pursue phds. previously, foreign phd students were required to write their theses in the german language. indonesian students thus had to acquire sufficient skills in german, usually supported by intensive training at one of germany’s goethe institutes, before starting their phd. however, german universities have also undergone a massive process of internationalization in the last two decades. the provincialism of german social sciences, deplored by many critics, triggered reforms in the course of which numerous englishlanguage study programs at master’s and phd levels were initiated. this lowered the entrance barriers for indonesians intent on pursuing doctoral studies in germany because their knowledge of english is usually better than that of german. yet improving starting conditions for indonesian students has only partly helped to overcome serious language problems in thesis writing. apart from the need to adjust to a different academic culture, insufficient english language proficiency has often been diagnosed as a major * times higher education, “world university rankings 2023.” available at: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2023/world-ranking (accessed 25 october 2022). † later softened to publications in international journals. personal communication, 30 march 2023. ‡ see ldpd, laporan kinerja 2021, p. 32. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2023/world-ranking jürgen rüland englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 139 impediment for the (timely) completion of theses. based on the personal experiences of the author, who has supervised indonesian master’s and phd students in the fields of political science and international relations for more than 30 years, this essay identifies problems that indonesian students encounter in english-language academic writing, before reflecting on what can be done at indonesian universities and the german host institutions to improve the language proficiency and writing skills of indonesian doctoral students. 2. un(der)developed writing skills and their causes the language problems that many—though certainly not all—indonesian phd students face in their studies abroad have systemic as well as individual, personal roots. at the most general level, systemic factors are predominantly shaped by the power distribution in the existing (albeit changing) global order. like many other countries in the global south, indonesia struggles with a western value hegemony that has also deeply penetrated higher education. it is primarily anglo-saxon universities that are the standard-setters for what is considered academic excellence. more recently, decoloniality studies and reformist strands in several disciplines—such as the calls for a truly “global” approach in the field of international relations (acharya, 2014)—have sought to chart alternative paths to education and quality research that take into account local cultures, knowledge, modes of articulation and historical experiences. yet, unperturbed, the government bureaucracies in charge of (tertiary) education are striving hard to conform to the defining standards of western educational ideals and to catch up with western universities in terms of research output and the reputation of their study programs. this western—or better, anglo-saxon—hegemony in the field of higher education is epitomized in the dominant status of english as the lingua franca in the field of research. willy-nilly indonesian students studying abroad thus have to comply with the language requirements and the criteria of what is considered quality research. another very general systemic factor is related to the primary and secondary levels of education. they are still more insulated from the neoliberal influences of the western hegemonic model than tertiary education. primary and secondary education are thus still closer to age-honored local indigenous culture and values. in this local life world, contesting the knowledge of teachers and individualistic notions of educational attainment deviates from the dominant strands of social collectivism. unsurprisingly, indonesia does not fare well in the rankings of the western-dominated organization of economic cooperation’s (oecd) programme for international student assessment (pisa). indonesia ranks close to the bottom among 79 countries in a number of key qualifications, including literacy (azzahra & zahra 2023: 3). these problems have a continuing influence on tertiary education and must be analyzed in much greater depth, but cannot be further pursued in this brief essay. a less abstract problem for the issue of the lacking academic writing skills of many indonesian doctoral students is that the country’s university system has so far failed to when english language matters: internationalizing phd research by indonesian political scientists 140 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 develop a vibrant “research and publishing culture” (rakhmani & siregar, 2016; achwan 2017; prasetiamartati et al, 2018). it is only quite recently that the scholarly community and indonesian authorities have responded to the fact that cutting-edge research must be published in english that without good english proficiency university graduates struggle in an increasingly globalized professional world, and that indonesian universities will have great difficulty in advancing to a state of internationally recognized excellence. it is thus a problem that, despite reforms and undeniable improvements, the use of english and, in particular, the development of students’ english academic writing skills continues to play a subordinate role in their training.§ while in political science and international relations classes nowadays a large percentage of the course literature is in english, the medium of instruction is still bahasa indonesia, the national language.** there are very few courses that are entirely offered in english. if they are, they are part of a department’s international program, which, so far, few social science faculties offer, or they are courses for a department’s foreign students. in many political science courses, and to a somewhat lesser extent international relations, written (mid-term and final) exams count considerably more, up to 70 percent, toward the students’ grade than term papers. term papers are part of the courses as well, but do not count for more than 20-25 percent for the student’s grade.†† usually, they do not exceed 5 to 10 pages and are more of an essay type than a scholarly paper based on an analytical framework and methodological rigor. some observers attribute the latter problem, among others, to the fact that many indonesian lecturers have not exceeded a master’s degree as their highest educational attainment and that the master’s courses they attended abroad often prepare them for applied sciences, but do not teach them scholarly rigor and the capacity to develop systematic research designs.‡‡ by comparison, german political science courses, especially those held in the form of seminars, require students to write a truly scholarly 10-20 pages term paper, which counts for up to 100 percent of their course performance. the exceptions are introductory lectures into sub-disciplines such as comparative politics, international relations, political theory, and the history of political ideas or statistics, which usually end with a written exam. as a corollary, when german students have finished their undergraduate studies, they have learnt to design and develop a scholarly paper focusing on a self-defined topic related to the pertinent course theme, often even written in english. like their german counterparts, indonesian political science and international relations students conclude their bachelor’s or master’s studies with a thesis (skripsi). but unlike german students, indonesian students have rarely written sophisticated pieces of scholarly work before this. unlike in germany, where in the last two decades universities reformed their once outdated german-language-centered examination § personal communication, 12 april 2023. ** personal communication, 29 march and 30 march 2023. †† personal communication, 29 march 2023. ‡‡ personal communication, 31 march 2023. jürgen rüland englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 141 regulations and now explicitly permit the writing of theses in english, an option many german students keenly adopt, the overwhelming majority of indonesian students write their skripsi in bahasa indonesia. they thereby often enter their skripsi project without comprehensive training in developing a systematic research design. writing a study that is guided by an analytical framework; that is methodologically informed, sound and rigorous; that closely links theory and empirical analysis; and in which theoretical categories order the empirical material, has—as mentioned above—not been sufficiently trained before. these problems multiply if a complex study such as a doctoral dissertation must be written in a foreign language—for example, in english. unlike the majority of their german counterparts, many indonesian phd students have only a vague understanding of the criteria that must be met for a quality thesis. another systemic problem concerns teaching personnel. not only do scholarly writing skills, especially in a foreign language, need sufficient training, bright students also tend to imitate the working and writing styles of their professors. and here the problem starts. most indonesian lecturers (dosen) and professors are not very productive (academic) writers. according to statistics published by the university of indonesia, the productivity record of social sciences and humanities is at the lower end of the university’s faculties (achwan, 2017, p.469). in the fields of political science and international relations, only think tank scholars publish frequently and regularly in the english language, usually in area studies journals. however, many of these contributions are policy-oriented and hence have little theoretical grounding. by contrast, the number of indonesian university scholars publishing regularly in impact factor-strong international disciplinary journals is still low. if they publish, it is usually in bahasa indonesia, in journals that are not well known outside the country, or in the form of opinion pieces in the country’s rich mediascape. while it is undeniable that under the impact of the 2017 reforms, consciousness of english-language publications has been growing, especially among younger scholars, the texts they publish in homegrown journals are often of questionable scholarly quality, not guided by (senior) academic mentors, poorly edited, and in some cases even full of spelling and grammatical errors. the realization that quality research also requires profound linguistic quality checks is only gradually dawning. many indonesian scholars publish in scopus-listed journals only when they seek promotion.§§ this explains why, according to a survey conducted a few years ago, only 8 percent of scholars at major indonesian universities published in scopus-listed journals (rakhmani & siregar, 2016). this state of affairs has something to do with wrong incentives. indonesian academics still advance their careers in the university system through seniority and by adopting executive or “structural” positions (achwan, 2017). in these roles they spend much more time settling administrative matters than advancing their research. their publications thus rarely stand for best practices in research and academic writing; few of §§ personal conversation with indonesian scholars, 24 october 2022. when english language matters: internationalizing phd research by indonesian political scientists 142 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 them serve as role models for their students. research-minded indonesian academics are thus, as one colleague caustically stated, in constant “survival mode” concerning serious academic publishing.*** this creates path dependencies which are difficult to overcome. unsurprisingly, thus, the desk rejection rate of indonesian submissions to international journals is high, because they lack theoretical grounding and methodological rigor and/or because they are submitted in poor english. indonesian students have to cope with another handicap: unlike their german peers, their exposure to foreign universities prior to their doctoral studies is much lower. under the european union’s erasmus program, tens of thousands of german undergraduate and graduate students have multiple opportunities and choices to study one or two semesters abroad. english is a frequent—though not the only—medium of instruction in these exchange programs. this increases their exposure to international writing standards, sharpens their awareness of the internationalization of research and also heightens their desire to train these skills at their home universities. by contrast, exchange programs at indonesian universities, while now more forcefully promoted under the indonesian international student mobility awards (iisma) scheme, are quantitatively still comparatively modest, primarily benefit students from the country’s most prestigious universities and often rely on the personal initiative and the engagement of individual professors and their colleagues abroad.††† systemic problems are exacerbated by problems that lie at students’ personal or individual levels. the english proficiency of students greatly varies according to social background. english language skills are greater in disciplines which have an intrinsically international outlook such as international relations and that often disproportionately attract students from families with a wealthy urban upperand middle class social background and a high level of educational achievement. also, students in the country’s leading universities, such as the university of indonesia and gadjah mada university in yogyakarta, tend to have better english competence than students from universities in the so-called outer islands. while most indonesian doctoral students are nevertheless able to communicate well in everyday foreign-language conversations, the picture changes markedly when it comes to writing academic texts. problems that students often encounter include a limited vocabulary and a lack of knowledge of idioms. in practice, these problems translate into clumsy and repetitive texts, including difficulties in systematically developing arguments or clearly visible storylines. the adequate description of social phenomena and the much needed nuancing of findings that is part and parcel of quality research suffers under these circumstances. poor texts, usually in the form of chapter drafts, become a burden for the supervisor and slow down students’ work on their theses. for the supervisor, this means that before s/he can start examining the chapter’s substantive issues—factual checks, verifying the links between theory and empirical analysis or assessing the work’s methodological *** personal communication, 30 march 2023. ††† see iisma’s website at: https://iisma.kemdikbud.go.id/, (accessed 31 march 2023). https://iisma.kemdikbud.go.id/ jürgen rüland englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 143 adequacy—s/he must edit the submitted text to improve its readability. in more problematic cases, the message of phrases remains nebulous and requires returning the text to the student for amendments. this can become a quite time consuming, tedious and stressful process for both sides. aware of their handicaps in writing foreign-language academic texts, many students produce their texts in a two-step process. the first draft is in bahasa indonesia, which then—in a second step—is translated into english. this, together with the limitations in their vocabulary, adds further to the clumsy nature of these texts. moreover, students do not learn to think in the foreign language; the text is thus translated rather mechanistically. this explains, for example, why they often prefer to write texts in passive voice—standing for good writing style in bahasa indonesia—but ignoring that flowing english text requires an active voice. some students engage proofreaders to identify errors and polish the writing. unfortunately, but understandably in view of the high costs, these are not native speakers, but often friends or colleagues who have only a slightly better grasp of the foreign language and whose edits rarely help to improve a text’s quality. time pressure due to the finite duration of scholarships and severe problems of producing a readable academic english text may also constrain students’ cognitive dispositions for language-related learning. even after years of working on their dissertations, some of them continue to commit the same grammatical errors: concerning syntax, the use of articles, singular and plural, as well as the tenses. the readability of texts improves only gradually. the most serious problem resulting from these language issues is that students face great difficulties in revising their draft chapters. even with a good design at the outset, any research entails a certain degree of trial and error and hence requires revisions. but when the use of the language is insecure and clumsy, revisions become a major effort which stresses students and is highly time consuming. 3. strategies to improve the academic writing skills of indonesian doctoral students indonesian universities and host universities abroad should jointly try to improve the english-language academic writing skills of indonesian phd students. this section outlines a few proposals to facilitate this process. 3.1. measures at indonesian universities merely curing the symptoms is not enough and will not decisively solve the problem. strategies to improve the english-language academic writing skills of young indonesian scholars are part and parcel of a comprehensive process and must first address the scope conditions. such measures would have to begin with tackling the deficiencies of the educational system at the primary and secondary levels. at the university level, “top-down” government reforms to internationalize research and publishing (achwan, 2017, p.468) are underway and commendable, but do not go far enough. the muchneeded change in academic career patterns is only slowly materializing. incentives for when english language matters: internationalizing phd research by indonesian political scientists 144 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 young scholars to publish internationally must markedly increase, enabling them to boost their reputation in the academic world through their achievements in research and publishing, rather than by rising through the ranks of the academe primarily on account of successfully performing executive functions. making publications in scopus-listed international journals compulsory for professorial positions is an important and helpful step forward that in the long run—with some softening interim measures mitigating the reforms’ impact for the old generation of scholars—should be stringently implemented. a research and publication culture must emerge in universities so that achievements in research and publishing internationally become an intrinsic motivation for scholars, supported by financial rewards and accelerated career advancement. some universities have already started to pay bonuses to scholars with a track record in publishing internationally, a practice that should be intensified but should be based on more rigorous criteria. also conducive for building up research excellence is the establishment of a national research foundation, as many countries have successfully done before: the german research foundation (dfg), the australian research council (arc), the netherlands organization for scientific research (nwo), the polish national science center, or the austrian wissenschaftsfonds (fwf), to name a few, are cases in point. they provide competitive, multi-year grants for innovative and original research proposals and stimulate scholars to publish internationally.‡‡‡ in 2016, indonesia created the indonesian science fund (dipi). this is certainly a step in the right direction. yet grant disbursements seem to be lopsided, mainly benefiting medicine, life sciences and other natural sciences.§§§ with around us$800,000 in 2018, the research funding is still very modest.**** one thing that facilitates the preparation of students for international research and successfully concluding phd studies abroad is the organization of student mobility at the undergraduate and graduate levels. in principle, the asean university network(aun) provides a good organizational framework for the intensification of student and staff exchange in southeast asia. unfortunately, while it has existed since 1995, it has mainly concentrated on the asean-wide accreditation of study programs. expanding the network via a vibrant student and staff mobility program embedded in cooperative arrangements with host universities would facilitate indonesian students’ early familiarization with international research and writing standards (lücking, meiser, & rohrer, 2023).†††† a liberal system for converting the credits acquired abroad in the local university’s transcript would further facilitate student mobility.‡‡‡‡ however, it should, at ‡‡‡ for the problems associated with indonesian research funding, see prasetiamartati et al (2018: 19-20). §§§ personal communication, 12 april 2023. **** see dipi, “empowering the culture of research excellence in indonesia. annual report 2018.” available at: https://dipi.id/download/eng%20-%20dipi%202018.pdf, (accessed 31 march 2023). †††† for a path-breaking example, see the tandem model initiated by the anthropology department of the university of freiburg, germany (lücking, meiser & rohrer 2023). ‡‡‡‡ personal communication, 12 april 2023. https://dipi.id/download/eng%20-%20dipi%202018.pdf jürgen rüland englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 145 this point, be noted that at a moderate level, mobility programs have already been launched. one is the above-mentioned indonesian international student mobility awards (iisma) scheme, another the student exchange organized by the indonesia-malaysiathailand growth triangle (imt-gt) university network.§§§§ while establishing student and staff mobility programs requires sizeable investment, this should not be an insurmountable obstacle. southeast asia has enjoyed remarkable economic growth in recent decades and most countries in the region have reached middle or upper-middle income status. investment in scholarly mobility programs will contribute to strengthening asean member countries’ r&d capacities and will constitute a step in their quest to evade the middle-income trap. in political science and international relations, it is crucial to expand the number of english-language study programs at undergraduate and master’s levels. the international programs offered so far primarily by medical faculties, natural sciences and economics may facilitate this process, although high fees make access to the programs socially highly selective. it is certainly also commendable when emphatic lecturers bring their undergraduate classes to guest lectures by visiting overseas scholars, but unfortunately such activities mostly fizzle out ineffectively. especially in provincial universities, students lack english proficiency and the necessary disciplinary training to benefit from these lectures. by contrast, full-fledged english-language study programs would increase the incentives for universities to hire foreign teaching staff, a strategy successfully applied to varying extents by other asean countries, foremost singapore, but also malaysia, thailand and the philippines. a first step in this direction is the ministry of education and culture’s “world class professors” program, intended to bring highly reputed scholars as visiting professors to indonesian universities for three-month stints.***** also, the german senior expert service (ses) sends experienced scholars to indonesian universities to help internationalize their teaching and research programs and to familiarize potential doctoral students with the disciplinary requirements and the expected writing skills. yet, to be sustainable, these usually month-long missions need a coordinated follow-up, which normally does not happen. finally, it is crucial to markedly increase undergraduate and graduate students’ familiarity with the cutting-edge literature in their discipline. offering reading courses led by an experienced and accomplished lecturer, focusing on the discipline’s standard literature and increasing the orientation of students in their study field, is an option to facilitate this. requiring, or at least encouraging, students to write term papers and their ba or ma theses (skripsi) in english complements these measures. compared to 30 years ago, when this author had his first encounters with indonesian universities, the country’s leading institutions of higher learning are no longer massively §§§§ interviews with scholars and university administrators, 27 may 2022, 6 june 2022, 9 june 2022, 1 november 2022. ***** “2021 world class professor program offer.” available at: https://lppm.itb.ac.id/en/2021-worldclass-professor-program-offer/, (accessed 27 march 2023). https://lppm.itb.ac.id/en/2021-world-class-professor-program-offer/ https://lppm.itb.ac.id/en/2021-world-class-professor-program-offer/ when english language matters: internationalizing phd research by indonesian political scientists 146 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 resource strapped. their budgets have markedly increased and they can now invest substantial amounts of money to upgrade the education they offer. while there is a tendency to prioritize investments in the universities’ physical infrastructure, it is advisable to step up investment in student and staff skills development. one such step could be for departments to employ an english native speaker with the task of polishing texts that department members intend to submit to international publication outlets and to train them in english academic writing. the author has witnessed how years ago south korean universities successfully employed such a strategy. 3.2. support provided by host universities indonesian doctoral students coming to germany with german scholarships first undergo three months’ intensive training in the german language. this certainly helps students in their everyday lives in the host country, but certainly does not develop their english academic writing skills. while it is not advisable to train them in two languages at virtually the same time—both german and english—as sometimes recommended by the scholarship selection committees, it would be helpful to provide funding for a nativespeaking language teacher who trains foreign phd students—not only those from indonesia—during their first year abroad in english academic writing. this should be done on the basis of the texts they produce and should include regular personal consultation opportunities in which students meet their english teachers on a one-to-one basis. scholarship providers, be it german ones or the indonesian government, should also earmark an amount in the order of at least 3,000 euros for final proofreading of the dissertation text by a native speaker prior to submission. students financing their phd studies privately should be advised to retain sufficient savings for proofreading services during and at the end of the thesis-writing process. finally, promising students should be encouraged to present papers related to their phd research at international conferences. weaker ones should at least be enabled to attend and audit such events in order to learn by observation about the production of academic knowledge and papers. 4. conclusion readers with a decoloniality perspective might not agree with my reflections. yet they face the uphill task of developing an academic culture that on the one hand authentically reflects non-western life worlds and on the other finds acceptance beyond the confines of their country. they should rest assured that i do not mean to say that indonesian political science and international relations phd students in germany notoriously underperform when writing their phd theses. many of them identify highly relevant themes, the findings of which—based on careful fieldwork—not only support their country’s developmental agenda but also provide novel insights in the respective field of studies. a few of these phd students submit excellent and well-written theses, which get published by renowned publishers and mark the beginning of outstanding scholarly careers. yet, unfortunately, this is rather the exception than the rule. many jürgen rüland englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 147 students struggle with the foreign environment, a different scientific culture and with writing their theses in a foreign language. this essay, guided very much by the personal and hence subjective experiences of the author, has identified some common problems and their roots. more importantly, it has sought to develop some strategies helping to overcome the weaknesses of indonesian phd students in academic writing. if it does, it would boost the internationalization of indonesian research in the fields of political science, international relations and beyond. references acharya, a. (2014). global international relations (ir) and regional worlds. international studies quarterly, 58(4), 647–659. achwan, r. (2017). production of social science in indonesia: an incomplete reform from above. asian politics and policy, 9(3), 462-478. azzahra, nf., & zahra, n. (2023). establishing foreign higher education institutions in indonesia, jakarta: center for indonesian policy studies, policy brief no 18. daad (deutscher akademischer austauschdienst). (2021). indonesien. daten & analysen zur hochschulund wissenschaftsstandort, bonn: daadbildungssystemanalyse. lücking, m, meiser, a., & rohrer, i. (eds) (2023). in tandem: pathways towards a postcolonial anthropology, heidelberg: springer. prasetiamartati, b, carden, f, ruhanawati, s, rakhmani, i., & nugroho, y. (2018). linking academic research and policymaking. in: a. pellini et al (eds) knowledge politics and policymaking in indonesia. singapore: springer, pp. 13-30. rakhmani, i., & siregar, f. (2016). reforming research in indonesia: policies and practice, new delhi: global development network. englisia may 2014 vol. 1 no.2, 256-269 factors influencing second  language acquisition  siti khasinah universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh abstract motivation, attitude, age, intelligence, aptitude, cognitive style, and personality are considered as factors that greatly influence someone in the process of his or her second language acquisition. experts state that those factors give a more dominant contribution in sla to learners variedly, depend on who the learners are, their age, how they behave toward the language, their cognitive ability, and also the way they learn. keywords: second language acquisition, factors, influence introduction this paper describes the definition of second language acquisition and factors that affect second language acquisition and the main point of this writing is discussing contributing factors in second language acquisition such as motivation, attitude, age, intelligence, aptitude, cognitive style, and personality. some factors are said to be dominant and some others are being equal but each of them gives different contribution for the success or the failure of second language acquisition. it is believed that every normal child, given a normal upbringing, are successful in the acquisition of their first language. however, experience shows that some of them success variedly in acquiring their second language due to the factors influencing the process of second language acquisition. siti khasinah englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 257 the definition of second language acquisition acquisition is basically another word for learning. however, it is sometimes used for different use and meaning such in second language acquisition. the process by which a person learns a language is sometimes called acquisition instead of learning, because some linguists believe that the development of a first language in a child is a special process (richards, 1985, p.3). (ellis, 1986, p. 292; alice omaggio, 1986, p. 29) explain that acquisition can be broadly defined as the internalization of rules and formulas which are then used to communicate in l2. they further say that it is the spontaneous process of rule internalization that result from natural language used while learning consists of the development of conscious l2 knowledge through formal study. in other words, acquisition is unconscious study of a language in natural way and it is not depends on the language teaching. on the other hand, learning is a conscious study through formal instruction such as language classroom learning. in longman dictionary of applied linguistics, jack richards, et al. (1985, p. 252) states that second language acquisition is, “the process by which people develop proficiency in a second or foreign language.” rod ellis (1986, p. 4) explains that sla is “a complex process, involving many interrelated factors. it is the product of many factors pertaining to the learner on the one hand and the learning situation on the other.” in addition, victoria fromkin et. al (2002, p. 593) says that sla is “the acquisition of another language or language after first language acquisition that is under way or completed.” to conclude, second language acquisition (best known as sla) is subconscious study through which a person acquires l2 or additional languages. factors influencing second language acquisition there are many general factors that influence second language learning such as age, aptitude, intelligence, cognitive style, attitudes, motivation and personality (ellis, 1985). the aim of this session is to present these factors and their contribution to success or failure in second language acquisition. factors influencing second language acquisition 258 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 motivation motivation is one of the most important factors in second language acquisition. richards (1985, p. 185) believes motivation as a factor that determines a person’s desire to do something. it is obvious that learners who want to learn are likely to achieve more than those who do not. the role of attitudes and motivation in sla has been investigated by gardner and lambert (1972), who define motivation in terms of ‘ the learner's overall goal or orientation’, and attitude as ‘the persistence shown by the learner in striving for a goal’ (ellis 1985, p. 117; patsy lightbown at.al, 2000, p. 56). they distinguish two types of motivation: a) integrative motivation: a learner studies a language because he is interested in the people and culture of the target language or in order to communicate with people of another culture who speak it. b) instrumental motivation: a learner’s goals for learning the second language are functional and useful, for example they need the language to get a better job, to pass tests, to enable him to read foreign news paper, etc. it has been stated that learners can be influenced by both types of motivation. however, there are situations when one can be more effective than the other. integrative motivation plays a major role where l2 is learned as a 'foreign language', while an instrumental motivation is more important where l2 functions as a 'second language'. gardner (1979) links an integrative motivation to 'additive bilingualism' which means that learners add a second language to their skills with no harm to their mother tongue. instrumental motivation is more likely to be linked to 'subtractive bilingualism', where the learners tend to replace the mother tongue by the target language (ellis, 1985). motivation can be also distinguished into intrinsic and extrinsic. “intrinsically motivated activities are ones for which there is no apparent reward except the activity itself. intrinsically motivated behaviors are aimed at bringing about certain internally rewarding consequences, namely, feelings of competence and self-determination” (edward deci, 1975, as cited in brown, 1994, p. 155). extrinsically motivated behaviors expect a reward, for example money, a praise or positive feedback. maslow siti khasinah englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 259 (1970) and other researchers claim that intrinsic motivation leads to greater success in learning a foreign language, especially in a long run (brown 1994). attitude ellis (1985, p. 292) clarifies that attitude is sets of beliefs about factors as the target language culture, their own culture and, in case of classroom learning, of their teachers, and the learning task they are given. language attitudes are the attitude which speakers of different languages have toward other’s languages or to their own language. expression of positive or negative feelings toward a language may reflect impression of linguistic difficulty or simplicity, ease or difficulty of learning, degrees of important, social status, etc (richards, 1985, p. 155). gardner and lambert have investigated a number of different attitudes, which were classified by stern (1983, p. 376-7) into three types: 1) attitudes towards the community and people who speak l2, 2) attitudes towards learning and language concerned, 3) attitudes towards languages and language learning in general. certain personality characteristics and general interest in foreign languages of learners can influence them in a positive or negative way. it is also important how they feel about learning a particular language in a particular course and from a particular teacher. it is obvious that learners who have positive attitudes learn more, but also learners who learn well acquire positive attitudes. age age is one of the factors that influence second language learning. it is generally believed that children are better at language acquisition t than adults. however, only the studies conducted in naturalistic learning settings provide the evidence that supports this assumption. critical period hypothesis by lenneberg proposes that in child development there is a period during which language can be acquired more easily than that at any other time. according to him the critical period lasts until puberty and is due to biological development. he adds that language learning may be more difficult after puberty because the brain lacks the ability and adaptation (richards: factors influencing second language acquisition 260 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 1985, p. 68). other researchers have also proved that learners who start learning a foreign language as children achieve a more native-like accent than those who start as adolescents or adults (oyama, 1976; asher and garcia, 1969) and they are also better in the acquisition of grammar (patkowski, 1980, p. 1990). on the other hand, the research carried out in formal learning environments give the opposite results. in the case of classroom learning adults appear to be better both in syntax and morphology, while adolescents are the best (snow and hoefnagel-hohle, 1978; fathman, 1975) and they also progress faster. the studies concerning the age factor were summarized by ellis (1985, p. 107, patsy lightbown: 2000, p. 60) who states that the route of sla is not influenced by the starting age, but there is a relationship between the rate of learning and the age of the learners. adolescents learn faster than adults and children as far as grammar and vocabulary are concerned. although young learners do not learn as fast as older ones, they are prompt to gain a higher overall success because of a longer exposure to the language. he also provides some explanations of the research results. the studies do not support the critical period hypothesis, which states that children can acquire a language naturally and with no effort to some age. the starting age is important only as far as pronunciation is concerned, which is inline with selinger’s (1978) claim that there is a possibility of multiple critical periods. cognitive explanations draw attention to the differences between children and adults in the relation to their abilities to learn a language. older learners are able to apply linguistic rules when they use the language. for children language is a tool for expressing meaning and they can not respond to it as a form. the explanation can also lie in affective states of the learners. although adults learn faster, children are more motivated because they want to be accepted by peers. the aim of the studies investigating the age factor was to establish the optimal age of learning a foreign language. it has to be noticed that each age brings some advantages and disadvantages to the learning process and the decision when to start learning a foreign language depends on the situation of the individual learner. students are taught in all age groups and teachers’ task is to use appropriate methods to suit the demands of a given age group (patsy lightbown, 2000, pp. 64-7). in conclusion, siti khasinah englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 261 younger age is better at language acquisition, but adults are better at learning language rules and systems. intelligence ellis (1985, p. 293) says that intelligence is general ability to master academic skills. intelligence is defined and measured in terms of linguistic and logicalmathematical abilities. success in life and learning should correlate with high iq (intelligence quotient) tests scores. the studies on intelligence show a strong relationship between intelligence and acquisition of a foreign language but only as far as academic skills are concerned. learners with high iq achieve better results on language tests. it is proved that intelligence can predict the rate and success of sla in the formal language classroom (genesee, 1976). “the ability to perform well in standard intelligence tests correlates highly with school related second language learning, but is unrelated to the learning of a second language for informal and social functions” (spolsky, 1989, p. 103). it is assumed that some people are gifted and they learn foreign languages with ease. it was observed that learners acquire a language with different results despite the fact that they are at the same age and are equally motivated. gardner (1983) introduced a theory of multiple intelligences. he described eight types of intelligence: 1. linguistic (sensitivity to spoken and written language, the capacity to use the language to accomplish certain goals); 2. logical-mathematical (ability to detect patterns, reason deductively and think logically); 3. spatial (ability to recognize and use the patterns of wide space and more confined areas); 4. musical (capacity to recognize and create musical pitches and rhythmic patterns); 5. bodily-kinesthetic (ability to use mental abilities to coordinate bodily movements); factors influencing second language acquisition 262 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 6. interpersonal (capacity to understand intentions, motivations and desires of other people); 7. intrapersonal (ability to understand oneself, to develop a sense of selfidentity) 8. naturalistic (ability to understand the natural world). he states that every person possesses the eight intelligences, which evolve independently at different times and to different degrees. learners should be encouraged to develop all types of intelligences because they are closely bound and the growth of one area increases the capacity of the whole. teachers should use a variety of techniques and materials in order to enable students to learn using their strengths and achieve better results. he claims that people are intelligent in different ways and they also learn in different ways. aptitude aptitude refers to specific ability a learner has for learning a second language (ellis, 1986, p. 293). richards (1985, p. 154) explains that aptitude is natural ability to learn a language. further he adds that language aptitude is thought to be a combination of various abilities, such as the ability to identify sound pattern in a new language, the ability to recognize the different of grammatical functions of words in sentences, etc. students need aptitude some specific abilities, which are responsible for learning languages. the first tests that measured aptitude are carroll and sapon’s modern language aptitude test (1959) and pimsleur’s language aptitude battery (1966). carroll describes aptitude as a stable factor, which can not be trained; it is separate from motivation, achievement and intelligence. it is an ability that allows to learn a l2 faster and with less effort. he identified four factors in language aptitude: phonemic coding ability, grammatical sensitivity, inductive language learning ability and rote learning ability. later studies conducted by skehan (1986) were concentrated on the underlying complexity of language aptitude and its relation to first language acquisition and second language learning. he has shown two predictors of the language aptitude: siti khasinah englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 263 ‘a general language processing capability’ and an ‘ability to use language in a decontextualized way.’ skehan’s findings show that aptitude consists of abilities identified by earlier researchers and the ability to deal with context-free language, which is connected with learning academic skills and intelligence (ellis, 1994). it is still not known whether intelligence is a part of attitude or they are separate notions. cummins (1983) distinguished language abilities into two: cognitive/academic language proficiency (calp) and basic impersonal communication skills (bics). he suggested that calp might be related to general intelligence while bics to aptitude. 2 the studies, which were concerned with formal classroom learning and measured academic language proficiency, found aptitude as a predictor of second language achievement. the researchers agree that it is necessary to improve and develop new aptitude tests, which will measure not only cognitive abilities but also communicative competence. some researchers do not believe that something like general intelligence can influence learning a foreign language. all children acquire their first language successfully. to sum up, a person with high language aptitude can learn more quickly and easily than that of low language aptitude. learning styles learning style is also called cognitive style. it is the particular way in which a learner tries to learn something. in l2 or foreign language learning, different learner may prefer different solution to learning problems. some learners may want explanations for grammatical rules (audio learners), some may feel writing down words and sentences help them to remember (kinesthetic learners). and others may find they remember things better if they are associated with picture (visual learners) (richards: 1985, p. 45). ellis (1986, p. 299) mentions that learning style or strategy accounts for how learners accumulate new l2 rules and how they automate existing ones. keefe (1979, as cited in ellis 1994, p. 499) described learning styles as “the characteristic cognitive, affective, and physiological behaviors that serve relatively stable indicators of how learners perceive, interact with, and respond to the learning environment.” students’ learning styles can be influenced by many factors among which are their genetic background, their culture and previous learning experience. factors influencing second language acquisition 264 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 it is said that if teachers match their teaching methods to the students’ learning styles, the students will be more successful and more interested in the language. another classification is left-/right-brain dominance, which is strongly related to field dependence/independence. brown (1994) presents a table listing left and right brain characteristics by torrance (1980). left-brain dominated students are intellectual, prefer established, certain information and rely on language in thinking and remembering while right-brain dominated students are intuitive, process information in a holistic way, rely on drawing and manipulating to help them think and learn. reid (1987) identified four learning modalities: visual (seeing), auditory (listening), kinesthetic (moving) or tactile (touching). visual learners learn through seeing. they prefer to see a teacher during a lesson, learn by visuals: pictures, wall displays, diagrams, videos. they make notes during lectures and use lists to organize their thoughts. auditory learners learn through listening. they prefer verbal instructions, like dialogues, discussions and plays, solve problems by talking about them, use rhythm and sound as memory aids. kinesthetic learners learn through moving and doing. they learn best when they are active. it is difficult for them to sit still for long periods. tactile learners learn through touching. they use writing and drawing. they learn well in hands-on activities like projects and demonstrations. ellis (1985, p. 116) states that “the existing research does not conclusively show that it [cognitive style] is a major factor where success is concerned.” it was observed that learners produce different kind of errors, depending on their cognitive style. it is complicated to measure because learning styles are influenced by other learner factors. learning styles do not seem to predict the possible success in l2, but they show the most effective way to achieve the best results. if students are aware of their learning style, are highly motivated and have positive attitudes, they are likely to succeed in sla. personality personality has been described as a set of features that characterize an individual. it has been stated that this concept is difficult to define and measure because of its complicated nature. studies which investigate personality traits are based on siti khasinah englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 265 the belief that learners bring to the classroom not only their cognitive abilities but also affective states which influence the way they acquire a language. some of them have been found as benefits while the others as an obstacle in learning a second language. the most important personality factors are: introversion/extroversion, selfesteem, inhibition, risk-taking, anxiety and empathy (ellis, 1986, pp. 119-121; patsy lightbown, 2000, p. 54). self-esteem people need some degree of self-esteem, self-confidence in order to succeed in any activity. coopersmith (1967, as cited in brown 1994, p. 137) provided the following definition of self-esteem: “by self-esteem, we refer to the evaluation which the individual makes and customarily maintains with regard to himself; it expresses an attitude of approval or disapproval, and indicates the extent to which an individual believes himself to be capable, significant, successful and worthy.” people develop their sense of self-esteem as a result of the information they receive about themselves from others. wiliams and burden (1997) present social comparison theory that claims that classroom interactions have a great influence on how learners perceive their abilities. their sense of achievement is strongly affected by the information they get from the teacher and their peers in the classroom. teachers should realize that they influence not only students’ academic performance but also their emotional states. they should create such atmosphere in the classroom that will help to build students’ confidence and lead them to4 success. the results of the research suggest that self-esteem is an important variable in sla. many studies show a positive relationship between high self-esteem and academic achievement (brodkey & shore, 1976; gardner & lambert, 1972). inhibition and risk-taking the concept of inhibition is closely related to the notion of selfesteem. all people protect their ego by building sets of defenses. the higher self-esteem the lower walls of inhibition and greater success in learning a foreign language. it has been suggested that inhibition influences language learning in a negative way because it discourages the risk-taking, which is an essential element in this process. it is factors influencing second language acquisition 266 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 necessary to make mistakes if a person wants to learn a foreign language. this is mainly a problem of adults who are more self-conscious than children are. a child adopts a new language and accent more rapidly than an older person who is less open to the influences and changes. anxiety anxiety is another important aspect of personality that affects learning a foreign language. brown (1994, p. 141) describes anxiety as a state of mind connected with “feelings of uneasiness, frustration, self-doubt and worry.” macintyre and gardner (1991) distinguish anxiety into: trait anxiety, when some people have some general predisposition to be anxious and state anxiety, which can be experienced in a particular situation. they also identify three components of foreign language anxiety: communication apprehension, fear of negative social evaluation and test anxiety. although anxiety is regarded as a negative factor which must be avoided, the concept of facilitative anxiety, “a little nervous tension in the process”, is a positive factor. it must be remembered that “both too much and too little anxiety may hinder the process of successful second language learning” (brown, 1994, p. 143). there has been some research that investigated the reasons of the state anxiety in the classroom. bailey (1983) found that competitiveness among students, their relationship with a teacher and tests could increase anxiety. empathy and extroversion the other aspect of personality that has been studied is empathy – “the willingness and capacity to identify with others” (stern, 1993, p. 381). it is perceived as an important factor in learning a foreign language but only as far as communication skills are concerned as it involves the participation in other people’s feelings and ideas. some studies tried to link empathy with the acquisition of the native-like pronunciation (guiora, 1972; guiora et al., 1972) but it is considered as “an essential factor in the overall ability to acquire a second language rather than simply in the ability to acquire an authentic pronunciation” (schumann, 1975, p. 226). many researchers believe that personality has an important influence on success in language learning. ellis (1985, p. 119) claims that the effects of personsiti khasinah englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 267 ality on sla are difficult to investigate because these factors are not easy to define and measure as most of the tests used lack validity. most of personality traits are not table and may change depending of a situation. the same student may behave differently in a similar setting only because of some external reasons like mood or tiredness. personality is said to influence only the acquisition of speaking skills and it cannot predict the overall success in learning a language. it is true that talkativeness and responsiveness help a lot to improve the acquisition of communicative competence but it does not mean at all that a shy person who prefers studying alone has no chance to master a language. everything depends on how hard he works, how much time he spends studying a language and what motivates him to do it. it is important for a teacher to recognize students’ personality in order to supply them with suitable instructions and create the accurate atmosphere for learning. conclusion several factors described in this paper influence second language acquisition variedly. it has to be said that individual differences are important factors in sla. those factors: motivation, attitude, age, intelligence, aptitude, learning style, and personality influence the way learners encounter language learning and may hinder or support them in their efforts to master l2. moreover, these elements seem to be an essential part of the learning process, which can contribute to the success or failure of a second language learner. factors influencing second language acquisition 268 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 references brown, h.d. (1994). principles of language learning and teaching. englewood cliffs, n.j.: prentice hall dubin. f., olshtain. e. (1990). course design developing program and materials for language learning. cambridge: cambridge university press ellis, r. (1986). understanding second language acquisition. oxford: oxford university press fromkin, v., rodman, r., & hyams, n. (2002). an introduction to language. boston: wadsworth grabiec, s. (n.d.). learner factors influencing second language learning. retrieved from http://www.publikacje.edu.pl/pdf/7970.pdf harmer, j. (1991). the practice of english language teaching. london: longman lightbown, p., & spada, n. (2002). how language are learned. oxford: oxford university press o’malley. j.m, chamot. anna. (1996). learning strategies in second language acquisition. cambridge: cambridge university press omaggio, a. (1986). teaching language in context proficiency-oriented instruction. boston: heinle and heinle richards. j, platt. j, & weber. h. (1985). longman dictionary of applied linguistics. england: longman ur, p. (1996). a course in language teaching. cambridge: cambridge university press usman kasim. (2010). second language acquisition (course reading materials for sla class). banda aceh: syiah kuala university englisia may 2014 vol. 1 no.2, 281-296 cohesion and coherence in english  education students’ thesis  cut irna liyana universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh abstract this study is entitled cohesion and coherence in english education students’ thesis. the aim of this study is to describe the cohesion and coherence as wholeness aspect of discourse in english education students’ thesis. this study is a qualitative research. the data sources in this study are the thesis of three students that were obtained by purposive sampling. furthermore, analysis of the data was done by identifying and classifying the data that related to cohesion, based on the theory of halliday and hasan (1976), and related to coherence, based on the theory of oshima and hogue (1991). from analysis, it was found four things related to cohesion and coherence. first, the use of grammatical cohesion devices in thesis, which consists of reference, substitution, ellipsis, and conjunction; and the use of lexical cohesion devices, which consists of reiteration and collocation, was used in thesis. second, the violence of cohesion device was found in grammatical devices, such as reference and conjunctions. third, the use of coherence devices, which consists of key nouns repetition, use of pronouns, transition signal, and logical order of chronology was found in students’ thesis. fourth, the cause of the error coherence of thesis consists of keyword repetition errors, inconsistent pronouns, inappropriate transition signal, grammatical errors, and inappropriate punctuation. keywords: discourse analysis, cohesion, coherence, thesis. introduction ‘discourse’ is introduced by linguists in indonesia as a translation of the english term discourse. kridalaksana (2008: 259) defines discourse as 'the most complete set of language, the grammatical hierarchy is the highest or greatest grammatical unit'. this discourse is realized in the form of the whole essay (novels, cohesion and coherence in english education students’ thesis 282 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 books, encyclopedia series, and so on), paragraphs, sentences, or words that carry complete message. based on media delivery, discourse is divided into two types, namely oral discourse and written discourse. oral discourse is the kind of discourse that delivered orally or directly with verbal language whereas written discourse is the kind of discourse that presented in writing. in this study, the writer focused only on written discourse. one of written discourse which must be generated by all students is the thesis. similarly, english education that produces teachers who are competent in their field requires students to write a thesis as the final project. thesis consists of several sections or paragraphs that must have coherence and the meaning that linkage formation paragraphs in it can be structured. as a complete and whole discourse, the thesis should contain aspects of integrated and fused, which are cohesion and coherence. to create a discourse, it is required the ability to understand and use the right cohesion and coherence. if not, the information to be conveyed through the thesis would be obvious to the reader. however, not all of thesis produced by students containing a good cohesion. there are also sentences that are not cohesive in a student thesis. this is a serious concern, because the thesis is a scientific paper which requires the application of the rules of language and compliance aspects of the language as a condition of a good scientific writing and can be understood by the reader. based on that, there are two issues that will be the focus of this study. the two problems are the cohesion and coherence in student thesis, either its use or errors in its use. to answer these problems, data collection in the form of three students’ thesis were taken purposively; with the goal of finding are the use and misuse of cohesion and coherence. then, the identification and classification of data on cohesion based on the theory of halliday and hasan (1976) and data on coherence based on the theory of oshima and hogue (1991) and noted some errors that occur on the cohesion and coherence are found in the thesis. cut irna liyana englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 283 cohesion in english education students’ thesis the types of cohesive devices used in the students’ thesis halliday-hasan (1976, p. 9) distinguishes two types of cohesion; they are grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion. grammatical cohesion can be classified into several categories, including; reference, substitution, ellipsis, and conjunctions. meanwhile, lexical cohesion is classified into two categories, namely reiteration and collocation. in this study, it was found that all categories of cohesion markers are used by the author of the thesis. the following is an example of the use of tools such cohesion. reference reference that use to do the foregoing, called anaphora, or the next will be called, who called cataphora. reference is divided into three types, namely personal reference, demonstrative reference and comparative reference. the following are examples of personal reference, comparative reference and demonstrative reference. data 1 (1) in smk n i kasihan bantul, there are three english teachers. (2) they teach english according to their skill that was handled because every teacher handled different skill. (s1/c4/07/1-2) these data demonstrate with reference to the third person plural pronoun that serves as the subject of the sentence (2) to the data. on the data above, there is a sentence (1) before pronouns ‘they’ is used. this pronoun ‘they’ refer to the plural. in this case, it can be seen that ‘they’ refer to 'english language teachers' in the previous sentence, then the appointment made is called anaphora references. data 2 the teacher can use english in teaching and this way can motivate the students to learn english (s1/c1/15/02) on the data above, demonstrative pronouns used is ‘this’, which serves as a modifier to the head 'way'. this refers to the data that way at the beginning of a sentence to explain the use of english in teaching (use english in teaching). data 3 like another language, english is also as a means of communication. cohesion and coherence in english education students’ thesis 284 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 comparative reference to the data 3 is another. another said 'the other' in the sentence, showing the difference and this word is an exophora (which refers outside the text). so, the word 'another' then interpreted as anything else other than what is mentioned. in this case, it means the language other than english. substitution substitution is replacement tool to build the cohesion with a word or sentence that is used in the text that refers to the same thing. in english, halliday-hasan (1976:88) state this replacement involves replacing the word class noun (nominal substitution), the replacement of the word class of verbs (verbal substitution), as well as the replacement of clause (a substitution clause). however, in this study only found the use of other forms of reimbursement on the word class noun or nominal substitution. the following will be presented the data found in a student thesis. data 4 a teacher should know that teaching english involves several things, for example, the objectives of teaching, the materials, the methods of teaching, and the most important one, the condition of the students. (s3/c1/08/01) on data 4, ‘one’ which is word substitute for a single numbered object serves as a substitute for the things that have been mentioned earlier at the beginning of that sentence is 'the most important one' in the sentence is the most important thing or the most important thing. ellipsis ellipsis is the omission of a word or part of a sentence. ellipsis consists of nominal ellipsis, verbal, and clauses. this study found the three types of ellipsis, which will be described below in sequence. data 5 a more specialized definition might read as follows : learning is relatively permanent change in a behavior tendency and is the result of reinforced practice. (s1/c2/03/02) cut irna liyana englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 285 on data 5, there is a sentence ‘a more specialized definition might read as follows: learning is relatively permanent change in a behavioral tendency’ at the beginning of the sentence. then, the addition of explanations 'learning' which is characterized by the presence of ‘and’ and proceed with the next clause 'is the result of reinforced practice'. the word 'learning' that should be the subject of the second clause has omitted. ellipsis is formed ties of cohesion in the sentence. although an element of the noun ‘learning’ is omitted, readers know that the purpose of the subsequent explanation is an explanation of the word 'learning'. data 6 in the teaching and learning process, a medium of instructions is needed for students to understand the information or materials given by the teachers. on these data, there is a grammatical cohesion devices are characterized by the occurrence of ellipsis. this can be proven with the data that has occurred the omitted of element in the sentence. after the use of the word 'or', it should be followed by a verb (to understand) that has been mentioned previously, but the verb is omitted. actually, the full word of data above is 'in the teaching and learning process, a medium of instructions is needed for students to understand the information or (to understand) materials given by the teachers'. because the element that has omitted in the data is the verb form, this type is called an ellipsis verbal. data 7 in the educational context, english is used as the tools of communication to access the information and on the daily context, as the tools of making the interpersonal relationship, changing the information each other and take the benefit from the esthetics of english language and culture. (s1/c1/02/03) the data that consists of a single sentence at the beginning of sentences explain the use of english in the context of education and further explain the use of english in everyday contexts. in explanation of the use of english in everyday contexts, there is the omitted clause. this can be seen in sentences ‘on the daily context, as the tools of making the interpersonal relationship ... '. between 'on the daily context' and 'as the tools ...', there are omitted clause that mentioned in the beginning of the sentence ('in the educational context, english is used as the tools of communicacohesion and coherence in english education students’ thesis 286 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 tion to access the information ...'), the clause is ' english is used '. although the clause is omitted, the reader still understands the missing piece. conjunction in this study, there are four types of conjunctions based on halliday and hasan (1976: 241), which are additive, temporal, adversative, and clauses. this follows from the data presented in succession. data 8 the teacher give information (materials) to students and they receive the information as knowledge. (s1/c1/11/02) conjunctions and on the data 8 is the simplest additive conjunctions, which serves to add an idea. conjunctions and the data serves to connect the two clauses are coordinated in a single sentence that is the clause "the teacher give information (materials) to students' with clause 'they receive the information as knowledge'. the second clause is grammatically two coordinate clauses are not tied to each other. data 9 as usual, the teachers opened the class by greeting the students first then checking the students’ attendance. then, the teachers were reviewing the last meeting’s materials and correcting the students’ task or homework before conveying the materials to students. (s1/c4/08/03) the use of the word 'then' as a form of temporal conjunctions is the simplest temporal conjunctions. time relationship is shown by the use of conjunctions in the data 9 is one event occurred after another event. data 10 if the teachers used english continuosly sometimes the students complained so the teachers combined english and indonesian, but they always tried to speak english in teaching and learning process. (s1/c4/09/03) the use of the conjunction 'but' in the data 10, showed significance in the form of a simple opposition between the coordinative first clause "if the teachers used english continuosly sometimes the students complained so the combined english and indonesian teachers" and the next clause, "they always tried to speak english in teaching and learning process ". cut irna liyana englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 287 data 11 this study is very important to be discussed because it gives a lot of information about english as a medium of instruction in teaching learning process especially for english teachers. (s1/c1/10/01) the cohesive relationships in the data 11 can be achieved with the use of conjunctions 'because' that connects the first clause 'this study is very important to be discussed' with the second clause 'it gives a lot of information about english as a medium of instruction in teaching learning process especially for english teachers'. if it is associated with the data, the thesis writer uses the conjunction clause 'because' is to add annotations to indicate that 'this is the reason why this research is important to be discussed' in the second clause. lexical cohesive devices the next cohesion devices stated by halliday-hasan (1976-274) is lexical cohesion that consists of two types, namely reiteration and collocation. reiteration is the repetition of words in the repetition, synonyms and super ordinate. while collocation is the use of a set of words that have meaning within the same affinity. the following will be presented one by one. data 12 the teachers need a medium of instruction to convey the materials to the students. by using medium of instruction, the students are able to understand the materials conveyed by the teacher easily. (s1/c1/11/4-5) on data 12, there is a marker in the form of lexical cohesion, reiteration. lexical cohesion markers were found, characterized by the repetition of the word "medium of instruction" in the second sentence, which refers to the "medium of instruction" that has been previously mentioned in the first sentence. repetition of this type is a nominal repetition (the repetition that occurs on nouns). by halliday and hasan (1976:278), this repetition is one of the authors do attempt to make sentences in cohesive discourse. as the author of the thesis on the data shown above, he tried to link the first sentence and the second sentence by repeating one element in the sentence, which in this case is the word "medium of instruction". therefore, it appears that the author of the thesis can connect ideas cohesively of topic sentence cohesion and coherence in english education students’ thesis 288 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 (medium of instruction) in the first sentence to the next sentence without exiting the main topic being discussed. data 13 the teacher should know the condition of the students. if she does not have this ability hence the learning process will not be fluent to pursue the target or goals of learning english language for indonesian student especially for blind students. this is the reason why a teacher has to master braille, so that forwarding of material or lesson can be executed easily and fluently. (s3/c1/10/5-7) on these data, collocation occur the form of the word "blind" which has a close relationship with braille. they are not the same two words but have a close relationship between the two. braille is a letter that is used by the blind to learn to read. the authors used collocation on the data in thesis above to build cohesive sentence. the violence of cohesion in the students’ thesis in this study only found an error in the form of grammatical cohesion devices, references and conjunctions. errors in cohesion instrument substitution and ellipsis is not found, nor with errors on lexical cohesion devices. here is presented through the data. data 14 the study will improve teacher’s knowledge about the english usage as a medium of instruction in the class and to give motivation to them to use english frequently (s1/c1/19/02) on the above data, there is a reference error for the existentialist personabased third person plural as the object, namely pronoun 'them'. on these data, the use of pronouns them as pronouns are used to refer to 'teacher' is not appropriate. this is because the pronoun ‘them’, as described earlier, should refer to the third person plural which serves as the object, while the teacher refers to a single object. for that, a pronoun them refers to the teacher here is not to build a cohesive relationship. to make these into a cohesive sentence, the pronoun them which is a reference anaphora persona that serves as a reference, to be replaced by his / her. next is a grammatical error in conjunctions, which will be shown as the following: cut irna liyana englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 289 data 15 the researcher tries to interact with the subject of the research scientifically in order to complete the data. besides that, the researcher tries to do the research objectively. (s1/c3/05/2-3) on these data, there is an error that indicated the use of additive conjunction with the use of the word besides that in the second sentence. the use of beside that in the second sentence is suspected as a conjunction to connect between the second sentence and the first sentence with the’ addition’ meaning. the use of the word besides that is not appropriate because it is considered to have an excessive sense. besides, as conjunctions, means 'in addition'. if it is followed by the word that, so it would be "in addition to (that) that". of course it will make the meaning of the sentence to be ambiguous, so it becomes not cohesive. the use of ‘beside that’ on the data above is influenced by indonesian interference. thus, it should be just ‘besides’. coherence in english education students’ thesis order writing coherent sentences in the text should have cohesiveness and unity, i.e., the transfer between one sentence to the next sentence or one paragraph to the next should be logical and smooth. if it is not achieved, the writing or discourse has no coherence. the types of coherence devices used in the students’ thesis repetition of keywords data 16 in order that english teaching and learning process can succeed, the teachers need the appropriate teaching method. the method which can be used is immersion; immersion is the language teaching method in which people are put in situations where they have to use the new language (longman, 2003: 811). this method can help the students to develop the communication skills through understanding, listening, speaking, reading, and writing. (s1/c1/08) on the above data, there is a repetition of the word method "method" as a keyword from the paragraph. repeating "method" four times, allegedly to emphasize cohesion and coherence in english education students’ thesis 290 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 that what is being discussed in the paragraph is the method. thus, by repeating the word 'method' to the current paragraph, has made it into a coherent paragraph. the used of pronoun data 17 the language teacher, at all events is able to regard as a part of his job to teach people what intentions they should have and wish to express, what message they should formulate. his job is to make it possible for them to express their intentions and their messages. he does not teach them what ought to say but how they are to say it. (s1/c1/03) in the fragment of paragraphs above, there is a consistent used of pronouns from the first sentence to the last, the possessive pronouns ‘his' and existentialist pronouns 'he' which refers to the same nouns ‘language teacher'. the use of pronouns is also right, because both pronouns his and he are the third person singular pronouns to proper language teacher who is the third person singular. thus, the consistency of the use of pronouns makes a coherent paragraph in the thesis. transition signal data 18 english is a foreign language in indonesia. it is studied in secondary school trough universities or colleges as a compulsory subject. considering of the role of english in our country, it is necessary for us to study and practice it intensively and regularly in order to be able to use it correctly. in addition, the role of english in the world, and particularly in indonesia, has recently become an attractive language. this is especially because foreign companies are increasingly established in the country. in newspaper advertisement, for example, we can see that those who can speak and write english beyond their special expertise are very much needed by foreign companies. (s2/c1/1-2) on data 18, there is the use of marker with the transition from one paragraph to another paragraph. transition marker is used by the authors of thesis on these data is an additive conjunctions ‘in addition’ which serves to add another idea. in the first paragraph, the author of the thesis describes the role of english in indonesia in the field of education and the importance of learning english. furthermore, in the second paragraph, the author of the thesis also describes the role of english in cut irna liyana englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 291 indonesia in other areas, namely employment. this shows the addition of an idea by the author in the second paragraph. therefore, to make these two paragraphs is coherent, used a marker at the beginning of the transition in addition the second paragraph. logical order thesis as written discourse also has a sequence in its development. substance of english education student thesis developed into 5 (five) chapters, which consists of introduction, theoretical framework, research methods, research finding and discussion, and conclusion and suggestion. based on the logical sequence outlined oshima and hogue (1991:51), it appears that student thesis is developed by chronological order. starting from a background of the problem, then it can be formulated some point problem. this problem is not widespread, the use limitations problem. then, step specification is also confirmed by the formulation of objectives and benefits of the research. once the problem is formulated specifically, the main focus of the research is to get an answer or a solution to these problems. therefore, it is used as a basis, in the form of a review theories outlined in chapter 2 and means, in the form of research-methods outlined in chapter 3 -. with the basic theory and by using research methods that have been described, it was found that some of the results of the study in accordance with the formulation of the problem to be discussed in chapter 4. thus, a study has been completed so that it can be taken a conclusion and put forward suggestions for further research. the violence of coherence in the students’ thesis the inappropriate use of repetition of key word and pronoun data 19 teacher is an important element in the teaching process in the classroom. every teacher has different characteristics. because of that every teachers also has different strategies to teach their students. a teacher must find out the condition of the classroom especially the students before using strategies. of course it is different when the teacher teaches the students owning normal condition with the students owning limitation in eyesight. it is impossible for the teacher to apply the way of cohesion and coherence in english education students’ thesis 292 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 learning english by reading in blackboard while the students are blind. on the data 19, there is repetition of key words 'teacher' who appears in every sentence in the paragraph. however, in the second sentence, found inconsistencies in the use of pronouns which also became a key word in the paragraph. in other words, in addition to the second sentence, the word 'teacher' is used in the singular. whereas in the second sentence, the word teacher turned into the plural "teachers" and there is also a plural possessive pronoun 'their'. it is not appropriate and make ambiguous, so that makes it become an incoherent paragraph. as stated by oshima and hogue (1991:42), which is the one that makes the writing becomes incoherent, is the inconsistent use of pronouns. misuse of transition signals data 20 in this chapter, the researcher presents some subchapter, which will be discussed briefly and as clearly as possible. firstly, the data description discusses of the students who are involved in student organization and the students who are not involved in student organization. secondly, the hypothesis testing. and the last section is the research finding and discussion.(s2/c4/01) the data shows that there was an error in the use of transitional markers, thus causing a fragment of a paragraph contained in a student thesis became incoherent. marker of the transition in question is firstly, secondly and the last section. to construct a coherent paragraph, the use of transitional words must be consistent. if the word is used firstly, then be followed by subsequent secondly, thirdly and so on. in addition, the data also used conjunctions 'and' to connect between sentences. meanwhile, 'and' is not a conjunction to connect between sentences, but between the clauses, and of course, the use of ‘and’ in the beginning of the sentence is not justified in a scientific report like thesis. therefore, to build coherence on these data, the use of a transition marker became: in this chapter, the researcher presents some sub-chapters, which will be discussed briefly and as clearly as possible. the first is data description discusses of the students who are involved in student organization and the students who are not involved in student organization. the second is cut irna liyana englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 293 the hypothesis testing. then, the third is the research finding and discussion. grammatical error data 21 etzioni says (1964, 69): gives a very general definition of organizations as, “social units (or human grouping) deliberately and reconstructed to seek special goals”. (s2/c2/46) data 21 is related to grammar errors, which in an english sentence, should not be allowed to put the verb directly after the first verb. as shown by these data, the verb ‘give’ comes after the verb ‘says’. in terms of meaning, it also makes the sentence to be ambiguous and disconnected ideas. therefore, it is necessary removal of first verb. thus, the data 21 should be: etzioni (1964:69) gives a very general definition of organizations as, “social units (or human grouping) deliberately and reconstructed to seek special goals”. inappropriate use of punctuation data 22 in this research, the researcher uses descriptive analysis which functions to arrange the categorization of the students’ scores into five category. namely very good, good, fair, poor, and very poor. data 22 shows that the first sentence ends with a period (.). however, the next continued by namely very good, good, fair, poor, and very poor. although it looks long, namely very good, good, fair, poor, and very poor is not a sentence. a sentence should be containing at least a subject and a predicate, while such data is not contained the predicate. thus, the data was revised to one good sentence. therefore, use a period (.) is replaced with a comma punctuation mark (,). the following revised figure 21: in this research, the researcher uses descriptive analysis which functions to arrange the categorization of the students’ scores into five categories, namely; very good, good, fair, poor, and very poor. cohesion and coherence in english education students’ thesis 294 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 conclusion this study describes the use of markers of cohesion and coherence as well as errors in their usage in english education students’ thesis. the results of the analysis of cohesion and coherence in this study, we can conclude some of the following. first, the thesis student who made the object of research, there is the use of tools / cohesion devices to construct linkage meaning in discourse. bond of cohesion is realized with the use of grammatical cohesion devices that include a reference, substitution, ellipsis, and conjunctions, as well as a tool in the form of lexical cohesion, collocation and reiteration. cohesion is an important tool used for thesis to connect or associate the meaning of the sentence with other sentences in the essay and to establish linkages in the written discourse. second, in the thesis students also found the use of error / cohesion marker making becomes less cohesive thesis on certain parts. errors in the use such cohesion includes grammatical errors on the form of reference and conjunctions. thus, we can conclude grammatical understanding related student still needs to be improved further. furthermore, third, an analysis of coherence of discourse, showed that overall third english education students’ thesis can be said coherently based on the order of chronology. however, there are some parts that are less coherent. this is evidenced by the discovery of faults use of pronouns, repetition of key words, the use of transitional markers, and grammatical, punctuation. cut irna liyana englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 295 references ahmed, abdel hamid. (2010). “students’ problems with cohesion and coherence in efl essay writing in egypt: different perspectives.” literacy information and computer education journal (licej), 1(4), 211-221. beaugrande, robert, de. & wolfgang, d. (1981). introduction to text linguistics. new york: longman. brown, g. & yule g.. (1996). analisis wacana (transl. soetikno, i.). jakarta: gramedia pustaka utama. crystal, d. (2008). a dictionary of linguistics and phonetics. oxford: blackwell publishing. cutting, joan. (2008). pragmatics and discourse. new york: routledge. halliday, m.a.k, & hasan, r. (1976). cohesion in english. london: longman. halliday, m.a.k. (1994). bahasa, konteks, dan teks: aspek-aspek bahasa dalam pandangan semiotik sosial (transl. asruddin barori tou). yogyakarta: gadjah mada university press. kridalaksana, harimurti. (2008). kamus linguistik (4th edition). jakarta. gramedia pustaka utama. oshima, a., & ann h. (1991). writing academic english (3rd edition). new york: longman. poedjosoedarmo, soepomo. (1989). cara menyusun karya ilmiah. brunei darussalam: universiti brunei darussalam. englisia november 2014 vol. 2 no.1, 60-69 exploring interpersonal  interaction in written discourse  risdaneva state islamic university of ar-raniry banda aceh abstract the purpose of any discourses, either spoken or written ones, is to communicate the messages to the targeted audiences. written discourse appears to be the most cautious piece of work since it is a product of a well-organised and long-term writing process. to achieve the communicative purpose, an author should interpersonally interact with the targeted readers. the interpersonal interaction can be realised through the use of modalisation to express certainty and uncertainty as well as the use of attitudinal evaluation to evaluate things, events, people, situations and etc. in this case, the analysis of some extracts which are produced as guidelines for the teachers suggest that the written texts are quite convincing and evaluative as well as successful in persuading the readers. this is typical to this genre of discourse as its ultimate goal is to win over the interest of the reader in using the product. in other word, the author tries to make the text convincing and persuasive in order to win over the teachers’ interest in using the textbook in their classrooms. keywords: written discourse; interpersonal interaction introduction text is a means used by the writer, author, or speaker to convey messages beyond the sentence level. it can be either in written or spoken forms. in other words, text refers to a set of sentences or utterances which carries meaning. in that vein, hoey (2001, p. 11) defines text as a means for interaction between the writer and reader in which the writer holds the control, and ‘the whole interaction can be referred to a discourse’. risdaneva englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 61 i will deal mainly with written discourse as the text that i am going to analyse in this paper is the written one. the text is taken from a textbook for teachers of efl, and it is the first part of the chapter on the teaching of reading skills. furthermore, the focal points of the analysis are on interpersonal interaction which predominantly focuses on expressing certainty and uncertainty as well as evaluation. precisely, this study is going to analyse how the writer interacts interpersonally with the reader in order to put across his message. last but not least, it also focuses on finding out how successful the writer in persuading the reader by using his persuasive and evaluative language. in this paper, i will first consider the literature review to establish the key concepts in order to support my analysis process. i will then analyse the text as well as discuss what the analysis has shown about the text. finally, i will draw some conclusions encompassing the summary of aim of study, texts and analysis used, and main findings as well as implications. literature review interpersonal interaction one of the language functions is “to enable us to participate in communicative acts with other people, to take on roles and to express and understand feelings, attitude and judgements. this function is known as the interpersonal function.” (bloor & bloor, 1995, p. 9). dealing with written discourse, there are some ways that the author can use to interpersonally interact with the readers through the text. two of the ways are by expressing certainty and uncertainty and evaluating a thing, a person, a moment, or feeling. certainty and uncertainty the writers personally tend to view something certainly and uncertainly. mccarthy and carter (1994) point out that modality indicates the writers’ attitude toward information communicated in a text. in expressing their personal certainty, they use modality, particularly modalisation. this term covers both probability and usuality. it deals with the writers’ view about how something is likely to be true (probability) as well as how common it is to be true (usuality). the probability are exploring interpersonal interaction in written discourse 62 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 generally expressed by using the scales such as possible, probable, and certainly, while usuality is realized by using adverbs of frequency such as often, always, usually, and frequently (thompson, 2004). furthermore, modality also can be expressed by attributive clauses such as i’m certain, it tends to, and it’s likely, as well as mental process clauses such as i think and i doubt (lock, 1996). in line with modality, thompson (2004) proposes the idea of modal responsibility and modal commitment. modal responsibility refers to how sure the writers to be responsible in expressing their personal judgment, whether they want to acknowledge that the opinion is their subjective point of view or it is pointed objectively from a quality of the event itself. both subjective and objective modal responsibility can be expressed either implicitly or explicitly. the modals are implicit, when they are included in the same clause with their proposition. on the contrary, they are explicit when they are separated from their proposition. the following examples will make this discussion clearer: i’m sure she is coming tomorrow --------------- explicit subjective he might have prepared all of this for me----- implicit subjective it’s probably that they have read this story--- explicit objective they probably have read this story------------ implicit objective just as modal responsibility, modal commitment is also related to the personal view of the writers. commitment refers to the degree to which the writers commit themselves to the validity about what they are expressing. this has an important implication in an academic article. in this kind of discourse ‘a writer has to judge very carefully the extent to which he advances a claim as certain or still open to doubt’ (thompson, 2004, p. 69). the degree of commitment is classified into three levels; low, median, and high. the low degree can be indicated with may and might. should, ought to, likely, and probably indicate the median level, while the high degree is signalled with must, sure, certain, and certainly. attitudinal evaluation many discourse analysts have proposed their own term for attitudinal evaluation such as appraisal and stance. however, this assignment prefers the term attiturisdaneva englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 63 dinal evaluation to others since it is more familiar. attitudinal evaluation is another kind of interpersonal interaction. it implies that the writers interact with the readers by valuing things, events, people, situations and etc. in this part, the discussion will be focused on evaluation parameters, types of evaluation, and the importance of evaluation.  evaluation parameters the attitude on evaluating something can be expressed in several evaluation constraints. the most prevalent parameter is good-bad or positivenegative parameters. the writers usually value something as good or bad. the good thing sometimes can also be evaluated negatively and vice versa. this implies that evaluation is personal rather than objective. it depends on what values the writers intend to emphasize. another kind of parameter is expectedness. it is related to how obvious the writers state about something for the readers. for example, the word clearly can signal the obviousness or expectedness of what is followed. the last kind of constraint is importance. this can be signalled by adjectives and adverbs such as important and significantly (hunston & thompson, 2000).  types of evaluation there are three types or systems of appraisal; affect, judgement, and appreciation. affect deals with emotional reactions to behaviour and phenomena (fear, sorrow, joy, etc.). judgment is used for showing behavioural evaluation or ethical assessment on a person (brave, heroic, foolish, etc.). appreciation evaluates the aesthetical value of an event or phenomena (comfortable, modest, immodest, etc.) (martin, 1999). the use of these evaluation types can be seen in the following examples: i admire celine dion’s lyrics--------------------------affect our director is very wise in making decisions------judgment his paintings are marvellous and unique------------appreciation  the importance of evaluation evaluation, in martin’s point of view, is a significant feature in a discourse. it is not simply a personal matter of a writer in viewing something, but it is really an exploring interpersonal interaction in written discourse 64 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 interpersonal matter in which the underlying reason for putting forward an opinion is to draw out the addressee’s attention and responses. in line with this, hunston and thompson (2000) suggest three important functions of evaluation; to express the writers’ opinion on valuing something, to build up relations between the writers and readers, and to organise the discourse. overall, evaluation is concerned with informing the readers about what the writers think about something and persuading the readers by using manipulative and persuasive language. text analysis certainty and uncertainty i will now go on to analyse how the writer expresses certainty and uncertainty as well as attitudinal evaluation in this extract. to some extent, the writer seems quite certain with most of what he is saying due to his frequent use of high degree of modality such as must, would, will, and certainly. there are 14 examples of high modality which can be found in sentences (5), (8), (15), (16), (17), (22), (30), (32), (35), and (36). however, the writer seems rather uncertain about his view on something in some ways. he uses the low level of likelihood quite often, though it is not as frequent as the high ones. there are 7 examples of this category of modality found in the extract, such as may (20, 23, 24, 32, 34), and might (26). another interesting thing is that the writer only uses a few examples of the median level of certainty which are intended for hedging his opinion. the examples are such as tend to (15), more often (25), should (14), likely (7), and probably (16). attitudinal evaluation in terms of evaluation, there are many evaluative languages found in the extract particularly the ones related to aesthetical value. appreciation is the most widely used type of evaluation in the extract which is up to 25 examples found. some of its examples are as follows;  …why getting students to read english texts is an important part of the teacher’s job (3) risdaneva englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 65 in this sentence, the writer uses the importance parameter in assessing the teacher’s job.  anything we can do to make reading easier for them must be a good idea (5) here, the word easier is used to evaluate reading. this is concerned with importance parameter where the writer might think that to make reading easier is important.  reading is useful for other purposes too… (6) this sentence also shows the writer’s view on evaluating something based on importance constraint, though he does not use the word important but the word useful.  …,acquisition is likely to be even more successful (7) in this case, the writer does not only evaluate that acquisition is successful, but he also makes it more interesting by combining a median likelihood; likely, with a boosting device; even. it seems that the boosting makes his opinion more interesting.  the greatest controversy has centred on whether the texts should be ‘authentic’ or not (14) here are two appreciation examples. firstly, a superlative is used by the writer to evaluate the controversy. he evaluates controversy positively, where controversy is commonly considered bad. it is signalled by using the word great, where this word is usually used to value something good. yet, this does not seem completely personal, because in the other contexts great is also used with the words like mistake and disaster. the other example is the use of the word authentic to evaluate a text. this evaluation is expressed along with the good-bad parameter. an authentic text is valued as a good text, while the artificial one is bad. since the word authentic itself is a controversial notion in elt, this does not seem to be a straightforward good-bad evaluation. people might assess authentic either as a good or bad point.  there will be far too many words they have never seen before, the grammar will be (for them) convoluted and the style will finish them off (17) exploring interpersonal interaction in written discourse 66 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 in this example, convoluted evaluates grammar while finish them off’ relates to style, so it could be seen as evoked appreciation.  if they are science students, reading scientific texts may be a priority (24) in this example, the writer uses a noun instead of adjective for evaluation. the word priority appears to evaluate reading scientific texts. this kind of evaluation is again based on the importance parameter. reading scientific texts should be prioritized as it is important.  but if, as if more often the case, they are a mixed group with differing interest and careers, a more varied diet is appropriate (25) here is another adjective with evaluative meaning used for the evaluation. this is again an evaluation with the bad-good constraint. appropriate is considered good, while inappropriate is on the contrary. now i will continue my analysis to another type of appraisal; affect. there is only one example of affect identified in the extract. the following is its example:  that is because people have worried about more traditional language-teaching materials…(15)  this shows the emotional responses of people toward the traditional language-teaching materials. the last type of appraisal is judgment. judgment also has a few examples. here are its examples:  however, if you give low-level students a copy of the times or the guardian ..., they will probably not be able to understand them at all (16) the evaluative word here is understand. this word is not evaluative itself but is used to evaluate the students' behaviour toward the reading material.  there is some authentic written material which beginner students can understand to some degree (19) this is similar to the previous one where the students' behaviour toward authentic written material is also assessed by the word ‘understand’. risdaneva englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 67  just as with scanning, if they try to gather all the details at this stage, they will get bogged down and may not be able to get the general idea because they are concentrating too hard on specifics (32) it can be argued that get bogged down is not evaluative but just a description. this assumption might be derived due to the difficulty in drawing lines between evaluation and description which causes borderline cases. in this context, i would say that this is an evoked judgment toward the students’ action. afterward, here the writer judges the students' behaviour toward the specifics by using the words concentrating too hard. discussion this part discusses two main features concerning the result of the analysis which encompass the way the writer expresses certainty and uncertainty as well as evaluation to put across his message, and the extent to which the writer is successful in creating a clear and persuasive argument for the reader. in terms of certainty and uncertainty, the writer seems quite certain to some extent with what he states in the text which is signalled by the use of high probability scales such as must and certainly. it implies that he is quite confident with most of his points of view. his certain views seem convincing for the target reader. however, there are also some points which the writer seems not quite sure with. it is not because the points are not valid, but it is more related to the avoidance of making claims. in order to avoid any misjudgement, the writer prefers to express them in rather low certainty level such as may, likely, and probably. furthermore, the writer builds up the relationship with the readers by expressing evaluations. among the three types of appraisal, judgment, affect, and appreciation, the writer uses appreciation the most. it means that the writer focuses more on evaluating things, events or aesthetic rather than behaviour and emotional responses. it is reasonable since there are not many characters and emotional reactions involved which are common for narrative texts. overall, the writer seems fairly successful in persuading the target readers. this is indicated through the fairly convincing views he makes. it is also supported by exploring interpersonal interaction in written discourse 68 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 the evaluations he expresses. he tends to evaluate guidance and suggestions for teaching reading positively. this kind of interpersonal interaction constructed by the author throughout the extract seems persuasive enough to make the teachers, as the intended reader, interested in employing the textbook in their classrooms. in addition, the success of the author to interact interpersonally with the readers is resulted from the fact that a written discourse is produced after 'an extensive checking and editing' (georgakopoulou & goutsos, 1997, p 34). the author has unlimited amount of time to check and edit the text until it meets his expectation and communicative purpose. conclusion the results of the analysis and discussion have responded to the aims of study set in the introduction. the extract is considered convincing and evaluative as well as quite successful in persuading the readers. the use of high level certainty toward the important points stated in the text has resulted in a convincing effect for the readers. in line with this, by valuing the important points with positive evaluation also make the text more persuasive. these features characterise a written discourse, particularly a piece of text extracted from a textbook. this text, which is full of the guidelines for teachers as the target reader, seems quite assuring and evaluative with the points concerning the guidance and suggestions. in short, the views signalled with high level of certainty as well as positive evaluation make this text very successful in convincing the teachers as the target readers to use the textbook in their classrooms. risdaneva englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 69 references bloor, t. & m. bloor. 1995. the functional analysis of english: a hallidayan approach. london: arnold. georgakopoulou, a. & d. goutsos. 1997. discourse analysis: an introduction. edinburgh: edinburgh university press. harmer, j. 1998. how to teach english. london: longman, pp. 68-69. hoey, m.p. 2001. textual interaction: an introduction to written discourse analysis. london: routledge. hunston s & g. thompson. 2000. evaluation in text. oxford: oxford university press. lock, g. 1996. functional english grammar: an introduction for second language teachers. cambridge: cambridge university press. martin, j.r. 2000. beyond exchange: appraisal systems in english. in hunston, s & g. thompson (eds.) pp 142-175. mccarthy, m. & r. carter. 1994. language as discourse: perspectives for language teaching. london: longman. thompson, g. 2004. introducing functional grammar (2nd ed.) london: arnold. englisia november 2018 vol. 6, no. 1, 27-34 developing pragmatic competence of indonesian efl learners through teaching speech acts of oral and written complaints waliyadin nuridin university of canberra, australia waliyadin.nuridin@gmail.com manuscript received june 13, 2018, revised december 29, 2018, first published december 30, 2018, and available online january 12, 2019. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.22373/ej.v6i1.3167 abstract the lack of pragmatic competence could result in unexpected effects on the speakers; for example, the speakers are considered as rude and aggressive people. accordingly, developing pragmatic competence for efl learners should be a great concern. this article is aimed to fill in the needs of pragmatic teaching by providing examples of teaching practices that could be used to develop efl learners’ pragmatic competence. there are two tasks that have been designed by drawing on discourse processing framework proposed by celce-murcia and olshtain (2000) to achieve the production of both written and spoken discourses. the first task is on speaking, particularly on the speech act of oral complaints. the second task is on writing a letter of complaint. this article suggests that developing pragmatic awareness through the speech act of oral and written complaints is desirable. keywords: pragmatic competence; pragmatic awareness; speech acts; complaints; indonesian efl learners introduction a relatively recent research in indonesian efl learners’ complaining behaviors shows that status levels and social distance between interlocutors led different frequencies and strategies of impoliteness, such as bald-on record, negative and positive impoliteness (wijayanto, prasetyarini & hikmat, 2017). furthermore, developing pragmatic competence of indonesian efl learners through teaching speech acts of oral and written complaints 28 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 the researchers argue that the frequent use of impolite complaints was influenced by several factors, such as the low level of learners’ understanding about the speech acts, their perceptions on the social distance and status level of interlocutors, intensity of social situations in the oral discourse completion tasks (odcts), their pragmatic competence, and the nature of research instrument. in other words, socio-cultural knowledge plays an important role in influencing people to use language for communication appropriately. the above-mentioned idea is confirmed by the concept of discourse processing framework proposed by celce-murcia and olshtain (2000), asserting that speakers not only need linguistic knowledge, for example, grammar, syntax, and phonology but also knowledge of sociocultural rules, knowledge of presupposition and context, and discourse knowledge. celce-murcia and olshtain further add that the inability to fulfil the aforementioned knowledge could lead to wrong production of spoken discourse (celce-murcia & olshtain, 2000). in the same token, the production of written discourse is also influenced by the language knowledge, discourse knowledge of writing conventions, prior knowledge and writing experience (celce-murcia & olshtain, 2000). referring to celce-murcia and olshtain’s (2000) discourse processing framework, pragmatic competence results from such processes as the top-down processing of prior knowledge and experience; discourse knowledge; sociocultural knowledge; and assessment of context, purpose, and interaction. thus, pragmatic competence here plays important role in interpreting and producing discourse. by obtaining pragmatic competence, efl learners can communicate effectively and culturally in appropriate ways. conversely, the lack of pragmatic competence could result in unexpected effects on the speakers; for example, the speakers are considered as rude and aggressive people. accordingly, developing pragmatic competence for efl learners should be a great concern. firstly, research studies on pragmatic area show that indonesian teachers of english and learners lack pragmatic competence so that they need to be given many opportunities to develop their pragmatic competence (aridah, 2001). secondly, the acquisition of waliyadin nuridin englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 29 pragmatic competence takes much time. according to olsthain and blum-kulka (1985): “if there is no formal instruction of pragmatics, learners may take an extended period of time—typically over 10 years—to acquire native-like pragmatic ability, even in second language setting where learners are exposed to the target language on a daily basis” (as cited in ishihara & cohen, 2010, p. 201). finally, the empirical research conducted by wijayanto et al. (2017) suggest that without obtaining pragmatic instruction, the efl learners tend to adopt impolite complaints. therefore, efl instruction needs to incorporate pragmatic competence in its curriculum. it is because if learners fail to meet pragmatic competence may lead to unsuccessful communication. therefore, this article is aimed to fill the needs of pragmatic teaching by providing examples of teaching practices that could potentially develop learners' pragmatic competence. there are two tasks that have been designed by drawing on discourse processing framework proposed by celcemurcia and olshtain (2000) to achieve the production of both written and spoken discourses. the first task is on speaking, particularly on the speech act of oral complaints. the second task is on writing a letter of complaint. teaching contexts before explaining both tasks, the target audience of these tasks needs to be explained. the target audience of this lesson is indonesian senior high school students in year 12. based on the result of the english proficiency test, the level of students' english proficiency is heterogeneous; some of them are already at the intermediate level, but the others are at the beginner level. the age of the students ranges from 17-19 years, and the class consists of around 40 to 50 students. in english class, the students learn four macro skills, including reading, speaking, writing and listening. they also learn speech acts, such as complaining, requesting, apologizing, and so forth. based on the syllabus, the speech act of complaints is included in grade 12, therefore, this article focuses on spoken and written complaints. according to my experience in teaching english for senior high school students, they express the speech act of complaining directly to the point of the developing pragmatic competence of indonesian efl learners through teaching speech acts of oral and written complaints 30 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 complaints and there are no sets of strategy as exemplified by murphy and neu (1996) as cited in hilliard (2017, p. 3), including (1) initiation and explanation of purpose, (2) a complaint, (3) justification, and (4) a request. therefore, in these speaking tasks, these strategies are illuminated. task 1: speaking task this task is designed to achieve the purpose of producing a socially appropriate spoken discourse in the form of oral complaining in english. since there are several differences in the norms both in first language (l1) and second/foreign language (l2), this task is aimed to promote learners’ awareness about the differences by taking into accounts some components of discourse processing framework, such as the socio-cultural knowledge, discourse knowledge, assessment of context and intention. additionally, pragmalinguistics aspect is another consideration which includes the knowledge of vocabulary, phrasal chunks and the grammar of complaining. in this task, there are several activities which i adapted from hilliard (2017). the explanation of the speaking task is as follows. activity 1: discussion of the speech act of complaining. in this activity, students discussed questions for complaining. the questions are adapted from hillard (2017). the questions include (1) what is the complaints? what are some situations in which you might complain to someone? (2) what do people say to express a complaint your first language? how is it different from what people say to express complaint in english? (3) is it common to complain about bad service in your country? is it common to complain to a parent, a boss, or a teacher? why or why not? (4) would you complain differently to a friend, a server, and a teacher? why or why not? activity 2: developing pragma-linguistics through vocabulary in this activity, students will review and practice the grammar, vocabulary, and phrasal chunk of complaining. this activity is following the discourse processing framework from the bottom-up processing for student linguistic knowledge, particularly about complaints, is activated. students are introduced with the examples of grammar, vocabulary, and phrasal chunks of oral complaining. the table of useful language for the complaints speech act is attached in appendix 1. waliyadin nuridin englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 31 activity 3: role play and discussion in this task students have role-play based on a variety of context and social setting, including the situation that varies their social status and that of the interlocutor, for example, the same status, a higher status, and lower status. after having role play, the teacher may lead a discussion of the students’ word choice, complaint style, and reaction to their partner. the scenario of the role play can be seen in appendix 2. rationales of the speaking task the rationale for designing a speaking task by employing the framework of discourse processing is clear. firstly, to achieve appropriate discourse students need to be exposed to the sociocultural knowledge, the context and the intention of the speaker. when people communicate with people from different countries, there will be different sociocultural norms of the language. for example, in complaining, javanese learners of english frequently use rhetorical questions without incorporating hedges to mitigate them (pratiwi, 2013). japanese learners of english rarely employ softener to mitigate their complaints (rimer & iwa, 2002 as cited in wijayanto et al. 2017). by discussing questions in the activity 1, students become aware of the different way in expressing complaints in l1 and l2; thus, students can complain appropriately and misunderstanding could be prevented. activity 2 is designed to provide students with formulaic competence as it is one of the components of communicative competence developed by celce-murcia (2007). this component including the knowledge of microlevel language including the phrasal chunks of l2 that cannot be translated in l1. referring to discourse processing framework (celce-murcia & olshtain, 2000), language knowledge is needed because this knowledge leads to production of spoken discourse from the bottom-up activation as the companion of top-down processing. additionally, having pragmalinguistics competence could help students to express complaints politely. conversely, incapability of selecting appropriate pragmalinguistic forms cause many korean efl learners of english to produce aggressive complaints (murphy & neu, 1996 as cited in wijayanto et al., 2017, p. 2). furthermore, gaining the expertise of realisation strategies of speech act, a range of functions and developing pragmatic competence of indonesian efl learners through teaching speech acts of oral and written complaints 32 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 some target culture-specific is as one of the principles in developing pragmatic awareness (limberg, 2015). activity 3 in this speaking task is undertaken to make students be familiar with a variety of situation and context of complaining. by practicing many different scenarios of complaining students could reach the approximate native-speaker pragmatic competence although the ultimate purpose of developing pragmatic awareness is not native-like pragmatic competence. this activity is also aimed to train students to express complaints spontaneously. in other words, the fluency of expressing complaints is the targeted goal of this activity. task 2: writing a letter of complaints this writing task i adapted from my teaching practice in senior high school in indonesia. this task is aimed to raise students’ critical thinking and awareness about social problems in society. the outcome of this task is the ability to write a complaint letter for the newspaper or social media platforms like facebook or twitter. this writing task is based on the genre-text writing process, including several stages: building knowledge of the texts, modelling of the text, joint construction of the text, and independent construction of the text (setyowati & widiati, 2014). generally, genre-based writing is used to teach writing text such as narrative, descriptive, recount, exposition. however, it is also possible to be implemented in the functional text, such as a complaint letter. in this task, there are several activities that follow the stages of genre-based writing. in the first of building knowledge of the text, students discuss some social issues. since the topic of this lesson is writing a complaint letter, students are led to observe some disappointing experiences in receiving public services. for example, the problem of the uncertainty of the public transport schedule. another issue that can be discussed is the problem of establishing cement in kendeng mountain, central java-indonesia. the establishment of this factory could result in some environmental problems. by discussing this problem, students could write a complaint letter and submit to the newspaper to ask for the response from the government. waliyadin nuridin englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 33 in the stage of modelling of the text, students are exposed to a different variety of complaint letter, and they compare the complaining strategies, which are used in the text. they could also identify the social distance and the level of status of the addressee and these influences the different style of the complaint letter, whether there is a difference between oral and written complaint. in the stage of joint construction of the text, students and teacher work together to write a complaint letter. the teacher begins this stage with brainstorming, outlining, drafting, editing and revising. the participation of the students in this activity is encouraged. in the last stage, students are instructed to write a complaint letter based on the topics that have been discussed in the first stage and teacher promote students to submit the letter in the newspaper or the social media platforms belongs to the government. the writing task that i have developed reflects the written text production framework (celce-murcia & olshtain, 2000), where the interactive strategy of bottom-up and top-down occur. the genre-based writing also follows the written discourse framework. the stage of building knowledge of the text is in line with the top-down process of celce-murcia and olshtain’s (2000) discourse processing framework. the objective of employing building knowledge is salient. when students have been familiar with the knowledge of the field or the content, they will have the inspiration to write. however, only the knowledge of subject matter is not enough, if there is no model or genre of the writing. therefore, modelling of the text needs to be undertaken to understand the writing convention. furthermore, the process joint construction enables student and teachers to identify the intention of the writer and the target audience. therefore, when students write a complaint letter, they could use the appropriate language because writing complaint letter does not necessarily use rude language allowed. conclusion in conclusion, even though the focus of this article is on the developing of pragmatic awareness, the discourse competences could also be improved. this is because pragmatic awareness is part of the discourse competence. according to the model of communicative competence proposed by celce-murcia (2007), discourse developing pragmatic competence of indonesian efl learners through teaching speech acts of oral and written complaints 34 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 competence is the centre of the other competencies, including linguistic competence, interactional competence, sociocultural competence, and formulaic competence. regarding the tasks, several activities both in speaking and writing tasks reflect the principles of processing discourse framework which is adapted to language skills. the interaction of top-down and bottom-up process is also implemented in both tasks aimed to achieve production of spoken and written discourse. the employment of genre-based writing in task 2 also supports the discourse processing framework proposed by celce-murcia and olshtain (2000). references aridah, a. (2001). politeness phenomena as a source of pragmatic failure in english as a second language. teflin journal, 12(2), 149-166. celce-murcia, m., & olshtain, e. (2000). discourse and context in language teaching: a guide for language teachers. cambridge, england: cambridge university press. celce-murcia, m. (2007). rethinking the role of communicative competence in language teaching. in soler, e. a., & jordà, p. s. (eds.). intercultural language use and language learning (pp. 41-57). amsterdam: springer. hilliard, a. (2017). twelve activities for teaching the pragmatics of complaining to l2 learners. english teaching forum, 55(1), 2-13. ishihara, n., & cohen, a. d. (2010). teaching and learning pragmatics: where language and culture meet (1st ed.). harlow, england: pearson longman. limberg, h. (2015). principles for pragmatics teaching: apologies in the efl classroom. elt journal, 69(3), 275-285. pratiwi, e. h. (2013). politeness strategies used in complaint by indonesian efl learners in muhammadiyah university of surakarta (doctoral dissertation, universitas muhammadiyah surakarta). setyowati, l., & widiati, u. (2014). integrating environmental education into a genre-based efl writing class. english teaching forum, 52(4), 20-27. wijayanto, a., prasetyarini, a., & hikmat, m. h. (2017). impoliteness in efl: foreign language learners’ complaining behaviors across social distance and status levels. sage open, 7(3), 2158244017732816. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2023. vol. 10, no.2, 194-216 politeness strategies used by papuan students in virtual communication practices at university rahmawansyah sahib*1, zulihi zulihi1, abdi maloga1, zulfadli zulfadli1, lalu nasrulloh2, junaiddin junaiddin3 1iain fattahul muluk papua, indonesia 2iain sorong, sorong, indonesia 3stikes papua, sorong, indonesia manuscript received october 16, 2022, revised november 13, 2022, accepted december 29, 2022, and published online may 7, 2023. recommended apa citation sahib, r., zulihi, z., maloga, a., zulfadli, z., nasrulloh, l., & junaiddin, j. (2023). politeness strategies used by papuan students in virtual communication practices at university. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(2), 194-216. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.15289 abstract this study aims at investigating and revealing language politeness strategies, as well as the factors that influence politeness strategies used by papuan students during virtual in the context of virtual academic consultations as a practice of virtual communications to the lecturers. this study uses descriptive qualitative methods and purposive sampling to choose two lecturers and fifteen university students from the papua as participants. data was also gathered through online observation, offline interviews, and documentation. online observations were made by evaluating screenshots of google classroom comments and recording of written conversations on whatsapp and sms sent by ten papuan students. at the same time, offline interviews were carried out 10 students and 2 instructors. the data is then analysed using discourse analysis, which consists of multiple steps, including data recording, data transcription, data selection, and data interpretation. in line with the findings of this study, papuan students use four types of politeness strategies when consulting with lecturers via virtual communication. they are positive, negative, bald on record, and off the record politeness strategies. in online communication, the negative politeness strategy is the most prevalent among papuan students. the diversity of politeness strategies that are replicated, even if they appear unpleasant at times, is not an aspect of purposeful or disrespectful behaviour toward the *corresponding author: rahmawansyah sahib iain fattahul muluk papua jl. buper waena, waena, kec. heram, kota jayapura, papua 99351, indonesia email: rahmawansyah@iainfmpapua.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.15 rahmawansyah sahib, zulihi, abdi maloga, zulfadli, lalu nasrulloh, & junaiddin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 195 interlocutor. but let us get back to the level of language skills, which still require more attention and are impacted by a variety of internal factors such as personality and age, and external factors such as culture, facilities obtained. the findings indicate that even when language capabilities are restricted in virtual communication, papuan students receive enough education. this situation will improve the civility of language that students in papua use while conversing digitally. as a result, higher education institutions in papua should pay more attention to standard communication patterns when academic consulting with lecturers as speech partners in the context of higher education in papua in order to develop comprehensive and effective communication practices. keywords: virtual communication practices; papuan students; politeness strategy 1. introduction in the context of higher education in papua, the level of language proficiency of a student greatly affects the quality of politeness strategies that will be reproduced during the communication practice, especially in the practice of academic consultation in the form of online-based writing. because after all, politeness serves as one of the effective strategies for interacting in communication between humans (mahmud, 2018). therefore, it is necessary for students to have adequate language skills in establishing communication with their speech partners during the online learning process or the online academic consultation process outside the learning context. however, in contrast to conditions in the field, good language skills are still an agenda that has the potential to cause ineffectiveness and lack of conveying the meaning of the message to be conveyed to the interlocutor. according to gaol, supriadi, and khairil (2020), the use of the local language of students in papua is still quite dominant, causing a lack of ability for papuan students to speak indonesian well. in addition to the application of politeness strategies, which are influenced by the ability to manage grammar and punctuation, the application of politeness strategies also requires the sensitivity of students to understand the level of closeness of various speech partners during online communication practices. and the cultural conditions in the papua region certainly have an impact on the culture created in the higher education environment in papua. in addition, there are many factors influencing the language politeness strategies of papuan students that need to be explored. therefore, it is necessary to conduct a study related to the condition of papuan students in communicating virtually. especially in today's digital era, students can communicate through messaging applications such as whatsapp, and online learning platforms such as google classroom. this means that student communication is established without having to meet face-to-face with the lecturer. therefore, it is important to ensure that students have adequate language skills. thus, speech partners, namely lecturers and students, when establishing online or offline communication can receive effective communication practices and politeness strategies comprehensively. politeness strategies used by papuan students in virtual communication practices at university 196 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 so far, the study of politeness strategies has become a commonplace study, such as politeness strategies in an online context. where the existing study trends are divided into three categories. first, several studies have shown that the types of politeness strategies used during online communication (alam & muthmainnah, 2020; algiovan, 2022; hafid, serliana, gusnawaty, & said, 2022; citrawati, andyani, padmadewi, & suwastini, 2021; farida & yuliana, 2019; husna & arief, 2020; pasaribu, saragih, & gea, 2022; sembiring & sianturi, 2021). these studies focus on examining the types of politeness strategies used by students from various parts of western and central indonesia in communication practices to lecturers in the context of thesis consultation or the learning process through the whatsapp application and learning management system (lms). second, a study by sunra, nengsi, and halim (2022) highlights the reasons for using politeness strategies during online communication. this study examines the motivation of first semester efl students using politeness strategies in online classes in the central part of indonesia. third, a study that highlights the use of emoji and politeness strategies during online communication such as felisha (2022). the study focuses on examining the practice of emoji exchange between students and lecturers in whatsapp group that are run for academic purposes. and this study shows that emojis improve the function of politeness strategies. thus, in general, existing studies tend to examine the types of politeness strategies used by students in the western and central parts of indonesia. these studies, however, have not discussed politeness strategies and the factors that influence politeness strategies used by students in conducting virtual consultations with lecturers at universities in eastern indonesia, namely papua. to fill the gap in the study of politeness strategies used by papuan students in the context of communication in the form of online consultation practices, it is deemed necessary to conduct more in-depth study. this study seeks to understand how students in papua apply politeness strategies in communicating online through the help of an application. meanwhile, this article seeks to examine two objectives. first, the politeness strategy used by papuan students in online communication practices. second, the factors influencing politeness strategy of papuan students in online communication practices. the results of these objectives provide an explanation in the form of information about the ability of students in papua in producing language politeness strategies for lecturers and the factors that influence politeness strategies during communication practices in the form of online academic consultations. this article departs from two assumptions. first, students in papua in communicating online to lecturers use various politeness strategies. various language skills influence politeness strategies in reproduced language. moreover, students in papua are still strongly influenced by the habit of using the local language. second, the politeness strategy produced by students in papua will of course be influenced by various factors, both external and internal factors. thus, this study will produce new information related to online politeness strategies used by papuan students in higher education rahmawansyah sahib, zulihi, abdi maloga, zulfadli, lalu nasrulloh, & junaiddin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 197 institutions in papua and the factors that influence politeness strategies during communication practices in the form of online academic consultations. of course, this information becomes one of the inputs and references for higher education in papua in overseeing the practice of communication between students and lecturers based on online media. 2. literature review 2.1. politeness strategy politeness is the speaker's strength in establishing interaction and communication while taking care not to offend the interlocutor. it is necessary to have a politeness strategy in language in order for communication to be acceptable. according to brown and levinson (1987) politeness strategies are used to save the image (face) of the speech partner from the consequences of threatening actions (fta). politeness strategy refers to human ability in social interaction that is conditioned by a society's socio-cultural norms and expressed through communication (sunra et al., 2022). a politeness strategy is the use of courtesy or etiquette in practice to avoid offending others (kerbrat-orecchioni, 2011). furthermore, lakoff (1973) defines politeness as a communication attitude developed in society to avoid conflict. in line with politeness is a form of behaviour that has been developed in society with the purpose of reducing friction in personal social interaction(lakoff, 2004). according to sifianou (2019) politeness is an attitude of suppressing emotions and feelings in order to avoid conflict in social interactions. linguistically, politeness refers to speech expressed by the speaker to the listener at the appropriate place and time, resulting in an effective interaction between them (sunra et al., 2022). the public is advised to maintain communication carefully in using words during a conversation to avoid actions that may offend the image of others (fta). face threatening act (fta) is an abbreviation for the act of offending others (brown & levinson, 1987). protecting the image of the interlocutor is important in communication practice, even if the speaker does not do so consciously. furthermore, social and cultural norms supplement the use of politeness strategies in communication. as a result, the politeness strategy becomes an obligation for every human being who always communicates with fellow humans by prioritizing the security of the speech partner's image (face saving.) in communication practice, politeness strategies are classified into four types (brown & levinson, 1987). at the same time, these strategies have been applied and studied in a variety of contexts, including learning communication and consultation between students and lecturers. first, there is the off-the-record politeness strategy. this strategy enables speakers to conduct ftas in an indirect manner. as a result, the speaker's utterance can be interpreted in a variety of ways. because there are numerous interpretations of the speaker's utterance, it is up to the listener to decide how to interpret it. of course, in this strategy, the speech partner must indirectly comprehend the meaning of the speaker's words. second, implement a positive politeness strategy. this strategy is politeness strategies used by papuan students in virtual communication practices at university 198 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 intended to brighten the listener's face. according to brown and levinson (1987, p. 101) it can be expressed by “pleasing the listener's face to make them feel valued”. the speaker attempts to follow the listener's wishes in this strategy. as a result, the speaker becomes a co-worker with the speech partner. positive strategies involving jokes, identity, and attention were discovered in a study (hafid et al., 2022). college and high school students make use of jokes and identities. college students, on the other hand, use the paying attention strategy. third, there are negative politeness strategies. brown and levinson, (1987, p. 129) define this strategy as "repressive action" aimed at the listener's negative image”. the goal of this strategy is to limit interference with the listener's freedom of action. this strategy can be used indirectly by speakers by using hedges, conveying pessimism in speech to express doubt, reducing coercion, or showing respect to listeners (brown & levinson, 1987). when the speaker has social distance or feels awkward around the listener, he or she will usually employ this strategy. negative strategies discovered in a study amalia hafid et al. (2022) include apologies, thanks, and questions. fourth, the bald on record strategy. this strategy delivers information or messages to listeners directly or frontally (brown & levinson, 1987). furthermore, they elaborated that this strategy prevents misunderstanding and misinterpretation between the interlocutors because the speaker reaches his peak in an effective and direct manner. as a result, speech should be delivered now, in a clear, unambiguous, and concise manner. according to brown and levinson (1987) the direct imperative is a type of bald-on-record strategy. in a study amalia hafid et al.(2022) bald on record questions, orders, and requests during social media communication via whatsapp. the difference in politeness strategies is due to the power factor and the different social status (position) of lecturers and students (pasaribu et al., 2022). furthermore, the use of nonverbal communication in interactions, such as emoticons, is part of a politeness strategy to maintain positive interactions between students and lecturers during thesis consultation via whatsapp (pasaribu et al., 2022). aside from politeness strategies, brown and levinson (1987, pp. 74–77) “proposes a theory in which the use of politeness includes cultural sensitivity and the seriousness of an action, which is predicted by three social factors: social strength (p), social closeness between speakers and speech partners (d), and absolute ratings of the imposition of certain cultures (r)”. where social power (p) refers to the power or dominance difference between the speaker and the listener. people with high social status, are more likely to accept respectful behaviour such as linguistic deference and negative politeness (holmes, 1995). as a result, those with lower social status were more likely to respect and avoid offending those with higher social status. distance (d) is a measure of social contact between known speakers and listeners, as well as how they relate in context. this demonstrates that politeness increases with social distance. furthermore, “the level of imposition (r) denotes the degree to which something is considered a disruption to the listener's image” (brown & levinson, 1987, p. 77). rahmawansyah sahib, zulihi, abdi maloga, zulfadli, lalu nasrulloh, & junaiddin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 199 2.2. virtual communication practices communication is a fundamental human activity, and it is one of the most important aspects of human life as social beings who cannot exist apart from one another. communication requires the understanding of each individual in the process, and communication is not only expressing or conveying information that is not important or required by others, but communication also requires clear goals and the right choice of vocabulary so that the message content is conveyed as expected. by the sender of the message, in this case the communicator (chrisnatalia & rahadi, 2020). online communication is one of the most popular modes of communication. online communication is the result of technological advancements as well as the pandemic period that began in 2020. online communication evolves as a result of various online application-based communication media platforms, such as whatsapp and facebook. online communication is applicable not only in general, but also in society. this, however, has implications for the context of communication in the classroom. where lecturers and students interact online via synchronous and asynchronous online applications. synchronous communication is communication that takes place in real time and at the same time using a computer as a communication medium (emelia & muntazah, 2021). the cloudx application, zoom meeting, and google meet can all be used for synchronous online communication during the learning process. aside from synchronous online communication, there is also asynchronous online communication via the whatsapp app, email, and google classroom. suryadi, ginanjar, and priyatna (2018) state that the existence of whatsapp social media is one example of technological and communication advancement that must be embraced. communication saturation, limited interpersonal communication, limited space and time in learning activities, reduced student self-confidence, limited technology and information, the emergence of feelings of loneliness, limited media, online communication fatigue, and limited media literacy are some of the obstacles encountered when communicating in the context of learning (emelia & muntazah, 2021). 2.3.students in papua students in papua are one of the provinces of papua's occupations. according to syarifuddin et al. (2017), papua is a province in eastern indonesia with the characteristics of a multicultural and multi-ethnic society. papua is a true miniature portrait of indonesia, with its diverse tribes, races, cultures, languages, and religions. in papua, communities are generally divided into two groups: indigenous papuans, also known as indigenous peoples in ethnic relations, and immigrant communities, also known as ethnic immigrants. according to syarifuddin et al. (2017), the indigenous ethnic community is known as komin, and the immigrant community is known as amber. additionally, indigenous peoples (komin) are divided into coastal and mountain communities. meanwhile, migrants (amber) are papuans who come to wander or start a business and politeness strategies used by papuan students in virtual communication practices at university 200 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 career in papua after previously coming from areas outside the province of papua, such as java, sulawesi, kalimantan, and so on. furthermore, despite being indigenous papuans, they speak a variety of languages. the use of language intonation is the most noticeable difference. when speaking, coastal communities use low intonation and do not speak too quickly, whereas mountain people use fast intonation. immigrant communities use a variety of indonesian languages, including javanese dialect, indonesian bugis accent, indonesian toraja dialect, and many others (syarifuddin et al., 2017). in their study in bengkulu, gaol et al. (2020) discovered that the existence of the bengkulu language was admitted to slightly interfere with the adaptation process of papuan students in bengkulu. when communicating with non-papuan students who use the bengkulu language and dialect, the difference in language and dialect used by papuan students becomes an impediment. language is one of the many cultural factors that influence papuan student communication. the inability of papuan students to communicate effectively in indonesian, where the use of the local language still predominates, making their dialect difficult for newcomers to understand (gaol et al., 2020). meanwhile, one aspect of cultural acculturation that is easily visible and appears in a short period of time is social behaviour. this occurs because social behaviour in society is the result of social contact and communication. many immigrants also follow the way of life that the local community believes in. as a result, conflicts or problems between local communities and immigrants are uncommon. they coexist peacefully, as if they were family. this became one of the papuan people's characteristics, namely the strong kinship relationship and high tolerance between religions and tribes. this is in contrast to what happened in selangor, where family relations became strained as a result of the influence of globalization, which included social interaction (anakotta, alman, & solehun, 2019). 3. method 3.1. research design and participants this study employs a qualitative descriptive method to investigate the usage of politeness strategies in a virtual communication context. this method focuses on the politeness strategies used by papuan students in virtual written communication. the data for this study came from 10 papuan students and 2 lecturers selected through purposive sampling from universities in papua. the selection of participants from students is based on the use of politeness strategies in conducting virtual written communication via sms, whatsapp, google classroom. then 2 lecturers are lecturers as well as course supervisors of 10 students. so it is believed to provide complete and adequate information on the needs of this research. therefore, this study focuses on the context of written communication practices in the form of virtual academic consultations done by students to lecturers at higher education institutions in papua utilizing whatsapp, sms, and google classroom apps. this study also looks at the factors that influence students' politeness strategies in written communicating online. rahmawansyah sahib, zulihi, abdi maloga, zulfadli, lalu nasrulloh, & junaiddin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 201 3.2. data collection the data was gathered through online observation activities involving screenshots of students’ comments/responses to lecturers in google classroom, as well as textual communication between students and lecturers through whatsapp and sms. following that, the researcher selected some of the best screenshots from the outcomes of student contact to lecturers via whatsapp, sms, and google classroom. the researchers picked three virtual written communication tools because they are the most often utilized by students and lecturers in higher education in papua. in addition to online observations, data were acquired via direct interviews with numerous students and lecturers at one of papua's higher education institutions. this interview was held in an informal and comfortable setting. the goal of this method is to establish a welcoming atmosphere for researchers and informants. this method is also used to assess the consistency of an informant's replies with those of other informants. all data gathering operations are carried out while being documented with images and audio recordings. so that researcher may more easily evaluate the two research objectives defined in this study, namely papuan students' politeness strategies and the factors that influence politeness strategies in virtual communication practices. in this scenario, students consult with instructors using google classroom, whatsapp, and sms. 3.3. data analysis furthermore, the data obtained was in the form of screenshots of student comments/responses, and the results of the interviews were analyzed qualitatively using discourse analysis. the process of data analysis in this study consisted of several stages, namely initially the data was transcribed by listening to recordings of participant interviews and selecting screenshots of relevant student comments, then transcripts and screenshots of selected comments were classified based on the purpose of the study, then the data was interpreted and analyzed in the form of extracts. in the extracts, the relevant data are identified and discussed. the researcher uses discourse analysis to reveal the politeness strategies used by papuan students in online communication practices and the factors that influence the politeness strategies of papuan efl students in online communication practices. 4. findings the purpose of this study is to explore the politeness strategies employed by students in papua in virtual communication practices, as well as the factors that influence students' politeness strategies when conducting virtual academic consultations with their lecturers. the study results, which were derived from virtual observation data and offline interviews, as well as data in the form of documentation, were analysed to provide information about the study's purpose. the findings are presented in the form of selected data from portraits of virtual communication practices in the form of academic politeness strategies used by papuan students in virtual communication practices at university 202 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 consultations from students to lecturers, as well as data from interviews with informants from one of papua's higher education institutions. there are two types of information about papuan students' language politeness strategies in virtual communication practices. 4.1. the politeness strategy used by papuan students in virtual communication practices students discovered the use of various language politeness strategies while conducting virtual communication in the form of academic consulting activities to lecturers. positive politeness strategy, negative politeness strategy, off the record, and bald on record are the four types of politeness strategies used by papuan students. the use of politeness strategies is carried out through the use of several platforms that papuan students are familiar with when communicating virtually. as clearly illustrated in the table below: table 1 observational findings regarding the types of positive politeness strategy. extract students’ utterances from observational findings sources 1 assalamu’alaikum sir saya f d dari pbi 6. kirim fotonya di kirim ke wa atau gc sir? [assalamu'alaikum sir, i'm f d from pbi 6. was the photo sent via wa or gc, sir?] (march, 2021) whatsapp 2 yes sir, kalau boleh tahu pengalaman tentang apa ya sir? [yes sir, if i may know about what kind of experience, sir?] (october, 2020) google classroom papuan students practice communication through academic consultations with lecturers, demonstrating the use of politeness strategies. the data in table 1 demonstrate the implementation of positive politeness strategies. students use positive politeness strategies in consultation sessions conducted via whatsapp and google classroom. this is consistent with what the following student (ta) stated: i communicate or send messages to lecturers, sometimes i get criticism. sometimes we forget punctuation. but indeed we are also sometimes less careful in writing messages. so, sometimes there are words that are incompletely typed. so that makes the lecturer less responsive. but i personally always try to send messages in the most polite way possible. (extract 3) this condition demonstrates that the positive politeness strategy developed by students in papua is not solely dependent on the ability to select appropriate diction. on the other hand, students' accuracy in managing grammar in communication practice supports language politeness strategies. furthermore, papuan students were discovered to use more than one type of politeness strategy, as shown in the table below. table 2 observational findings regarding the types of negative politeness strategy. rahmawansyah sahib, zulihi, abdi maloga, zulfadli, lalu nasrulloh, & junaiddin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 203 extract students’ utterances from observational findings sources 4 assalamualaikum pak. maaf, bisa kumpulkan tugas besok saya lagi sakit pak. [assalamualaikum sir. sorry, can i submit my assignment tomorrow? i'm sick, sir] (february, 2022) sms 5 assalamualaikum sir, maaf mengganggu waktunya, hari ini saya bisa minta tanda tangan nya sir? [assalamualaikum sir, sorry to interrupt your time, today can i ask for your signature sir?] (february, 2021) whatsapp 6 bapak, maaf yang bagian tanda panah itu tidak kelihatan tulisannya. [sir, sorry that the arrow part does not show the writing] (october, 2020) google classroom papuan students' use of virtual communication when consulting with lecturers reveals that they do not rely solely on one politeness strategy. in papua, students in higher education use a negative politeness strategy when conducting virtual consultations. this is demonstrated by the data in table 2, which contains three messages derived from virtual communication practices such as sms, whatsapp, and google classroom. papuan students then developed the negative politeness strategy by conveying a message that said "assalamualaikum sir. sorry, can i submit my assignment tomorrow? i'm sick, sir". students' virtual communication to the lecturer as a speech partner exemplifies the negative politeness strategy by beginning the core message with "sorry". students frequently convey messages directly to the interlocutor while maintaining respect for the interlocutor. this negative politeness strategy is not limited to virtual communication via a single communication platform. the same thing, however, was done using two other applications, whatsapp and google classroom. as a result, the negative politeness strategy is the most commonly used strategy. the habits of students who use politeness strategies on the three communication platforms demonstrate this. the data in table 2 demonstrate not only students' ability to use negative politeness strategies such as "sorry". however, it was discovered that students who establish virtual communication do not understand the significance of attaching their identity. of course, the student's habits will influence the outcomes of using negative politeness strategies in consulting with the lecturer, who is the speech partner. this is in accordance with a lecturer's (zf) submission, which provided the following information: there are some things that are actually mistakes from students that are always repeated. and it seems that the students are not careful enough or sometimes they don't care. for example, the student most often forgets to write his name, course of study, and semester when sending messages to me. i don't know about other lecturers. what is clear to me personally this always happens. in fact, i sometimes think that students may feel that every lecturer keeps his contact number on the lecturer's cell phone. and you can imagine how many tens of students we face. it is impossible for the lecturer to be able to store that many student contact numbers. (extract 7) politeness strategies used by papuan students in virtual communication practices at university 204 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 the speakers and listeners are not face-to-face in online written communication. due to this, the speaker's information to the interlocutor may be incomplete. of course, courtesy toward the speech partner, in this case the lecturer will suffer as a result. papuan students' virtual communication skills include more than just positive and negative politeness strategies. according to the information in the following table, there are other politeness strategies. table 3 observational findings regarding the types of off the record. extract students’ utterances from observational findings sources 8 assalamualaikum. bapak, posisi lagi dimana yah? [assalamualaikum. sir, where are you?] (february, 2022) sms papuan students virtually always use off-the-record politeness strategies when consulting with lecturers. according to table 3, students use these politeness strategies by conveying messages in an indirect manner. extract 8 exemplifies this "assalamualaikum sir, where are you?". papuan students appear to use language whose meaning is indirectly conveyed to the speech partner in their virtual communication practice. like the message in extract 8, "where are you?" of course, the message's purpose was not only to inquire about the whereabouts of his interlocutor, namely the lecturer. students, on the other hand, have a need to meet about something. the information presented in table 3 above about more than just understands the different types of off-the-record politeness strategies employed by papuan students. however, it is understandable that virtual communication via sms produces a politeness strategy that is not present in the use of virtual communication via other platforms. in addition, papuan students prefer to communicate virtually without revealing their identities, in accordance with the previous description in the explanation of table 2. in addition to the three previous strategies, papuan students were found to use politeness strategies, specifically the bald on record politeness strategy. it is clearly shown in the table below. table 4 observational findings regarding the types of bald on record. extract students’ utterances from observational findings sources 9 ngk ad laptop pak. belum bli. [sir, there is no laptop. i haven't purchased anything yet] (october 2020) google classroom the application of bald on record politeness strategies is shown in the form of politeness strategies in table 4 above. students in papua then used this strategy via google classroom. students establish communication, as in extract 9, by consulting with the lecturer while saying, “sir, there is no laptop. i have not purchased anything yet”. i have not bought anything yet." students use the bald on record strategy to convey the message rahmawansyah sahib, zulihi, abdi maloga, zulfadli, lalu nasrulloh, & junaiddin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 205 directly/frontally without beginning with an opening word or respect. this provides information that students in papua sometimes use a bald on record strategy to establish virtual communication with their partner. at the same time, information on bald on record strategies used through the google classroom platform is provided. papuan students who use the bald on record strategy tend to communicate through virtual written communication with abbreviated vocabulary. this is demonstrated in extract 9 "ngk ad laptop pak. belumbli” in english version “sir, there is no laptop. i have not purchased anything yet". the use of the bald on record strategy, along with the abbreviation of the words "ngk ad/tidak ada" and "bli/beli" in english version “there is no” and “purchased” indicates that papuan students still need to raise their awareness and ability to converse in good indonesian virtually. this habit has a negative impact on the use of language politeness strategies in virtual communication with lecturers. thus, based on the above description, it is clear that there are several things to be learned from papuan students' politeness strategies toward their speech partners, namely lecturers. to begin, students use various politeness strategies when communicating virtually with lecturers. second, in addition to communicating politely, students discovered habits of students who did not pay attention to good grammar management in oral communication. third, in addition to the issue of poor grammar, it has been discovered that papuan students lack identity when establishing virtual communication with lecturers. some of these are new details about papuan students' use of language politeness strategies when communicating virtually. 4.2. the factors influencing politeness strategy of papuan students in communication practices the strategy of politeness in students' online communication practices is undoubtedly influenced by a variety of factors. the factors that have an impact are classified into two types: internal and external factors. the following table contains more detailed information. table 5 interview findings regarding the factors influencing politeness strategy by students in papua. extract factors lecturers’ utterances from interview findings 10 internal personality “students' politeness practices in language, both in class and through communication tools, are sometimes uncontrolled. i realize that it depends on the character of each individual student. because basically wherever and whoever teaches them or on any campus they study. it will still show the character that has been developed so far, whether it is the inability to maintain politeness in language or vice versa” (hn) 11 age “one of the things that affect the politeness of students in papua is age. like in the politeness strategies used by papuan students in virtual communication practices at university 206 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 undergraduate class that i teach there are some students who are much older than me as a lecturer. so sometimes the communication patterns created are influenced by age conditions. sometimes, as a lecturer, i feel like they are like my parents. so automatically the language politeness pattern of the student becomes not too important. due to their age, they should not be in the undergraduate class. it is undeniable that some students who are older have a pattern of politeness in speaking frontally to me as a lecturer. so i understand it because of the age factor and the culture in papua” (zf) 12 external culture “students in papua tend to respond to lecturers' explanations or advice with frontal comments. where once our students gave advice about the importance of good manners to lecturers. because it is proper for students as part of the need for knowledge to make them have to maintain politeness in language or attitude towards lecturers. however, at that time the students responded in unison that the lecturers and the campus also needed students. so i assume the student is ethically disrespectful. but the meaning conveyed is also true. so that makes me again have to understand the culture of students in papua” (zf) 13 facilities obtained “i used to advise students in class that we as children need to always reflect on and remember the faces of our parents who have contributed and their efforts in working hard to pay for your education and living as students. suddenly, at the same time, several students receiving educational facilities thought that "the cost of living and studying is covered by the scholarship, not from our parents". and moreover we live in campus dormitories. i am sometimes concerned about their politeness patterns in communicating. how to give comments that a student should be able to package comments to lecturers using language that is certainly pleasing to the ears and in the heart. however, it turns out that almost those who are facilitated with scholarships have a habit of being less active in attending lectures, let alone responding to lecturers in an impolite manner. in fact, i sometimes think that students who go to college using personal fees are much more appreciative of the difficulty of the struggle to study in the world of campus” (zf) rahmawansyah sahib, zulihi, abdi maloga, zulfadli, lalu nasrulloh, & junaiddin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 207 referring to the table 5 in papua, the strategy of politeness in language is influenced by each student's personality, which is also an internal factor in online communication practices. each student in papua has a unique personality with a wide range of colors. although students in papua are divided into two ethnic groups, those of indigenous ethnic groups (komin) and those of immigrant ethnic groups (amber). variations in each student's personality characteristics can be seen in the politeness of communication strategies that occur both online and offline/face to face in papua. students regard the existence of online communication practices as a safe zone for communication. in practice, the speaker and listener are not in the same location. as a result, students are not burdened by the consequences of the politeness strategies in their language. the student's personality undoubtedly influences his communication style. and that kind of communication style will have an effect on the language's politeness strategy. based on the informant (hn) stated in extract 10. "i realize that it depends on the character of each individual student, because, it does not really matter who teaches them or where they study. it will still show the characters that have so far been awakened. it could be the inability to maintain politeness in language or vice versa.” as a result, the importance of mentoring by lecturers or lecturers on the personalities of students in online communication has increased. because, as adult learners, students must always be supported in order to have positive consequences for the larger community, particularly in terms of politeness strategies in language online via various platforms. the various personality traits of language students have become an example of the strategy of politeness in language online. the age difference between students and lecturers influences the politeness strategy in the language of students in papua. in terms of politeness when speaking to lecturers, the age difference between university students in papua has become a source of concern. age disparities between students and lecturers at the undergraduate level are common in indonesian higher education. as is common in indonesia, lecturers are generally much older than students. of course, this has an impact on the politeness strategy of students' language toward their lecturers. it differs from some papuan perspectives on higher education. according to the (zf) informant’s disclosure in extract 11, "as in the undergraduate class that i teach, there are some students who are much older than me as a lecturer". this information demonstrates that students who are older than their lecturers will reproduce politeness in language in papua. as a result, internal factors such as age will serve as a trigger for politeness strategies that differ between students and lecturers. this is consistent with the information provided by students (sb): so in my class, i am the most senior student. it is understandable that s1 is slow to go on, because of the cost issue. that's why we're usually confused and sometimes funny too. there are many young lecturers in papua. even i am older in terms of age. that's why there was an experience at that time i thought he was not a lecturer. we thought a classmate who had just arrived and had been lazy to politeness strategies used by papuan students in virtual communication practices at university 208 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 enter. turns out he was a lecturer. however, students must still respect the lecturer. although sometimes there are lecturers who are quite familiar with me as a student. but we still try to be respectful and polite in establishing communication. (extract 14) however, the strategy of politeness in language is influenced by external factors such as culture or environment, as well as the facilities obtained by students. the dominant culture in the community where students live will have an impact on their lecturers' online politeness strategy. "students in papua tend to respond to lecturers' explanations or advice with frontal comments," explained the informant (zf) in extract 12. students' ability to respond to the lecturer's comments is the result of culture's influence on communication in their environment. according to informants, the state of student culture in papua regarding frontal comments will result in a type of bald on record politeness. listeners can respond to "frontal" comments in a variety of ways. however, it will have an impact on impoliteness towards listeners such as lecturers in the context of students as speakers in a higher education environment. furthermore, because islamic higher education is a minority community in the papua province region, it will result in the region having the fewest muslim students. as a result, the possibility of unpleasant language actions will become a part of communication practices at universities in papua. as information from student (sa): some of my friends are sometimes not polite to the lecturers. even though we are aware that we need the lecturers. should be able to maintain good manners. maybe because we are still few in numbers. and it creates a dilemma because we muslims in papua are limited. so maybe that's what makes some people do whatever they want. sometimes not attending classes at will. and suddenly later came directly asking for a value. well, quite a dilemma too. (extract 15) more than just students require knowledge. however, as stated by students in extract 12, "lecturers and the campus both require students". this condition will undoubtedly contribute to the diverse politeness strategies of students in papua. as a result, student culture becomes one factor to consider when practicing language politeness in the university setting in papua. the strategy of politeness in language online is influenced not only by culture, but also by the educational facilities obtained by students. many students in papua attend lectures thanks to scholarships from various sources. students receive dormitory accommodations in addition to scholarship assistance. especially students from outside the province of papua. the existence of scholarship and dormitory facilities is a trigger for the strategy of language politeness that students reproduce to lecturers or other fellow students in the practice of communication in class. according to (zf)'s experience in extract 13, "it turns out that almost all of those who are given scholarships have a habit of being less active in attending lectures, let alone responding to lecturers in an impolite manner". as a result of the implications of a rahmawansyah sahib, zulihi, abdi maloga, zulfadli, lalu nasrulloh, & junaiddin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 209 scholarship facility and a residence hall, the informant's experience becomes information about the strategy of politeness in language. aside from the strategy of politeness in language, there are many other impacts generated by the presence of these facilities, both positive and negative. thus, in order to have a positive impact on the strategy of politeness in the language that will be reproduced, student facilities must be constantly refreshed, which is more constructive. 5. discussion 5.1. the politeness strategy used by papuan students in virtual communication practices the goal of this section is to provide a descriptive objective of the politeness strategies utilized by papuan students in virtual communication. academic consultations between papuan students and their lecturers are one instance of virtual communication. where the politeness strategy of papuan students in virtual communication manifests itself in a variety of performances. this differs as a result of the finding of many off-therecord politeness strategies, positive politeness strategies, negative politeness strategies, and bald on-record politeness strategies (brown & levinson, 1987). aside from papuan students' use of politeness strategies, many areas of language skills were discovered that require attention and improvement. because the ability to communicate virtually necessitates the use of appropriate language aspects as well as politeness strategies. meanwhile, some aspects that are considered to be lacking are the ability to manage grammar and punctuation that is not maximized, papuan students learn as a narrative that does not pay attention to the age/status difference of their partners, as well as the method of presenting messages in virtual communication. as yule in tridinanti and sari (2022) says that "politeness refers to awareness and consideration of the dignity of others". thus, the use of strategies is strongly influenced by the level of language skills and the availability of the age and status of the speech partner. because both of them really determine the outcome of the virtual written communication made by papuan students to their partners. the application of politeness strategies has a significant influence on the virtual communication practice carried out by students towards lecturers. this is demonstrated by a variety of positive, negative, off-the-record, and blatantly on-record politeness strategies. the variations of politeness strategies reproduced by papuan students will trigger the continuity of communication strategies that exist between students and lecturers or fellow students. because it is a manifestation of numerous speech act abilities employed by children to maintain linguistic competence. in addition, the application of various language politeness strategies resulted in the response of the lecturer as a speech partner in virtual communication. of the four politeness strategies used, there is a negative politeness strategy that dominates the communication practice of students and lecturers virtually during academic consulting activities. this also shows that the communication skills of papuan students tend to initiate communication while still giving respect to the lecturer as a speech partner. because the negative politeness strategy is a strategy that is politeness strategies used by papuan students in virtual communication practices at university 210 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 oriented towards maintaining the self-esteem of the speech partner (brown & levinson, 1987). it is just that in the use of politeness strategies by papuan students, it is still found that there are limited competencies in the management of grammar, vocabulary, and punctuation. this condition, of course, has an impact on the results of using virtual communication politeness strategies, especially written communication. because inadequate language skills will make the students' language politeness strategies that are lacking will be maintained. moreover, it is supported by the lack of concern from the speech partners, in this case the lecturer. and it will be even more dangerous when the inability and error in managing grammar in communication continues and triggers the impression of impoliteness in online communication practices carried out by papuan students. because the concept of politeness is very important for other people in interpreting the reasons for choosing to say something in a certain way both orally and in writing (tridinanti & sari, 2022). the politeness strategy in language, which is duplicated in multiple meanings, comes as a result of a prerequisite that places students in papua as speakers who have not been able to appropriately control language abilities and cannot reduce the incidence of unpleasant behaviors (fta). because of their inability to correctly manage syntax, vocabulary, and punctuation, kids have been cast as victims rather than players in online communication practices. according to (gaol et al., 2020), the inability of papuan students to speak indonesian properly, where the use of the indigenous language is still prominent enough that their dialect when talking is difficult for foreigners to comprehend. in fact, many migrants adhere to the life principles held by the local society (anakotta et al., 2019). thus demonstrating a cause for the emergence of communication practices that result in the usage of various politeness methods and is supported by a number of flaws in the practice of managing deficient language abilities. as a result, it has an effect on communication outcomes, causing the speech partner, mainly the student, to sometimes misinterpret the speaker's intent. in recent years, several researchers have discussed the politeness strategies used by students in indonesia. both face-to-face and online politeness strategies (algiovan, 2022; amalia hafid et al., 2022; citrawati et al., 2021; farida & yuliana, 2019; felisha, 2022; husna & arief, 2020; pasaribu et al., 2022; retnaningsih et al., 2019; sembiring & sianturi, 2021; sunra et al., 2022). however, this study provides a new story regarding the use of politeness strategies used by students in papua. where papuan students in communicating online to lecturers via whatsapp, sms, or in the context of learning through google classroom tend to use negative politeness strategies. the negative politeness strategy became the most dominant politeness strategy created between students and lecturers. they believe that negative politeness strategies provide the potential to minimize unpleasant actions against lecturers as online speech partners. the results of this study further clarify what has been said in several other regions in indonesia such as west sumatra by husna and arief (2020). where this study was conducted at the indonesian language education study program, padang state university with the rahmawansyah sahib, zulihi, abdi maloga, zulfadli, lalu nasrulloh, & junaiddin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 211 findings of the most widely used strategy is the strategy of speaking using negative politeness between students and lecturers via whatsapp. in addition, the results of a study in the west java region by farida and yuliana (2019) found that students used the four politeness strategies with negative as the most frequently used strategy and bald on-record the least used. by using negative strategies as the dominant way to communicate with their lecturers, it was revealed that students tended to indirectly show respect to others. however, the results of the study (amalia hafid et al., 2022) showed that teenagers from the high school level in makassar only used negative politeness in asking questions in social media conversations, especially in whatsapp groups. the use of negative politeness strategies does not always happen like in papua. where the results of a study in the north sumatra region by (sembiring & sianturi, 2021) which aims to explore politeness strategies applied by students of the english department at the indonesian methodist university to their lecturers via whattsapp. it was found that positive politeness strategies were more dominantly applied by students. this strategy is considered to minimize threats when providing comments for each instruction made by the lecturer. similar to what happened in the study (pasaribu et al., 2022) it was found that the dominant lecturer used bald on-record (30.93%) with the most realizations of imperative sentences; on the other hand, students tend to use positive politeness strategies (23.20%) with the most greetings realization. the difference in the choice of politeness strategies is caused by the power factor and different social status (position) between lecturers and students. similarly, the results of studies in the lampung and bali regions by (algiovan, 2022; citrawati et al., 2021) positive politeness strategy is the most dominant strategy used in online communication via whatsapp. thus, this paper finds a process of reproducing polite language strategies to produce various student actions in each region, including papua, in order to minimize the occurrence of unpleasant actions for lecturers as speech partners during online communication. 5.2. factors influencing politeness strategy of papuan students in communication practices politeness strategies used by papuan students are certainly not reproduced in virtual communication practices. however, there are influences, both internal and external. this then becomes the second objective of this study, which is a critical objective of the factors that influence the politeness strategies of papuan students in virtual communication. where, it has been found that factors that influence the language politeness strategy of papuan students, namely, internal factors in the form of personality, and age differences, as well as external factors in the form of culture and facilities received by students from campus. every student in papua has a unique personality with a variety of colours that affect politeness strategies. in addition, the age of students in papua who are older than their lecturers also has an influence on the politeness strategies produced in virtual communication. in addition, the condition of student culture in papua which tends to be frontal will result in a type of bald on record politeness. however, the politeness strategies used by papuan students in virtual communication practices at university 212 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 culture of students in papua is very different from that of students outside papua. because, cultural identity can be understood from the communication style, cultural orientation, and self-meaning practiced by an ethnic group in social relations in society (syarifuddin et al., 2017).. and the existence of scholarship and dormitory facilities is a trigger for polite language patterns that are reproduced by students to lecturers or other fellow students in virtual communication practices. thus the politeness strategy used by papuan students comes with various types. this is inseparable from the influence of the factors that have been described previously. the second finding in this study is that there are factors that influence virtual communication practices. first, the politeness strategy in virtual communication practices is influenced by the personality factors of the papuan students themselves. where are the personalities of papuan students who tend to be unable to adjust the use of language according to the context of communication, such as arranging the right vocabulary for use in the context of written or oral communication. this is a habit that is often found by papuan students in online written communication. so that the habit of speaking using the language of oral communication is adopted into written language that is not in accordance with the rules of good grammar. this condition is one of the information from the results of this study. then the results of this study clarify what was stated by mulyati (2022) that the lack of students in writing lies in the lack of understanding in the use of grammar which includes the use of capital letters and punctuation marks. second, there is an age difference factor, which shows that the age condition of undergraduate students is much older than the age of the lecturer. so that the politeness strategy produced by papuan students is different from usual. it appears that the position of superpower that is on the lecturer shifts to students in terms of politeness practices in communicating virtually. third, the influencing factor is culture. where the culture of papuan students is very diverse in terms of the condition of the community which consists of various tribes and ethnicities (syarifuddin et al., 2017). as a pluralistic society, papuan students in communicating are of course influenced by the prevailing culture in papua. as is the case in a study (syarifuddin et al., 2017) which classifies the communication style of the papuan community in terms of ethnic relations consisting of indigenous ethnic groups (komin), and ethnic immigrants (amber). where papuan students who come from ethnic immigrants (amber) tend to use a high context communication style (indirect communication). this is different from the indigenous ethnic groups (komin) who tend to be frontal, straightforward, unpretentious/ambiguous or known as low-context communication style (direct communication). this is evidence that although it is found that the dominant politeness strategy is a negative politeness strategy, papuan students in communicating tend to be frontal or bald on record in the context of direct communication. it can be understood that the politeness strategies used by papuan students tend to vary due to the influence of varying communication styles. fourth, apart from the three factors that have been stated previously, there are other factors in the form of facilities received by papuan students, rahmawansyah sahib, zulihi, abdi maloga, zulfadli, lalu nasrulloh, & junaiddin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 213 whether in the form of scholarships or residential facilities in the form of dormitories, which also influence the politeness strategy used in virtual communication. the practice of virtual communication is also influenced by the facility factor because it is found that papuan students who are recipients of facilities tend to lack respect for their interlocutor, namely, lecturers. ideally scholarship recipients must provide tangible evidence as a result of the facilities received. at least be a role model for other students, especially in maintaining the politeness of communicating to lecturers and other students. some of them do not feel the weight of the struggle in obtaining education costs independently. they have been familiarized with the existing facilities. so pampering students with these facilities. thus giving birth to a character that is not good, especially in respecting others in communication practices. various previous studies have very well provided information on how politeness strategies are used by students in communicating with their interlocutors, who in the context of this research are lecturers. including factors that influence the use of politeness strategies to communicate virtually. where in the study one of the factors found to have a significant influence was culture. where the papuan people consist of various cultures such as indigenous ethnic culture and immigrant ethnic culture. as in this study, papuan students' language skills are influenced by various aspects that really need attention. as culture is one aspect that is very influential, especially the use of regional languages which still dominate. of course, this situation will result in assimilation and acculturation between the new and original cultures of immigrant students, such as an inadequate level of indonesian language proficiency (yarisetou, 2011, p. 17). the condition of inadequate language skills is a personality and cultural factor that does not support the communication process that produces a good language politeness strategy. however, culture is involved in the reproduction of language politeness strategies. because a local wisdom will have an impact on the habit of using language politeness strategies. as in the study alam and muthmainnah (2020) found that the realization and implications of local wisdom as main values such as ethics and politeness in language, self-image, courage, solidarity, and cooperation. language violations among students have resulted in poor language politeness strategies used for lecturers. likewise, bad politeness habits will lead to miscommunication between students and lecturers. students in papua are vulnerable to poor politeness strategy reproduction strategies because of deviant language competence and factors that influence language politeness strategies. 6. conclusion this study shows that students in papua in establishing virtual communication in the form of academic consulting practices to lecturers as speech partners were found to apply various politeness strategies. there are four types of politeness strategies that are reproduced virtually, namely, negative, positive, off the record, and bald on record strategies. during the application of politeness strategies, it was found that negative politeness strategies used by papuan students in virtual communication practices at university 214 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 politeness strategies dominated the virtual communication practice of papuan students. however, there are aspects of language proficiency that need attention, namely, awareness of the importance of using grammar, punctuation, and choosing the right diction. however, this aspect becomes an important point in the practice of virtual written communication. of course, the results of using politeness strategies in virtual communication with lecturers will be refined further. other findings also show that personality factors, age differences, culture, and facilities received by papuan students affect the politeness strategies used by papuan students in establishing virtual communication. with awareness of the influence of these factors, it can provide enlightenment to papuan students so that they can be more thorough in conducting virtual communication to lecturers as speech partners. therefore, it provides an understanding of papuan students in order to avoid the potential for unpleasant treatment of the image of their partner. apart from the limitations of this study, it does not specifically examine papuan students from the point of view of the ethnic relations between komin and amber. this study contributes to the perspective of using politeness strategies by students in papua in establishing virtual communication with their speech partners, namely lecturers. as well as providing information about the diversity of language competencies possessed by papuan students, which tend to sometimes seem unpleasant, is not an aspect of intentional or disrespectful behaviour towards the interlocutor. however, it is aware that various parties, especially higher education in papua, should focus more on developing 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(2011). papua tabi dan peradabannya menuju perubahan berkelanjutan. jayapura: arika publisher. englisia november 2018 vol. 6, no. 1, 35-42 teaching reading through knowwant-learned (kwl) strategy: the effects and benefits bustami usman universitas syiah kuala, banda aceh, indonesia bustami.usman@unsyiah.ac.id universitas syiah kuala, banda aceh, indonesia ika.apriani@unsyiah.ac.id universitas syiah kuala, banda aceh, indonesia ratih.pratiwi@unsyiah.ac.id manuscript received october 22, 2018, revised october 29, 2018, first published november 30, 2018, and available online january 12, 2019. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.22373/ej.v6i1.3607 abstract this study aimed to chart out the effects of teaching reading using know-wantlearned (kwl) strategy of blachowicz and ogle. this study employed quantitative method by having one pre-test and posttest research design, conducted at smpn 2 kejuruan muda, aceh tamiang district, with a total sample of 26 students. the test was analyzed by using t-test. the study revealed that there was an improvement from the pre-test to the posttest and that the teacher had implemented kwl strategy accordingly so that the students improved their reading comprehension skill. in addition, kwl is one of the basic strategies developed to know the extent of learners’ ability and the way they commit it on their own. thus, the strategy itself has an effect to trigger the students to be autonomous learners. however, it is suggested that the teachers modify some steps in the kwl procedures to eventually motivate the students in learning reading. keywords: reading; effects; benefits; kwl strategy ika apriani fata ratih pratiwi teaching reading through know-want-learned (kwl) strategy: the effects and benefits 36 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 introduction commonly, students’ difficulty in reading comprehension mostly lies on the students’ weakness to grasp information from a text. the students usually only read the text word by word without understanding the meaning. a skilled reader, however, not only focuses on each word of the text but also its meaning (zare & othman, 2013) since the main purpose of reading is to sharpen the understanding (youniss, 2013). many students are good in reading but when asked about the summary of the text, they fail to do so. in other words, comprehension refers to a readers’ capability to fully know what they have read. west and chew (2014) reaffirm that people who love reading become a good reader, which leads them to have more chance to success in the education field and others. conversely, people who dislike reading will fail to acquire a habit of literacy, causing a difficulty in sharpening the skills and chance to success in the education field. teachers carry on the important task to help learners develop ways to engage actively with both of the author and the text and to think about the content. kwl is one of the basic strategies developed to guide the learners’ reading ability and the way they commit it on their own. assessment of reading comprehension (klingner, vaughn, & boardman, 2007) is full of challenges due to the problem in determining how far a student actually know and think. there are two forms of reading assessment. the first is to investigate how well a student is reading while the second is to evaluate how much improvement the student has made (pang, muaka, bernhardt, & kamil, 2003). both forms of assessments are necessary in order to achieve effective reading instruction. the assessment for beginners is usually conducted by checking out the student’s reading aloud. in this way, the teacher assesses the student’s fluency and word recognition. beyond this level, assessment concerns on text comprehension. assessment occupies the crucial position n to analyze the students’ ability and also to evaluate their potential in learning. cohen, manion, and morrison (2007) mention that a test has several objectives including to diagnose the students’ strengths, weaknesses, and difficulties; to assess the students’ achievement; to assess the students’ aptitude and potential; and to analyze the students’ readiness for a bustami usman, ika apriani fata & ratih pratiwi englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 37 plan. in this present study, the test aimed to assess the students’ reading ability, which was administered in a multiple-choice format. there are many different techniques for developing reading comprehension. reading comprehension depends upon the readers’ ability to connect prior knowledge with the text. this concept is strengthened by klingner et al. (2007) that reading comprehension is a number of complicated process which causes the feedback interaction between readers and the text, which is between readers’ experiences and background knowledge towards thoughts or ideas which the author implied until reaching a boundary of understanding. as stated by blachowicz and ogle (2008), kwl is an activity in which the teacher leads active readers to engage with reading texts. the activity processes any information and knowledge that the students possess in order to help their friends in a group to establish a good learning condition and to communicate the results of their reading. in other words, this strategy stimulates the students to activate their prior knowledge when reading. they also become active readers who analyze texts in three steps, starting with k table (what they know), then w table (what they want to learn more), and end with l table (what they have learned). thus, to promote reading comprehensing, this study tried to implement know, want to know, learned (kwl) strategy to further the students’ reading ability. the question posed in the study was: “how does kwl strategy improve the students’ reading comprehension?” methodology this study employed the experimental research with one pre-test and post-test design (creswell, 2008), conducted at smpn (public junior high school) 2 kejuruan muda, aceh tamiang district. the population was the second year students of smpn 2 kejuruan muda consisting of 180 students from six classes. the sample was one second-year class of 26 students, taken by the random sampling technique. the alternative hyphotesis (ha) of the study was: “there is a significant difference between pre-test and post-test scores after applying kwl strategy in reading comprehension.” the hypothesis was tested by using t-test formula. teaching reading through know-want-learned (kwl) strategy: the effects and benefits 38 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 the instrument of data collection was a reading test comprised 20 multiple choice items, for pre-test and posttest. the reading material used was a descriptive text. pre-test was administered to figure out the background of the students’ ability in reading comprehension before applying the kwl strategy. after the pre-test, the descriptive text was taught to the students by practicing the steps of know, want, and learned (kwl) strategy. the social functions of a descriptive text were explained to the students in order to allow the students to understand the usefulness of the descriptive text in daily life. afterwards, the structure of the text was also introduced so that the students had a clear idea about identification and description. during the experiment, the students were also taught to deal with language features of the descriptive text, such as using present tense, focusing on specific participants, and using adjectives and verbs. in the last meeting, they were given an example of the descriptive text with some simple questions based on the text. they were asked to understand the meaning of the text given and to distinguish between paragraph of identification and paragraph of description. in addition, they were asked to directly mention the adjectives, adverbs, and sentences of simple present tense. after the students had been taught with the descriptive text, they learned about the kwl worksheet and how to use it in the reading activity. the step know (k) refers to what students know about topic, which was done before the students began to read. in this step, the students wrote down the words or phrases that they already knew related to the topic. the more things they knew, the better chance for them to comprehend the content of the text given. next, the step want (w) means what students want to learn more about the topic. in this step, the students made a list of questions about what they expected to learn in the topic during the reading activity. if they were curious about something related to the topic, they were supposed to write down the question. here, the students were engaged in critical thinking on the text material that they had. by thinking critically, many questions could emerge in their minds. the last step learned (l) indicates what students have learned. in this step, they paraphrased the important information, such as surprising bustami usman, ika apriani fata & ratih pratiwi englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 39 or interesting ideas obtained from the text (wiesendanger, 2001). then, they checked the ideas against those in the w column. the l step occurred after the students had finished their reading. they practiced the kwl strategy for three meetings. the post-test was provided at the end of the experiment, aimed to measure the students’ ability in reading comprehension after the use of kwl strategy. results & discussion the results obtained in the pre-test are illustrated in the following chart. chart 1. students’ pre-test scores chart 1 above shows that the students’ pretest score before the treatment ranged from 30 to 95. it can be seen that the highest score was 95 while the lowest score was 30. out of 26 students, only four students passed the minimum completion criteria (kkm) of 72, whereas the majority had lower scores. chart 2. students’ post-test scores 85 60 60 80 65 70 90 85 40 75 60 65 70 70 85 80 55 75 50 60 80 60 75 75 90 80 0 20 40 60 80 100 a p a s a r d a w d s d d ee fa h ir ps lc m a p m fa m i m ia m p m w s n m h pa n rs ra sb m sa t s vd a yt p nilai posttest teaching reading through know-want-learned (kwl) strategy: the effects and benefits 40 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 chart 2 depicts the students scores in posttest after the treatment, ranging from 40 to 90. in this test, the highest score was 90 while the lowest score was 40. here, the number of students who passed kkm score increased considerably to 13 students. the following table 1 below was the results of hypothesis testing. it was found that sig. (2tailed) was lower than the significance level (0.05), which was 0.010<0.05. hence, h0 was rejected and ha was accepted, indicating that the application of the kwl strategy was effective in increasing the students’ achievement in reading comprehension skill. table 1. statistic results of hypothesis testing the result of the analysis affirmed that the kwl (know, want, and learned) strategy is one of the appropriate ways that helps students who has a weakness in comprehending the reading materials, making the students be able to disover the main ideas, surprising ideas, and interesting/important information after the reading activity has been done (blachowicz & ogle, 2008). in general, this strategy assists the students to become more effective readers of certain texts, i.e. expository, descriptive, and narrative texts (fengjuan, 2010). moreover, it also helps the teachers to be more interactive in their teaching class (blachowicz & ogle, 2008). corner (2006) as cited in fengjuan (2010) also adds that the kwl strategy guides the learners to set a specific aim for reading and write down what they learned. as stated by blachowicz and ogle (2008), the process in the kwl reading activity allows for reading engagement for the readers. thus, this strategy can bustami usman, ika apriani fata & ratih pratiwi englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 41 stimulate the students to activate their prior knowledge when reading, starting from finding out what they know, followed by understanding what they want to learn further, and ended by identifying what they have learned. the finding here also confirmed that the kwl is reading strategy which tends to sharpen students’ prior knowledge about information which they are ever had and interpret them based on their own experience (wiesendanger, 2001). thus, it is suitable for the students in the intermediate level to use it for seeking the detail information in the texts. in short, the students’ success in increasing their acquisition in reading comprehension was greatly affected by the implementation of the kwl strategy as proven by the students’ posttest scores. conclusion & suggestion in general, the study concludes that the kwl strategy could increase the students’ reading ability. the strategy could be properly applied in reading class skill since it helped the teachers to engage students in a group work. however, it is suggested that the teachers choose topics suitable for their lesson material so that the kwl strategy can work properly, allowing the students to discuss about familiar issues. the teachers should avoid giving topics without prescreening and checking the background of knowledge of the students because the kwl strategy involves activating the students’ prior knowledge on a given topic. references blachowicz, c. & ogle, d. (2008). reading comprehension: strategies for independent learners. second edition. new york, ny: the guilford press. cohen, l., manion, l. & morrison, k. (2007). research methods in education. new york, ny: routledge press. creswell, j. (2008). educational research; planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. upper saddle, nj: pearson education fengjuan, z. (2010). the integration of the know-want-learnt (kwl) strategy into english language teaching for non-english majors. chinese journal of applied linguistics, 33 (4), 77-86. teaching reading through know-want-learned (kwl) strategy: the effects and benefits 42 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 pang, e. s., muaka, a., bernhardt, e. b. & kamil, m. l. (2003). teaching reading. france: international academy of education. klingner, j. k., vaughn, s., & boardman, a. (2007). teaching reading comprehension to students with learning difficulties. new york, ny: the guilford press. youniss, m. m. a. (2013). the effectiveness of using (k.w.l) strategy on developing reading comprehension skills for the eighth graders in khanyounis governorate schools. thesis. al-azhar university – gaza. wiesendanger, k. d. (2001). strategies for literacy education. columbus. nj: merril prentice hall. west, m. & chew, h. e. (2014). reading in the mobile era. paris, france: united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization. zare, p. & othman, m. (2013). the relationship between reading comprehension and reading strategy use among malaysian esl learners. international journal of humanities and social science, 3 (13), 187–193 englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2023. vol.10, no.2, 179-193 “publish or no degree”: cultivating a scholarly writing group for indonesian master’s students of english education rahmah fithriani*, benni ichsanda rahman hz, rita seroja br ginting universitas islam negeri sumatera utara, indonesia manuscript received january 1, 2023, revised february 19, 2023, accepted march 16, 2023, and published online may 7, 2023. recommended apa citation fithriani, r., hz, b. i. r., & ginting, r. s. br. (2023). “publish or no degree”: cultivating a scholarly writing group for indonesian master’s students of english education. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(2), 179-193. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.16725 abstract in line with the increasing institutionalization of scholarly publication as a graduation requirement for graduate students around the world, the use of a community of writing practice to support students navigate their publication endeavour has begun to receive attention from academic supervisors and graduate researchers. despite the burgeoning interest in this topic, there has been little empirical evidence on master’s students’ experiences and perspectives of working within such writing groups at an indonesian university. this phenomenological case study intends to fill this lacuna by elaborating on the process of a writing group's establishment and development for master's students of english education and exploring their perceptions of participating in such a community of practice (cop). findings indicate that the writing group served as a flexible and participatory cop that produced critical and enduring alterations in identity as scholarly writers amongst participants. specifically, their perceived transition into academic writers involves three aspects: knowledge of the values of scholarly publication, construction of a scholarly identity, and demystification of the publishing endeavour. this study's findings can be utilized to inform other master's and doctorate programs, as well as academic professionals seeking interventions to assist their students' productive writing. * corresponding author: rahmah fithriani universitas islam negeri sumatera utara jl. william iskandar, kec. percut sei tuan, kabupaten deli serdang, sumatera utara 20371, indonesia email: rahmahfithriani@uinsu.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.16725 “publish or no degree”: cultivating a scholarly writing group for indonesian master’s students….. 180 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.10, no.2, may 2023 keywords: academic writing; community of practice; master’s student; scholarly publication; writing group 1. introduction over the last few decades, the ever-increasing globalization and marketization of higher education have accelerated international competition in the higher education sector and are driven by the passionate pursuit of global university rankings. because institutional research output and quality, as measured by the number of publications and citations, play such a paramount role in the ranking system (çakır et al., 2019; tian & lu, 2017), governments around the world have catalysed the quest for world-class universities by enacting the ‘publish or no degree’ policy for students pursuing their advanced degrees (lee, 2014; mcgrail et al., 2006). as a consequence, research output has become increasingly institutionalized by higher educational institutions around the world as either a graduation requirement or an expectation of graduate students. this publication pressure has placed graduate students under mounting and unprecedented pressure. the importance of publishing scholarly work has become more apparent for graduate students currently enrolled in master's programs, where students are typically required to publish their research findings in the form of articles published in peerreviewed journals upon graduation from their respective programs (lathif, nurkamto, & kristina, 2021; lei & chuang, 2009). a similar phenomenon could also be observed in the context of indonesian higher education (he) institutions, which regulate masters’ students to publish papers in nationally accredited journals, popularly known as science and technology index (sinta) journals, as a requirement for degree conferment. publishing sinta papers has gradually become a crucial factor in master’s degree conferment for indonesian master’s students over the last decade since the introduction of the indonesian government about the obligation of scientific publications for bachelor, master, and doctoral students (fithriani & salmiah, 2022). the publication requirement engenders high pressure on master’s students as having no scholarly article published in nationally accredited journals during their study time means the students do not meet the university’s publication requirement to obtain a master’s degree. to address the challenges posed by graduate students' excessive pressure to produce research outputs, higher education institutions are more likely to support the development of graduate student writing through research and writing-related programs, including writing groups, which are typically initiated by departments or individual supervisors. grounded on lave and wenger’s (1991) concepts of 'legitimate peripheral participation' in 'communities of practice' (cop), a community of writing practice typically consists of two components: an effective writing program and a professional development program, such as 1) setting goals and expectations; 2) requiring regular writing; 3) creating social support through the encouragement of peers and the sharing of experiences and feelings about writing; 4) encouraging monitoring of progress towards rahmah fithriani, benni ichsanda rahman hz, & rita seroja br ginting englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 181 personal goals; 5) providing feedback on multiple drafts, and 6) providing a facilitator who acts as a mentor to encourage and support mentees (boice, 1990; knight, tait, & yorke, 2006; mcgrail et al., 2006; weaver, robbie, & radloff, 2014). ample empirical evidence has shown that writing groups are to support graduate students in their publication endeavour and facilitate their maturation into published scholars (badenhorst & guerin, 2016; ciampa & wolfe, 2020; kent et al., 2017). however, despite the rich literature on the use of writing groups to support graduate students improve their scholarly writing, little is focused on the cultivation of a writing group in order to best support graduate students in their publication quest and facilitate their maturation into published scholars. in addition, previous studies on graduate writing groups commonly involved doctoral students, whereas very little has been written about master’s students’ experiences of working within such writing communities, particularly in the indonesian he context. furthermore, the target participants of this current study are master’s students of the english education department. the publication obligation for this particular demography of participants is quite unique and arguably more challenging as they need to publish their papers in english in lieu of their first language, indonesian, either in nationally accredited or internationally reputable journals. since previous studies have shown greater challenges encountered by graduate students writing in english as an additional language (eal) in other countries such as hongkong, saudi arabia, taiwan, and thailand (al fadda, 2012; cheung, 2010; huang, 2010; phothongsunan, 2016), this study is hoped to provide more nuanced information regarding indonesian eal master’s students’ endeavour of demystifying the publication process and to contribute to the growing literature on this very topic. the following research questions guided this study: 1. what is the suitable writing group model for indonesian master’s students of the english education department? 2. what (if any) notable transition do the indonesian master’s students perceive related to their development into scholarly writers? 2. literature review 2.1. community of practice (cop) the term "community of practice" (cop) refers to a learning paradigm that promotes the development of informal groups with the goal of initiating exploration into a social discipline of learning involving the exchange of exercises (hoadley, 2012). this concept can be traced back to earlier attempts to establish theories of the social aspect of human learning, which were influenced by social theory (e.g. lave, 1988; bourdieu, 1977; giddens, 1984; vygotsky, 1978). the concept of a cop lays an emphasis on socially and cognitively engaged learning (lave & wenger, 1991). social learning theorists claim that communities provide a framework for collaborative learning whereby thought that people may develop themselves by paying attention to, and taking cues from, the behaviours of those around them (li et al., 2009). “publish or no degree”: cultivating a scholarly writing group for indonesian master’s students….. 182 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.10, no.2, may 2023 three fundamental qualities distinguish communities of practice from other types of communities: mutual engagement, a joint enterprise, and a shared repertoire (wenger, 1998). “mutual engagement" refers to the relationships that exist between individuals. as a result of their participation in the community, individuals are able to build standards and cultivate collaborative ties, resulting in the formation of a single social entity. consequently, "joint enterprise" is a component of a cop that guarantees everyone is held accountable for achieving a common goal. it is the member's awareness of the community's core characteristics that bind them together and gives them a sense of ownership over the location. the joint venture should not be mandated from the outside but rather should be negotiated among cop members in order to produce a cohesive response to a given scenario. the final element of a cop is the "shared repertory," which includes routines, words, tools, techniques of doing things, stories, gestures, symbols, genres, acts, or concepts that the group has generated or absorbed throughout the course of its life and incorporated into its practice. in other words, repertory refers to the resources used to create value by members. 2.2. writing groups as a cop there are various types of cop communities, including micro-communities, small groups, and a larger collective of teachers. in addition, there is a wide variety of cop for professionals to join such as conferences, webinars, research communities, discussion forums, and special interest groups like writing groups (reilly et al., 2012). due to the productive nature of the group in terms of academic writing, the writing group can be viewed as a practical manifestation of the community of practice. a community of writing practice refers to a group of individuals who share their writing interests and passions and regularly collaborate to develop their writing performance. the primary objective of the program is to assist participants in developing productive writing habits, including writing regularly, preferably daily, separating idea generation from critical (self) reviews, receiving and providing feedback in early drafts, and encouraging emotions, thoughts, and actions associated with academic writing and publishing success (hartley, 2008; hartley & branthwaite, 1989; weaver, robbie, & radloff, 2014). a writing community is ideal for enhancing scholarly writing because people are more likely to learn about writing conventions and challenges when they write as part of a community (moore, 2003). empirical evidence shows that a writing group can assist its members to improve not just their scholarly writing knowledge and skills, but also their self-confidence and writing output (badenhorst & guerin, 2016; ciampa & wolfe, 2020; kent et al, 2017). 3. method a qualitative descriptive case study approach (yin, 2014) was utilized to capture and investigate the scholarly writing experiences of indonesian master's students of english education in a community of practice. participating in the writing group rahmah fithriani, benni ichsanda rahman hz, & rita seroja br ginting englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 183 voluntarily were fifteen students (11 females and 4 males) from two academic years. two methods, a questionnaire, and an in-depth interview, were used to collect data for this study. the questionnaire with open-ended questions was administered to explore the participants' perspectives on scholarly publication prior to and during their participation in the writing group. prior to its utilization, the questionnaire was piloted to 30 master's students at the same institution who were not involved as the study participants to ensure that the items appropriately addressed the research questions. the interviews were conducted to garner additional information and/or to clarify what the respondents had mentioned on the questionnaire. between forty and sixty minutes were allocated for each interview. the interviews were audio recorded with the participants' consent and then transcribed verbatim for data analysis. thematic content analysis was employed to analyze the collected data. the responses of the participants to the questionnaire and interview questions were assessed contextually by reading each response in its entirety and underlining words, phrases, and concepts that were deemed pertinent to the phenomenon under investigation for further categorization. using the structural coding approach, the data were coded in three stages: pre-coding, first coding, and final coding (saldana, 2016). the emerging themes were compared to the literature review by describing their similarities and differences. this is in accordance with yin’s (2014) theoretical proposition strategy stating that the case objectives and design are based on a scheme that generates research questions and connects them to a literature review, resulting in a new discussion or recommended solution. finally, generalization is applied to the research questions and phenomenon in a framework containing tables and/or diagrams, a comparison to the basic design from the literature review, and a case conclusion. 4. findings 4.1. the study group model the first research question relates to the writing group's implemented model. this study's writing group has three primary components: group sessions, individual writing, and a seminar (figure 1). all three complementary components of this writing group played an important role in fostering the development of its members' scholarly writing skills and were designed to overcome the multiple challenges in their respective contexts (in this case, master's students in the english education department). central to this writing group is the group sessions, which were conducted six times during this study (over a period of three months). the 15 members of the writing group met fortnightly (usually on weekends), beginning in july 2022 and concluding in september 2022 (look at figure 2 for details). however, due to the different time flexibility of master’s students in the group, the members were not always available to attend every group session. “publish or no degree”: cultivating a scholarly writing group for indonesian master’s students….. 184 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.10, no.2, may 2023 figure 1. the writing group’s three complementary components the group sessions comprise three core activities, namely: dialogic presentation, instruction and practice of writing skills and strategies, and sharing and discussing writing progress. the dialogic presentation, directly led by the principal researcher covers a variety of topics pertaining to scholarly writing, such as navigating credible sources, the publication process, and journal article elements. the writing progress sharing and discussion, which focuses on collaborative work among members, gives each member the opportunity to share their manuscript drafts and receive feedback from others. however, due to time constraints during group sessions, it was not possible to offer everyone's work particular attention. figure 2. the research group model in consideration of the time constraints in group sessions, individual writing components were included to maximize time efficiency. individual writing gives rahmah fithriani, benni ichsanda rahman hz, & rita seroja br ginting englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 185 participants the opportunity to apply what they've learned in group sessions to their personal work. in addition to using the writing skills and methods taught in the group session to the creation of new writing, the individual writing component was utilized to rewrite and edit prior drafts that received comments during the group session. as depicted in figure 2, the participants completed their writing independently in the period between two group sessions. any progress made during the period of individual writing would be shared with the group at the subsequent session. lastly, the seminar component provides individuals with the opportunity to engage in a live discussion with an expert in scholarly writing for publication in an effort to boost their writing motivation and increase their knowledge of best practices. the seminar session was held one time only, between group sessions 4 and 5. 4.2. perceived transition of development into scholarly writers anchored on wenger’s (1998) theory of the community of practice (cop), writing groups as a collaborative learning platform provides some benefits, including defining someone’s identity, establishing collaboration, acquiring new competencies, and improving community members’ performance. the participants in this study also selfreported gaining similar benefits after their participation as a cop member. in general, the benefits perceived by the participants led to their professional identity reconstruction as scholarly writers. 4.2.1. awareness of the values of scholarly publication one of the merits of engaging in something regularly, such as joining a writing group whose primary focus is how to develop the members' ability as scientific writers, is a heightened awareness of the significance of scientific publications for individual and professional lives. the same benefit was also noted by the participants in this study, who believed that after joining this cop-based writing group, they have become increasingly aware of the value of publishing for themselves, particularly in terms of future career advancement. this can be seen in the excerpt below: before i joined this community of writers, i previously only wrote a scholarly article to accomplish the assignments my teacher gave me. i didn't realize that scholarly publications could help me in my future career.” (excerpt 1, interview, participant 2) as illustrated in excerpt 1, participant 2 admitted that she initially drafted a scholarly manuscript as a necessity of finishing a project assigned to her as a postgraduate student without recognizing that the writing would have an impact to her future career. however, as she became a member of the writing group, she realized how important it was to write and publish scientific articles that would be useful in the future. a slightly different opinion related to the significance of scholarly publication for a professional trajectory is mentioned by participant 10, who revealed that his continues “publish or no degree”: cultivating a scholarly writing group for indonesian master’s students….. 186 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.10, no.2, may 2023 engagement with other members of the writing group broadens his perspectives towards the value of scholarly publication not only for his future career but also for his current one. he believes that he could establish his name in the world of publication by publishing his written works in nationally-accredited and internationally indexed journals to advance his current career and enable promotion to higher structural positions in the future, as can be seen in excerpt 2. this writing group somehow makes me feel familiar with scholarly writing. i want to build and raise a reputation for myself in this field of work by publishing several articles in accredited journals to support my current career and to achieve a high structural position in my future career. (excerpt 2, interview, participant 5) in conclusion, participants recognize that writing a scholarly manuscript is more than just a college assignment; they are aware that having scholarly publications might positively affect their current professions and future careers. 4.3. construction of scholarly writer identity identity construction in the concept of community of practice (cop) illustrates how a professional identity can be constructed by participating in a community of practice. clearly, the participants in this study believed that they constructed their identities as scholarly writers through their engagement in the writing group. particularly, they could identify themselves as scholarly writers-in-the-making who are still developing their writing skills. as seen in excerpt 3, this is taken from the interview data with participant 1 who admitted that she could see herself as a scholarly writer, in addition to her identity as a teacher and a post-graduate student. at first, i thought that writing for scholarly publications wasn't my main job because i'm a headmaster who is also a teacher. so, i think my main job is to teach. however, after joining this writing community on campus, i realized that even though writing publications is a college assignment, it could be relevant to my job as a teacher because it helps me start improving my professional development (excerpt 3, interview, participant 1) the statement in excerpt 3 reveals that participant 1’s identity construction as a writer of scholarly publications had been much impacted by her participation in the writing group. as a student teacher who also takes a role as a headmaster, she initially believed that authoring scholarly publications was not her primary responsibility. even after becoming a postgraduate student, she still considered teaching her primary obligation. however, after she became a part of the writing community, she realized that writing would continue to be relevant to her career. previously, she believed writing a scholarly publication was only for completing her college assignments. however, she eventually realized that writing is one of the professional development activities that can be maintained in her career. this indicates that participant 1 has constructed a writer rahmah fithriani, benni ichsanda rahman hz, & rita seroja br ginting englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 187 identity for producing a scholarly publication for her career journey, as her perspective on writing has shifted from "college projects" to "professional development." similar to participant 1’s experience, other participants also support the conception that involvement in the writing community helps them construct writer identities, as evidenced in excerpt 4. beginning as a university project, writing articles has now become a part of me, and i aspire to publish my scholarly writing in international journals as part of my career. (excerpt 4, questionnaire, participant 12) the data in excerpt 4 demonstrates that the student's perspective on producing scientific papers has shifted since joining the community and that what he formerly considered a part of his educational path is now a part of himself. in this case, participant 12 argued that his professional identity began to take shape from what he previously thought was only a "student" who wrote scholarly writing as an assignment and has now transitioned to become a "scholarly writer" when he stated that he would continue writing until it could be published in international journals concurrently with his career. in this instance, it is evident that students' professional identities began to emerge from their surroundings. 4.4. demystification of the publication endeavour a writing group as a manifestation of a community of practice can be viewed as a platform to boost students' expertise as academic writing practitioners because this community aims to raise students' identity and productivity concerning academic writing. community members engage in this activity by helping one another and exchanging information regarding the various practices connected to it. learning to write a manuscript worth publication to practice how to submit and respond during the publication process are some activities done by the members of this writing group with one purpose to demystify the publication endeavour. these activities involve pertinent theoretical literature, navigating the target journal, creating a manuscript that utilizes the rhetorical framework accepted by the targeted discourse community, and improving language capacity. in this case, the writing group members get some efficiency in the publication process due to their involvement. knowing how to find literature pertinent to the discussion of scholarly publications during manuscript writing is one of the conveniences that the participants in the publishing process can perceive. the following excerpt confirms this point: at first, i was really confused about how to find literature that helps deepen my understanding and suits the topic of my discussion to be used in the manuscript i was writing, but it is no longer an issue because i already know the "keywords" to use while searching for literature on both national and international publishers for my scholarly article. (excerpt 5, interview, participant 7) “publish or no degree”: cultivating a scholarly writing group for indonesian master’s students….. 188 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.10, no.2, may 2023 the statement made by participant 7 in excerpt 5 indicates her confusion in navigating current literature related to the topic of her writing. she found it challenging for her to write a scholarly article when she did not even know where to start to find the sources that help her broaden her knowledge of the topic of discussion. however, after joining the writing community, she got a new insight into how to find relevant literature by navigating diverse websites of national and international publishers, which eventually helps advance her knowledge on the topic and enrich the content of her manuscript. another aspect that helps further demystifies the publication process that the participants' experience is navigating the target journal. participants in the publication process in this community were able to successfully navigate the target journal, which is significant because successfully navigating the target journal is one of the steps that must be taken in order to complete the publication process. by becoming community members, participants will not only be aware of how to retrieve pertinent literature, but they will also be aware of how to navigate the appropriate journal in terms of the scope of discussion, templates, and other provisions following the expertise of participants. thus, participants also will be aware of how to navigate the journal in terms of whether or not paid author fees are required. as a consequence, the scientific articles that the participants generate will have a better chance of getting published in the journal, provided that they are suitable for the requirements. this is demonstrated in excerpt 6. first, i assumed the lecturer’s writing format could be used for any journal, but after joining the workshop, i know that every journal has various requirements, from the writing format to the charge. by navigating the journal, we can measure our capacities and make it easier to submit papers since we’ve followed the guidelines. (excerpt 6, interview, participant 5) the data in excerpt 6 shows the misconception that participant 5 had before she joined the writing group. she formerly believed that the writing template given by her lecturer could be applied to all journals in general. this implies that her knowledge of writing format that meets the requirement of the target journal is quite limited; nevertheless, her understanding of preparing manuscripts a journal submission grows by joining the writing group. this is evident from her statements, which specifies that a number of specifications must be adhered to, such as the writing format and the author fee. in addition, the participant is aware that they must adhere to the style of each target journal when writing the manuscript. 5. discussion this study demonstrates that the writing group model is effective in reconstructing while enacting the participating students’ perceived identities as scholarly writers. this perceived transition includes scholarly publication knowledge and practice highlighting development to being scholarly writers while joining the community of practice (cop). cop refers to the congregation of individuals with similar goals and interests (wenger, rahmah fithriani, benni ichsanda rahman hz, & rita seroja br ginting englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 189 1998), in this case, the members congregate to discuss scholarly article writing and publication, because the value of scholarly publication reflects developmental progress for a student's academic career (belcher, 2007), the transition that students in this study go through results in positive outcomes, such as students beginning to recognize the value of scholarly publications. this positive outcome will have an impact on students' current careers as well as their careers in the future, particularly in the academic field. the significance of writing with the goal of publishing has had a significant impact on academic communities worldwide, not only affecting the faculty member and researchers but also trickling down to students in advanced education (mcdougall & stoilescu, 2010). in addition, it has been discovered that one of the criteria utilized for yearly performance reviews and salary modifications for university professors or researchers is the number of publications they have (stockwell, 2016). this finding is also in line with that of al kadi and madini’s (2019) study noting the significance of highlighting the learners' selfawareness in writing to make them more productive. students taking part in the writing group for this research can experience another aspect of their perceived transition regarding scholarly publication, namely the construction of scholarly identity. when the participants in this study joined the cop, they became conscious of the fact that they were currently in the process of refining their writing talents and were aware that they are scholarly writers in the making. their attitude on writing has evolved from "college projects" to "professional growth". this finding supports wenger’s (2010) argument stating that cop is a way into people's professional development. this finding is also consistent with other previous studies revealing the role of a cop in which language is being learned that can affect the constructions of identities that language learners make of themselves (lee, 2014; teng & bui, 2020). in addition, a community of practice may be seen as a platform that helps students improve their expertise as scholarly writing practitioners. this is because this community aims to strengthen students' identities as well as their productivity concerning academic writing (kent et al., 2017). community members participate in this activity by lending a helping hand to one another and exchanging information about the many activities associated with it. the publication procedure will be demystified as one of the benefits for the students. it means that students get a better understanding of how to get their work published, which includes seeking pertinent theoretical literature, navigating the target journal, creating a manuscript utilising the dc rhetorical framework, and improving language capacity. this finding is also relevant to the findings of several other empirical studies showing how cop helps promote the individual, team, and organisational benefits such as learning and development; colleague recognition; the establishment of relationships and networks among co-workers; improvement in work quality; work satisfaction; quick access to information; innovation; problem-solving skills; improved process efficiency; work coordination and integration; and a number of other advantages (e.g. fontaine & millen, 2004; wenger, mcdermott, & snyder, 2002; zboralski & gemuenden, 2006). “publish or no degree”: cultivating a scholarly writing group for indonesian master’s students….. 190 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities |vol.10, no.2, may 2023 6. conclusion for graduate students currently enrolled in master's programs, where students are often compelled to publish their research findings in accredited peer-reviewed journals upon graduation, the value of publishing scholarly work has become increasingly apparent. this study was conducted to support graduate students in their publication quest and facilitate their maturation into scholarly writers by offering training through a copbased writing group. this study proposes a writing group model, which might be utilized to facilitate the development of scholarly articles among master's students while simultaneously promoting their sense of scholarly identity. participation in the writing group becomes an opportunity for its members’ both personal and professional growth. the writing group served to demystify the publication process, considerably enhancing students' feeling of scholarly identity and raising their awareness of academic writing's significance in the development of scholarly knowledge. to preserve the momentum provided by the cop approach, the writing group must be a regular routine that provides a forum for critical conversations about writing, publishing, and academic identities throughout the course of their academic year. the members of the writing group should also gain practical experience by attending seminars and conferences. in addition, faculty members must participate in their students' publishing endeavours through mentoring, feedback, and facilitation on an individual or group level. due to the limited participant size (15 students), it is important to highlight that the diversity of backgrounds and academic preparation will continue to pose a pedagogical difficulty when adopted in other master's or doctorate programs. further research, thus is required to ensure that this writing group model is adaptable enough to accommodate both beginner and advanced students. references al-kadi, s. z., & madini, a. a. 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(2014). case study research: design and methods (5th ed.). sage. zbolaraski, k. & gemunden, h. g. (2006). the impact of communities of practice. in e. coakes & s. clarke (eds.). encyclopedia of communities of practice in information and knowledge management (pp. 218-223). hershey, pa: idea group reference. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84996-133-2_11 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84996-133-2_11 englisia may 2014 vol. 1 no.2, 172-190 women and leadership in islamic  higher education in indonesia  safrul muluk state islamic university of ar-raniry banda aceh abstract in indonesia, the issue of women in leadership position within public organizations, including in higher education, has been under scrutiny for a long time. practices of patriarchal culture plays a significant role in the way people perceive women and their contribution have influenced the opportunity for female academics to assume senior leadership roles. despite the increase in the number of well-educated women in higher education sector, it does not reflect in the number of women assuming leadership roles. this paper presents a brief historical account on higher education sector in indonesia and then discusses women and leadership in higher education, with a special reference to state islamic university ar-raniry banda aceh. keywords: women, leadership, islamic higher education higher education institutions in indonesia before discussing the issue of women and leadership in islamic higher education (ihe), i would like to provide a brief discussion on the state of he in indonesia in general. contemporary asian higher education is fundamentally influenced by its historical traditions (altbach, 2004), and in the case of indonesia, by its colonial ruler. “secular higher education in indonesia has a relatively short history. it began with the establishment by the dutch colonialists of tertiary schools training indigenous people in medicine and engineering” (wicaksono & friawan, 2001, p. 159), to address the need for professional manpower to support the colonial administration. this was due to a shortage of engineers and other professionals from the netherlands, caused by world war i (bukhori & malik, 2004). safrul muluk englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 173 later, the indonesian government founded gadjah mada university in jogjakarta on 19 december 1949 through government regulation no. 23, 1949. gadjah mada university was established by combining several educational institutions into one. over the years, the number of higher education institutions has increased significantly. with high economy growth, the demand for skilled workers, particularly in science and technology, has become even more important. this has led the government, through the directorate general for higher education (dghe) of the ministry of national education (mone), to create a framework that standardizes the national he system, and regulates the structure of academic programs, governance, and the roles and responsibilities of faculty members (wicaksono & friawan, 2001). this development, coupled with the high number of senior secondary graduates, has seen a significant increase in the numbers of universities in indonesia as shown in the following figure. figure 1. the number of public and private universities in indonesia in 2004 and 2012. adopted from direktorat jenderal pendidikan tinggi, kementrian pendidikan nasional, 2004 dan 2012. the latest statistic from the dghe indicates that in 2012 there were 3433 universities, consisting of 86 public and 3347 private universities. the number of private universities jumped from 2235 in 2004 to 3347 in 2012, an increase of 1112 within an eight year period. while the number of private universities jumps considerably, the number of public universities only increases to 86 in 2012, an increase of five universities since 2004. the above numbers are specifically for one public private 2004 81 2235 2012 86 3347 2004, public, 81 2004, private, 2235 2012, public, 86 2012, private, 3347 women and leadership in islamic higher education in indonesia 174 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 type of hei, that of ‘university’ and do not count the numbers of other types such as academies, polytechnics, advanced schools, and institutes. understandably, “the private sector has been instrumental in the development of higher education, specifically in terms of expansion” (buchori, m., & malik, a., 2004, p. 265). it is not surprising to see that private heis have the biggest share of student enrolment in the country, accounting for more than 60 per cent. with regard to islamic higher education, the establishment of akademi dinas ilmu agama (adia) or the academy of religious sciences in 1950 in yogjakarta, gave impetus to the birth of the institute of islamic higher learning (iain) in 1960 (welch, p. 670). later, through the decree of the minister of religious affairs number 49, 1963, dated february 25, 1963, it was transformed into the first islamic he, state institute of islamic studies (iain) yogjakarta, followed by iain syarief hidayatullah, jakarta. these establishments are seen as recognition of the role and influence of islamic education in the national development, especially in the education arena. however, unlike secular heis which take most of the student enrolment in the country, “modern islamic heis contribute to 15 per cent of total he enrolments nationwide” (buchori, m., & malik, a., 2004, p. 265). in terms of educational structure, duration of studies, and stages of learning, “islamic hei resembles those of secular heis. iain graduates were, and indeed still are, considered to have the equivalent status of graduates of secular heis” ((buchori, m., & malik, a., 2004, p. 267). since their establishment, islamic heis have evolved quite significantly and recent developments have seen them move towards research based institutions. “new orientation towards research is clearly visible, not merely reflected in the building of iain institutionally, but also in the strengthening of education and research among iain intellectuals” (buchori, m., & malik, a., 2004, p. 267-68). one of the most important developments and achievements of islamic he was the conversion of iain syarif hidayatullah from institute to islamic university with the issuance of presidential decree number 31 of 2002, dated may 20. 2002. on june 21, 2004, iain sunan kalijaga yogyakarta was also changed to islamic university with the issuance of presidential decree number 50. by the end of 2005, there are six state islamic university (uin) in indosafrul muluk englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 175 nesia. the following statistical data show the number of public and private islamic heis in indonesia in 2012. figure 2. the number of islamic heis (ihei) in indonesia in 2012. adopted from direktorat jenderal pendidikan tinggi islam, kementrian agama, 2012. the above statistical data show that there are 539 private islamic heis, accounting for 91.8 per cent of the total islamic heis, and 52 state run islamic heis, accounting for 8.8 per cent of islamic heis in indonesia. of 591 islamic heis, there are 19 he institutions in aceh province, three state-run islamic heis consisting of 1 institute and 2 advanced schools and 16 private islamic heis. these data show the extent of expansion that the private he sector has undergone in indonesia. as a result, the numbers of students enrolled in private islamic heis are higher than those of public ones. despite its historical importance as the early form of hei in indonesia, when it comes to infrastructure, the islamic educational mainstream system falls behind its secular counterpart. from the above data, it can be seen that the total number of islamic heis in 2012 is 591, accounting for less than 15 per cent of total 4024 heis in indonesia, consisting both public and private heis from islamic and secular mainstream systems. while the increasing number of universities has contributed significantly to accommodate the number of students who want to pursue their studies, heis in indonesia still have not been able to keep up and accommodate the growing demands as a result of increasing senior secondary graduates resulting from better access and school infrastructure throughout the country. uin iain stain stais total private 539 539 public 6 15 31 0 52 private , stais, 539 private , total, 539 public, uin, 6 public, iain, 15 public, stain, 31 public, stais, 0 public, total, 52 women and leadership in islamic higher education in indonesia 176 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 figure 3. the enrolment rates at all levels of education in 1990, 2000, & 2006. adopted from badan pusat statistik tahun 1990, 2000, dan 2006. figure 3 indicates that the enrolment rate of boys and girls at primary level in 1990, 2000, and 2006 is considerably higher compared to the rest of the education levels. at primary level, from 1990 to 2006, the female enrolment rate was in fact higher than that of males. besides the success of educational policies and improved school infrastructure in both urban and rural areas, “a change in attitude of parents towards the importance of education for their children regardless of gender” (wayong, 2007) has also been a major factor in this improvement. in 2010, the number of female students enrolled in islamic hei in indonesia surpassed that of male students. this can be seen in the following figure. male female male female male female 1990 2000 2006 primary level 91 92 95 96 97 98 junior secondary 67 63 80 79 84 84 senior secondary 44 37 52 51 54 54 tertiary 15 9 14 11 12 11 primary level, 1990 male, 91 primary level, 1990 female, 92 primary level, 2000 male, 95 primary level, 2000 female, 96 primary level, 2006 male, 97 primary level, 2006 female, 98 junior secondary, 1990 male, 67 junior secondary, 1990 female, 63 junior secondary, 2000 male, 80 junior secondary, 2000 female, 79 junior secondary, 2006 male, 84 junior secondary, 2006 female, 84 senior secondary, 1990 male, 44 senior secondary, 1990 female, 37 senior secondary, 2000 male, 52 senior secondary, 2000 female, 51 senior secondary, 2006 male, 54 senior secondary, 2006 female, 54 tertiary, 1990 male, 15 tertiary, 1990 female, 9 tertiary, 2000 male, 14 tertiary, 2000 female, 11 tertiary, 2006 male, 12 tertiary, 2006 female, 11 safrul muluk englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 177 figure 4. the number of male and female students at iheis in 2010. adopted from direktorat jenderal pendidikan tinggi islam, kementrian agama, 2012. from the above figure, it is safe to conclude that perceptions of women’s potential and their economic contributions to the family have changed considerably as reflected in the number of female students pursuing their he. this can be seen in the number of women enrolling in both public islamic higher education (ptain) and private islamic higher education (ptais), which surpassed the number of men’s enrolment. the same trend can be seen in aceh. statistical data in 2009 also show that the number of women enrolled in he in aceh was higher than that of men. the number of men going to university in 2009 in aceh province was 15,420. on the other hand, the number of women going to university was 21,420. this was a clear indicator of the paradigm shift in the value of girls with regard to education. it indicates changing perceptions within acehnese society about women and their contributions in society. this is quite a remarkable achievement for a strong islamic patriarchal society like aceh. some of the early opinions which regard women as less valuable compared to men and do not need higher education have slowly given ways to new attitudes towards women’s potential. this progress has definitely been a positive and promising development in improving the opportunity of women getting recognition in the work force. while this progress has had positive impacts on women’s role and status and has improved the number of women working in the public sector, as mentioned earlier, it does not necessarily enhance the number of women in leadership roles in the public domain, ptain ptais male 91,752 169,74 female 109,589 179,613 male, ptain, 91,752 male, ptais, 169,74female, ptain, 109,589 female, ptais, 179,613 women and leadership in islamic higher education in indonesia 178 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 including in the higher education sector. as a matter of fact, there is still a significant gap between male and female academics in the he sector. the following figure shows the number male and female lecturers in iheis in indonesia in 2010. figure 5. the number of male and female lecturers at public and private iheis in 2010. adopted from direktorat jenderal pendidikan tinggi islam, kementrian agama, 2012. from the above data, it is clear that female academics only constitute less than half of all academics in public iheis. female academics constituted about 30% (4.080) of the total 13,557 academics in public iheis in 2010. this number is even lower in private iheis which make up only 28.5% (4.648) of the total academics. what this means is that despite the increase in the number of female students and graduates over the years, it does not necessarily mean the increase in the number of female academics in the he sector. one of the reasons contributing to this situation can be linked to the requirements needed to apply for lecturer position. the government, realizing the importance of improving human resources and as part of the ongoing effort to improve the quality of higher education in indonesia introduced law number 14/2005 on teachers and lecturers. with issuance of this law, to qualify as lecturer at higher education institutions, one must have an accredited post graduate degree in his/her field of expertise. article 46 of the law stipulates that those having completed master’s degree level are qualified to teach at undergraduate level, and those having doctoral degree are qualified to teach at both under-graduate and post graduate levels. undoubtedly, with the increased academic credential needed to apply for lecturer positions, it becomes even more important for both male and female acaptain ptais male 9,477 11,663 female 4,080 4,648 male, ptain, 9,477 male, ptais, 11,663 female, ptain, 4,080 female, ptais, 4,648 safrul muluk englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 179 demics to pursue post-graduate level study. failing to comply with this law leads to administrative sanctions that could relegate their lecturer status to administrative staff. women in leadership in indonesia the issue of women’s involvement in the public domain is not a new theme in indonesia. as a matter of fact, indonesian women have been taking part in the struggle for independence and in indonesian national development process. the indonesian government has been working to improve women’s role and status through a gender equality agenda. progress made in the education sector, for example, has been one of significant factors in addressing the problem of gender disparity in the public domain in indonesia. positive impacts can be seen in the increasing number of women who manage to pursue their tertiary education over the years. a number of legal products in relation to gender equality initiatives have been put in place in order to improve the state of gender relations. as a result, there has been a steady increase in the number of women working in the public domain. nevertheless, despite the increase in the number of working women and in the improvement of the status of women in society, the gender gap between men and women in public domains persists. this is particularly true in the area of public leadership roles, including in the higher education sector. in a similar vein, murniati (2012, p. 2) asserts that “gender disparity tends to be wider in leadership positions”. women continue to land jobs that are traditionally identified as females’ jobs, and are usually referred to as pink collar work. this term is used to refer to women-dominated jobs and professions including childcare, cleaning, nursing, secretarial work, teaching and waitressing. this is surprising considering the fact that a number of researchers have stressed the importance of having female qualities in the management of organisations (eagly & carli, 2003). in a similar tone, connell points out that “gender equality is now a widely accepted goal in public administration” (connel, 2006, p. 837), and that “one of the main goals of western feminism has been to open the top levels of public administration and politics to women” (connel, 2006, p. 837). women and leadership in islamic higher education in indonesia 180 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 despite the realization of women’s positive contribution to organisations when appointed to leadership roles, the trend still shows that the number of women occupying lower-level management positions persists (eagly & carli, 2006), while the number of women assuming leadership roles remains limited. in indonesia, statistical data show that the majority of women are working in the sector that traditionally belongs to women’s area of expertise such as early childhood education, and clerical and administrative work, and that they mostly occupy lower level positions. understandably, when it comes to working in area that traditionally belongs to men, women’s representation is even lower. the steady increase in the number of working women is not necessarily reflected in the number of women holding leadership roles as most of them only occupy lower level management and an administrative type of work. a similar phenomenon can also be seen, for example, in the lack of women in the political arena in indonesia. the following table shows the proportion of members of the national house of people representatives from 1955 until 2009. table 1. composition of members of house of representative 1955-2009 year of general election male % female % male + female total % 1955 256 94,12 16 5,88 272 100 1971 429 93,26 31 6,74 460 100 1977 423 91,96 37 6,74 460 100 1982 418 90,87 42 9,13 460 100 1987 441 88,20 59 11,80 500 100 1992 438 87,60 62 12,40 500 100 1997 442 88,40 58 11,60 500 100 1999 456 91,20 44 8,80 500 100 2004 485 88,18 65 11,82 550 100 2009 460 82,14 100 17,86 560 100 statistical yearbook of indonesia, 2010, p. 51 it is clear from the above statistical data that while there has been a gradual increase over the years in the number of women appointed to the house of people safrul muluk englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 181 representative, the number of women sitting in the parliament is considerably lower than that of men. with women being under-represented in the national political arena, it will be difficult for them to influence and create meaningful changes in areas that are important to their welfare, such as gender mainstreaming policies, gender sensitive budgets, et cetera. it is fair to say that with a limited voice in the male dominated parliament, formulating gender equality and equity programs in the national development agenda would be a huge undertaking. in addition, it would be difficult for women to assume leadership roles in a male dominated area such as politics. the lack of women in leadership positions can also be observed from the number of women who occupy top echelon positions in government institutions in indonesia. the following table shows the composition of civil servants in indonesia in december 2005. table 2. the number of civil servants based on echelon in december 2005 no rank male % female % total 1 echelon i 582 90,23 63 9,77 645 2 echelon ii 10500 93,29 755 6,71 11255 3 echelon iii 47887 86,44 7509 13,56 55396 4 echelon iv 167217 77,91 47422 22,09 214639 5 echelon v 10793 77,68 3102 22,32 13895 6 special functional 924939 48,71 973986 51,29 1898925 total 1161918 58,57 1032837 41,43 2194755 badan kepegawaian negara, 2005 it can be seen from the table that in 2005, the number of women occupying top echelon position (echelon i) in indonesia was 63, which only makes up 9,77 per cent of the total top echelon positions in the country. the percentage of women in the echelon ii position is even worse. out of 11.255 echelon ii positions, there were only 755 women who managed to land the second most senior position that civil servants can achieve during their careers. this only constitutes 6,71 per cent of the total number of civil servants in this rank. these two top echelons are the most senior echelons. those who want to apply for senior leadership roles where decisions on women and leadership in islamic higher education in indonesia 182 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 strategic development policies are executed must have these two top echelons. not surprisingly, the number of women who manage to assume leadership roles is significantly lower than men. understandably, it is difficult for women to penetrate and influence the male dominated policy making process as they are mostly excluded from the decision-making process. what can be concluded from the above table is that as the levels of rank decrease, the number of women holding positions in these levels increases. still, the number of women in lower level echelons is lower than that of men. these figures clearly describe gender disparities within government institutions with regard to women in senior leadership roles. lubis, in addressing the phenomenon of lack of women in leadership roles in education sector in indonesia argues that: …the gender gap in the field of education and politics has had a greater effect on the leadership role of women in society than perhaps any other factors. to a great degree, gender gap hinders expanded roles of leadership and restricts the empowerment of women in leading and participating in organizations (2002, p. 43). the above quotation suggests that the lack of leadership roles for women is the result of gender disparity existing in society which is then reflected in women’s opportunity in the public domain. connell argues that “around the world and in most spheres of public sector activity, women remain seriously underrepresented in positions of political and administrative authority” (connel, 2006, p. 837). as mentioned earlier, in the indonesian political arena, which can be regarded as a representation of women’s actualization and involvement in public sphere, a considerable gender gap still exists in the composition of members of the house of people representative (dpr) which, according to lubis, affects women’s political bargaining when it comes to the gender sensitive policy decision-making process. in a similar vein, robinson suggests that “indonesian women legislators and activists have identified the increasing representation of women in the national and provincial legislatures as an important goal, both for its symbolic value and because they feel it gives women an opportunity to influence government policies that impact them” (robinson, 2009, p. 158). women’s right advocates in indonesia, who have been working towards increasing women’s political representation since the first safrul muluk englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 183 general election was held in 1955, understand “the necessity of increasing women’s participation in development programmes to realize the officially sanctioned goal of gender equity (kemitrasejajaran)” (robinson, 2009, p. 158). to be able to influence gender sensitive development policies and to push agenda that are close to women is important to increase women’s political participation. with limited voices in determining decision-making in the formulation of development policies, it is unlikely the issues that are important to women will get appropriate attention and resources. in the efforts to improve women’s representation in both political and public realms, in the run-up to the 2004 general election, the government adopted a new measure by instigating that political parties must have a 30 per cent seat allocation for women as their candidates. despite the varying degree of successful implementations within political parties: “the discourse about the need for increased political participation of women reached a new level of prominence” (wayong, 2007, p. 48). this measure was seen as a positive and promising step in closing the gap between male and female parliamentarians. whether this affirmative action will lead to an increase, the number of women assuming senior leadership roles in the public domain in indonesia remains to be seen. female leadership in higher education institution the increase in women’s enrolment rates in higher education in indonesia has also improved women’s status and their opportunity to contribute in the public domain. this improvement indicates a shift in society with regard to the women’s value and contribution. it shows the changing cultural values concerning women. this achievement is critical in bringing about a new wave of educated young women who will later form work forces in indonesia. education represents an important life opportunity for women and men, and a vital social and economic resource for societies (subrahmanian, 2005), p. 401). there is no doubt that “rising levels of female education, along with increasing urbanization, have made for rising levels of female participation in the kinds of work that takes them outside of households” (jones, 2009, p. 15). “gender parity indicators can signal whether social forces maybe shifting to allow greater access of girls to schooling, enabling them to catch women and leadership in islamic higher education in indonesia 184 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 up with boys in an important dimension of life opportunity” (subrahmanian, 2005, p. 402). the issue of women and leadership in higher education in indonesia is complicated. when it comes to gender inequality in universities, limited research on women and leadership in the context of indonesian higher education has been conducted, making it difficult to provide comprehensive evidence on the issue. what makes it worse, is that “the areas of gender, higher education, and development have rarely intersected, leading to silence in terms of policy, literature, and research” (morley, 2005, p. 2009). in a similar tone, toma’s, lavie, duran, & guillamon argue that: in the case of educational organisations, gender studies have experienced considerably less development and only in the last decade have we seen a certain systematization in the analysis of relationships between gender, power and organisational culture. (2010, p. 487). it has been argued that organisational culture within the higher education sector is highly gendered. indication of men’s superiority in heis is emblematic of patriarchal culture characters, as it is in many other public institutions in indonesia. similarly, ramsay and parker assert that “the history of organisation and administration clearly indicates that men not women were the key actors in the shaping of organisational structures” (ramsay, k., & parker, m, p. 260). as such, in addition to resistance towards gender equality which is considered culturally offensive in the context of public organisations in indonesia, changes in attitude, if any, towards gender relations are limited, as officials themselves have not fully understood the competitive advantage gender equality has on an organisation’s effectiveness and productivity. despite the increase in the number of women studying at higher education level, this has not always been accompanied by a change in the qualitative dimensions of the outcomes of education (gunawardena, c., rasanayagam, y., leitan, t., bulumulle, k., & dort, a.v, 2006). not many women occupy senior leadership roles safrul muluk englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 185 in higher education indonesia. the same trend can be observed at state islamic university ar-raniry, banda aceh. table 3. female lecturers at five faculties based on their sex from 1966 – 2006 at iain ar-raniry faculty 1966 1976 1986 1996 2006 male female male female male female male female male female islamic law 4 0 19 2 21 1 31 5 46 6 islamic education 5 1 32 3 36 4 61 18 79 29 islamic communication 0 0 12 0 18 1 23 1 29 7 islamic theology 4 0 14 0 21 1 27 5 32 6 islamic arts 0 0 0 0 0 0 13 2 22 9 total 13 1 77 5 96 7 155 31 208 57 total f + m 14 82 103 186 265 adopted from buku statistik iain ar-raniry 1996-2006. table 4. the number of lecturers based on faculty and gender at iain ar-raniry in 2011. no work unit male female total 1 islamic law faculty 55 6 61 2 islamic education faculty 84 33 117 3 islamic theology faculty 33 6 39 4 islamic communication faculty 38 9 47 5 islamic arts faculty 22 11 33 total 232 65 297 adopted from iain ar-raniry website (http://www.ar-raniry.ac.id/?content= datadosen, accessed on 12/10/12) the above tables clearly indicate the disparity between male and female academics in the five faculties at iain ar-raniry from 1966 to 2006. the fact that female academics only make up of 21.5 per cent of the total lecturers in five faculties at iain ar-raniry in 2006 provides a clear indication of the degree of male dominawomen and leadership in islamic higher education in indonesia 186 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 tion in the composition of academics at the university. since 2006, there was a slight increase in the percentage of female academics at iain ar-raniry, from 21.50 % to 21, 88% in 2011. table 5. the number of administrative staff based on work unit and gender at iain ar-raniry in 2011. no work unit male female total 1 bureau academic and finance 92 29 121 2 islamic law faculty 15 8 23 3 islamic education faculty 24 24 48 4 islamic theology faculty 14 7 21 5 islamic communication faculty 13 7 20 6 islamic arts faculty 10 7 17 total 168 82 250 adopted from: iain ar-raniry website (http://www.ar-raniry.ac.id/?content=datastaff, accessed on 12/10/12) the above table shows the gap between male and female administrative staff and lecturers at iain ar-raniry. female administrative staffs make up only 32.8 per cent of the total staff. undoubtedly, this situation indicates that iain ar-raniry is still a male dominated organisation. it confirms that the culture of public organisations, in this case islamic higher education, in indonesia is very much influenced by values of patriarchal cultures. not surprisingly, the culture of public organisations in indonesia, including in the higher education sector, has privileged men over women. conclusion despite increasing number of women with advance degree of academic qualification, not many of them manage to assume senior leadership roles in public sector, including in higher education. the shift in cultural perception of women’s status has not materialized in the way public organizations perceive women’s contribution. when it comes to organisational culture within the higher education sector, many have argued that it is highly gendered. all these lead to the limited opportunity for women to move up the ladder of leadership. safrul muluk englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 187 in the context of aceh, further investigation on how islamic values institutionalized in the form of islamic law affects the way people perceive women’s potential in relation to assuming leadership roles. this is intriguing because islam plays a very important part in the lives of acenese. women and leadership in islamic higher education in indonesia 188 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 references acker, j. 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(2011). recent developments in higher education in indonesia: issues and challenges. in s. armstrong & b. chapman (eds.), financing higher education and economic development in east asia. canberra: anu e press. englisia november 2018 vol. 6, no. 1, 52-63 i love teaching: the reflective stories of english teachers at achieving shools in banda aceh khairil razali universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia khairilrazali1976@gmail.com universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia teuku.zulfikar@ar-raniry.ac.id manuscript received november 26, 2018, revised january 02, 2019, first published january 12, 2019, and available online january 12, 2019. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.22373/ej.v6i1.3849 abstract the study explored the teachers teaching strategies in six high achieving schools in banda aceh. one main purpose of the study was to explore particular strategies teachers use in conducting teaching effectively. the study was approached using the qualitative classroom research. the settings of the study were six high achieving secondary schools in banda aceh. the data of the study were collected through indepth semi-structured interview, observation and also focus group discussion. the data which was analysed using coding techniques reveals that most teachers interviewed suggested that they feel teaching at schools was at ease, and this due to mostly their extensive teaching experiences, trainings and students’ learning passion. keywords: learners-centred instructions; teaching strategies; achieving schools. introduction effective teaching is the first and the foremost prerequisite for ‘good’ learning to take place. teachers as one of the main actors for effective learning to occur are required to have many types of education-related competent. in fact, the indonesian teacher and lecturer law mandates that teacher s should acquire personal, professional, pedagogical and also social competent. having gained these teuku zulfikar khairil razali & teuku zulfikar englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 53 competences, teachers are believed to have been well prepared to engage in effective teaching. these competences therefore are important for effective teaching to occur. in regard with pedagogical competent, teachers should acquire general content knowledge and also pedagogical content knowledge. the content knowledge is also known as subject matter knowledge. this refers to teachers’ ability to gain sufficient knowledge on subject they are teaching. for instance, an efl teacher should acquire knowledge of english before he/she could actually engage in language instruction. while pedagogical content knowledge refers to teachers’ ability in transferring knowledge to students. as qualified teachers are important for successful leaning, educational institutions should guarantee that their teachers should be qualified enough to teach effectively and efficiently. there are many factors leading to effective teaching; it could be personal, social, cultural and also economic aspects. teachers’ qualification, such as their level of academic status, in-service training, students’ readiness to learn, and school culture are some of important factors that help produce quality teaching. these factors are interrelated with each other, and are seen to vital for educational development. improving academic qualification is a must academic journey that all teachers should pursue. this is because the higher academic qualification is the better teachers’ professional competent will be. for example, teachers who hold the b, ed are encouraged to pursue their m. ed. in addition, in-service training available to teachers gives opportunities to teachers to improve their professional, pedagogical, social and also personal competence. apart from these two important factor leading to effective teaching, social environment and social capital shape teachers’ ways of classroom practices; students’ willingness to learn and the nature of classroom they are in influence their teaching instructional process (louws, meirink, van veen, & van driel (2017) all countries and societies bring with them certain cultural values and those values are also brought into school settings. for instance, cultural values exercised in indonesian mainstream societies outside school building are for sure exercised i love teaching: the reflective stories of english teachers at achieving shools in banda aceh 54 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 within the indonesian school buildings. having brought into school building, these values also influence instructional process. the indonesian school cultures the indonesian school cultures seem to have been influenced by the culture of the indonesian society. research by hofstede (2014) suggests that the indonesian cultural values are seen as big power distance. it means that the elders are still respected as such, in which youger people choose to listen and abide by their elders’ comments (zulfikar, 2013). this in turns, shape certain ways of instructional process in indonesian schools. some scholars argue that tteacher-centred classroom instruction is deeply embedded in the indonesian school settings; this type of instruction is in fact, seen as an important part in the indonesian school culture (azra, 2002; bjork, 2005; buchori, 2001). there is a consensus that such an instruction method provides little room for students to be creative and expressive (kohl, 1994; shor, 1992; wolk, 1998). teacher-centred classroom instruction is considered to be lessdemocratic because it fails to take into account students’ learning dynamics and ignores students’ contributions in the classroom (wolk, 1998). this creates classroom passiveness, in which some students choose not to learn, or as kohl’s term ‘the not want learning’. in addition to teacher-centred instruction, rote learning is still common in indonesian schools (bjork, 2005). there is no suggestion that rote learning should be totally avoided in the indonesian context because this type of instruction has some advantages for students as well; for example, rote learning of historical dates is in fact necessary as a part of learning. however, excessive use of rote learning means there is less emphasis on more student-centred aspects of learning, such as the critical analysis of history itself. rote learning plays a large part in indonesian schools because it is believed to be able to transfer knowledge to students through memorisation. with rote learning, students are judged to be successful when they are able to memorise lessons or topics within their subjects. even though education practitioners in indonesia criticise the use of excessive rote learning and attempt to eliminate it (azra, 2002), such a method prevails. khairil razali & teuku zulfikar englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 55 however, the indonesian education practitioners argue that there are ways to improve teaching qualities in the indonesian schools, one of which is through deconstructing the teacher-centered instruction to learner-centred. the latter recognises and appreciates students’ presence in the classroom. in learner-centred teaching environments, students come to recognise their own potential talents. teachers adopting a learner-centred teaching style not only understand their subject matter but also position themselves as learners so they can be more understanding of students’ social background (mccombs & miller, 2007). the most important of all is that, according to shor (1992), learner-centred classes allow the emergence of democratic dialogue. such a dialogue is significant in the attempt to create a healthy learning environment because it gives students the space to voice their understanding or point of view on issues. shared authority in the classroom will allow critical dialogue to emerge. we share understanding of good learning with prominent figures in the field of education, such as john dewey, ira shor, paulo freire and other important figures in the field who believe that effective learning occurs through learner-centred instruction. we refer to zulfikar’s (2009) article in which he argues that indonesian teachers are not willing to share classroom authority, while the willingness to share authority is a prerequisite for learner-centered instruction. furthermore, in zulfikar (2013), we understand that it is difficult to instill progressive ideas to students who hold the doctrine that challenging elders are not appropriate. in his recent article ‘indonesian education: its efforts for progressive learning environment’, zulfikar (2014), argues that teachers and parents should shift their outlook on education. he emphasizes in the article that teachers should understand principles of learnercentered approach for its effective implementation. it has been understood from the theoretical framework that there are challenges and also complexities in the implementation of learner-centered instruction in aceh, indonesia. however, finn (1999) argues that different schools cultures shape different ways of instruction. as discussed in finn (1999), jean anyon conducted research in five different public schools in the usa; an elite school, an affluent professional school, a middle class school, and two working class schools. i love teaching: the reflective stories of english teachers at achieving shools in banda aceh 56 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 anyon’s findings suggest that teachers’ ways of teaching and students’ ways of learning are different in schools mentioned above. for example, in the elite and the affluent professional schools, students are actively engaging in the learning process, and most of the time, teachers play facilitator roles where they facilitate learning through posing some issues to be discussed by students, while in the middle and working class schools, students tend to be passive and teachers are trapped into implementing teacher-centred instruction. in referring to these findings, we tend to believe that instructional process in high and low achieving schools are different, and that leads us to explore how high achieving schools in aceh, especially in the city of banda aceh approach classroom instruction; do teachers implement learner-centred instruction? if they do, are there any particular strategies these teachers apply in the implementation of the learnercentred instruction? this prospective research will learn successful stories of effective secondary school teachers in their implementation of learner-centered instruction. our main concern in this research is to understand how teachers in high achieving schools in aceh effectively implement learner-centered instruction. it is also our intellectual curiosity to explore challenges that these teachers face in encouraging learning participations of their students, and how they solve these challenges. this research also explores high achieving schools’ ways of inviting student parents and communities to engage in improving schools. to uncover all these issues, we use qualitative classroom research. as we also explore communities’ perceptions on their roles in schools within their localities, we also use a small scale ethnographic research, in which i community leaders are interviewed and engage in their active participation at schools. understanding classroom practices this study is conducted through a qualitative classroom research. in this context, classroom is defined as wide ranges of learning contexts, in which teacherslearners and learners-learners interact in the context of learning. classroom is then referred to classes where instruction takes place, ‘multi-media lab, distance learning khairil razali & teuku zulfikar englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 57 situations, one-to-one tutoring’ (brown & rodgers, 2002, p. 79) and other places within a particular school building where learning process is feasible. participants and research settings the study is conducted at 6 high achieving schools in banda aceh: ma_m; sm_fh; sm_mb; sm_t; sm_ls; and sm_fb (all pseudonym). these schools are seen as high achieving secondary schools in banda aceh. in each school three teachers were invited to become participants; a total of 12 teachers were interviewed and also observed during their classroom practices. in addition, a coordinator of curriculum from each school is also invited to take part in the study. the selected participants are expected to represent gender, in which male and female teachers are recruited. this is important because different gender produces different perceptions and experience. in fact, the selection was simply purposive at targeted schools of research. however, it was highly estimated that samples are able to enlighten important information on research issues. the participants will be initialised as p1_m; p2_m, which refer to teachers from ma-m, while p1_fh and p2_fh refer to sm_fh, other participants follow this similar categorization. observation most of the data for this research were obtained at high achieving secondary schools, and most of the time, fieldwork was conducted in classrooms during instruction, especially for observation data we basically observed teachers’ classroom practices; mainly by looking at their ways of distributing the wealth in the classroom-providing equal opportunities to students to engage in learning activities. we also observed teachers’ ways of asking students’ responses as well as responding to students’ inquiries. basically, we are looking at democratic instructional process in the classroom. the observations were carried out in participative way in order to maintain the accuracy and richness of data. having participative observations also brought qualified understanding of the topics problems of the study. furthermore, we observed classrooms during the teaching process as the purposes of understanding teachers’ teaching methods, strategies, interaction, and students performances. by i love teaching: the reflective stories of english teachers at achieving shools in banda aceh 58 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 this, it would be able to perceive and portrait the relation between teachers and students. in-depth interview in addition to observation, we also used in-depth interviews to generate indepth data from teachers in those six schools and curriculum coordinators respectively. in addition, we were accustomed to school environment through an ethnographic study, in which we participate in the community and interviews with some community leaders, our observation of teaching practices, and interviews of the teachers. the main purpose of the step was to explore and understand perspectives of teachers on their challenges, experiences and lessons learned during their duty at schools. by offering questions on their teaching performance, we expect to learn how hard or easy the teaching reflects. it is important to sit and interact through the one on one interviews. reflective stories of efl teachers our fieldwork generated important findings on teaching classroom of efl teachers in high achieving school in banda aceh. most of them showed joyful and are passionate enough of teaching career. during the observation and interview, we at consistently observed that they were happy and satisfied for their assignment to become teachers in those prominent schools in banda aceh . as one of them suggest: i feel blessed to be assigned in this prominent school. i can carry out my teaching well, since the majority of my students are very passionate in their learning. these students are very much active and participative during instruction, and i believe being active learning is the first and prerequisite for effective learning (p1_m) the majority of participants expressed how thankful they are being teachers in those outstanding school although they see that it is more challenging being part of achieving schools. khairil razali & teuku zulfikar englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 59 it is indeed a good to be at these good school, but i need to work harder and it is more challenging i believe compared to if i teach in low achieving schools (p2_t) these teachers argue that being in outstanding school demands lots of professionalism, totality, focus, and extra works. however, these teachers seem to enjoy and in fact thankful being part of high achieving schools. effective classroom instruction the research found that most teachers have been well-qualified to teach. they are experienced and as well as expert teachers. this allows them to have high level of pedagogical content knowledge.. the finding reveals that these participants have gained extensive teaching experience; they have been teaching over 10 years. in addition, we found that a large number of our participants had been tenured in various kinds of schools, low and high achieving school alike prior to their appointment at current schools. p2_mb for example stated: i was well selected and assigned to teach at several achieving schools under the authorisation of provincial education department. before i actually take this position, i have been experiencing teaching in many different school, and being in many different schools allow me to grasp extensive knowledge both on subject matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge this suggests that experience shape one’s teaching attitudes. element was considered important to picture their deployment at schools. teachers elaborated that”. the department supervises the high schools across the aceh province, and the teachers admit that this is beneficial in achieving schools’ learning programs. teachers added that “achieving schools achieve priorities and focuses of the department” (p1_lb). therefore, there are a number of positive impacts enjoyed by teachers at high achieving schools. on the spotlight of the authority the interview also reveals that being at these prominent schools benefit them in some respects. these schools will attract the department of education in the provincial level. for that reason alone, the teachers are more exposed toward professional development related programs. these teachers for example come across many opportunities for professional development. in fact, because of the i love teaching: the reflective stories of english teachers at achieving shools in banda aceh 60 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 school status, the teachers oftentimes join national program representing the province of aceh. one of these teachers stated: i find it advantageous to be in one of those high achieving school in banda aceh. for example, i am exposed to many enrichment program conducted by department of education in the provincial level or in the national level. my participation in professional development related program for sure will benefit me a lot (p1_fb). most teachers have been trained and are skilful due to their experience before being assigned at achieving schools. training highly influenced teachers’ successes in maintaining their teaching achievement at the schools. teachers admitted that they were fully trained, so it was important for them to appear professional at schools. in spite of this benefit, some of them also argue that being in these high achieving schools is also a burden for them. they should always meet the expectation of the government. they are always under the spotlight of the authority as they should set example to teachers in different schools. one of them said that “having fully and strict supervision from the authority sometime creates a feeling of discomfort; the authority seems to shadow my performance” (p2_t). this assertion shows that in spite of some benefit gained being at those good school, some discomforts are also revealed. students’ readiness to learn our interview and observation show important findings. as we observed, we found that these schools are full of smart students. as smart students by nature, they are active and participative students. these students are good at learning independently, in which they are creative in their learning. these qualities give so much benefit for schools that they are capable of making their own learning. p2_fh stated, “one of the advantages being in the public school is students’ quality, who are considered as best or excellent”. the fact that students would learn best eases teachers in many respects, such as in preparing and delivering instructional activities. it has been a common knowledge that admission to these high achieving schools is not easy. student should follow certain strict procedure. in fact, some private high achieving schools khairil razali & teuku zulfikar englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 61 are very strict in their admission requirement. as the result, they are able to give admission to some smartest students in aceh. one teacher, for example stated: ”the students’ recruitment was strict; they find the the best candidates, and they almost always accept highly qualified students” (p2_mb), as a result of high qualified students, teachers find very helpful in their attempt to design teaching materials and also strategies. it is believed that students’ quality shapes teachers’ strategies in instructional process seems very true. some teachers explain that “we do not find any serious problems during teaching, students may adopt well and easy in teaching activities” (p2_t). healthy instructional atmosphere another important finding of this research was the fact that teachers are able to create healthy interaction between students and teachers and also students and students. our observation shows a high level of interaction taking place during the instructional process within classroom in these high achieving schools. in our interviews with teachers, they elaborated that one of the important factors for this healthy interaction is the nature of students’ ability to learn well. one participant for example stated that “students are mostly gifted, therefore, teachers find it easy in building mutual teaching relationship” (p2_mb). furthermore, other participant also stated that “the advance of students openness and in attitudes open spaces for cooperative and interactive ways of teaching learning at schools” (p1_t). it was revealed that some teachers deliberately explained how their students respect teachers and other classmates in any exchanges or interactions. conclusion referring back to the objective, the research attempted to understand how teachers in high achieving schools in banda aceh effectively implement learnercentered instruction. the study found that teachers experience, strategies and relationship in learning activities are important facts found in these high achieving school. i love teaching: the reflective stories of english teachers at achieving shools in banda aceh 62 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 references azra, a (2002). paradigma baru pendidikan nasional: rekonstruksi dan demokrasi. jakarta: kompas. bjork, c (2005). indonesian education: teachers, schools, and central bureaucracy. new york and london: routledge. brown, j. d., and rodgers, t. s. 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(2006). family education and culture in indonesia: the complex, intermingled, and dynamic phenomena. paper presented at the international conference on cross-cultural perspectives on family education in southeast asian countries, taiwan. wolk, s (1998). a democratic classroom. portsmouth: heinemann zulfikar, t (2014). indonesian education: its attempt to implement progressive learning environment. edited book, will be published by ijpe. khairil razali & teuku zulfikar englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 63 zulfikar, t. (2009). the making of indonesian education: an overview on empowering indonesian teachers. journal of indonesian social science and humanities 2(1), 13-36 zulfikar, t. (2013). looking from within: the progressive education in indonesia. international journal of progressive education, 9(3), 124-136. zulfikar, t. (2014). indonesian education: its effort for progressive learning environment. handbook of progressive education (hope)-published by international journal of progressive education: new york. inased englisia may 2019 vol. 6, no. 2, 64-74 improving students’ listening comprehension by teaching connected speech siti musfirah universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia sitimusfirah1996@gmail.com khairil razali universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia khairilrazali1976@gmail.com yuliar masna universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia yuliarmasna@gmail.com manuscript received march 21, 2019, revised march 25, 2019, first published may 31, 2019, and available online june 19, 2019. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.22373/ej.v6i2.4565 abstract this present research was conducted in order to find out the improvement in students’ listening comprehension and to figure out whether students’ interest in listening class increases after being taught the aspects of connected speech. this research used a quantitative method with pre-experimental design, namely pre-test post-test involving only the experiment group. the population of this research was all the students of the eleventh-grade who are studying at mas darul ihsan which amount to 184 students. in addition, the sample of this research was 30 students of class xi f that was chosen using purposive sampling. moreover, this research used pre-test and post-test as well as questionnaires as data collection instruments. the research found that teaching connected speech in the listening classroom improved students’ listening comprehension. this was indicated by the comparison of t-score which is higher than t-table, (3.61 > 2.04). therefore, the alternative hypothesis (ha) was accepted and the null hypothesis (ho) was rejected. furthermore, the result of students’ response sheets indicated that students have positive perception toward the teaching connected speech and it can increase their interest in learning listening. keywords: listening; connected speech; improve; comprehension http://dx.doi.org/10.22373/ej.v6i2.4565 siti musfirah, khairil razali, & yuliar masna englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 65 introduction due to the fact that listening is a receptive skill, it is considered unimportant for many courses and most of the teachers do not pay attention to this skill since it is assumed easier than other skills (gilakjani & sabouri, 2016). consequently, many students have a variety of problems in listening comprehension. a number of researches carried out on students’ obstacles in listening (e.g., campbell, meinardi, richardson, & macdonnell, 2007; ahmadian & matour, 2014) have pointed out that the obstacles faced by english as a foreign language (efl) learners in listening are understanding and recognizing the words, understanding rapid speech and typical native speaker inclines to be fast in delivering speech including connected speech features like elision, assimilation, weak form, construction, and intrusion. particularly, it is hard to understand what the speakers said because they will connect one word/phrase to another in which the sounds will disappear or be changed by the surrounding sounds and sometimes they speak in chunks. based on the issue mentioned above, students should bear in mind that the typical native english speaker usually tends to speak quickly and connects one word to another. moreover, in the use of real language, the sentences contain very complicated procedures that produce considerable phonological changes which are called the aspects of connected speech. those aspects are such as contraction, intrusion, elision, assimilation, and weak forms (ur, 1984). unfortunately, the aspects of connected speech are not really familiar to students since they were never taught about it by the teacher. therefore, it is important to introduce and teach connected speech or reduced forms to the english as a foreign language (efl) learners. it is because many studies showed that teaching connected speech can help students understand the speech with fast delivery (e.g., brown & hilferty, 2006; celce-murcia, brinton & goodwin, 1996; matsuzawa, 2006) as cited in ashtiani and zafarghandi, 2015). theoretical background listening comprehension according to floyed (1985, as cited in bozorgian, 2012, p. 658) listening is “a process entailing hearing, attending to, understanding, evaluating and improving students’ listening comprehension by teaching connected speech 66 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 responding to the spoken message”. in addition, listening requires a lot of concentration in order to gain information from the speaker. while the listener needs a deep understanding to comprehend the meaning of the information conveyed by the speaker. similarly, purdy (1997, as cited in gilakjani and sabouri, 2016) states listening is the process of receiving what the speaker says, creating the meaning of what the listeners hear, discussing and answering to spoken or nonverbal messages. it means that someone should listen carefully to get the information of what is being spoken and responding to the oral message. moreover, the main purpose of listening is not only receiving or getting the information from the speaker but also to understand the meaning of what is conveyed by the speaker to the listeners. listening comprehension is where the listeners try to build a meaning of the information that they had listened from the listening source (goss, 1982, as cited in gilakjani & sabouri, 2016). this statement is supported also by brown and yule (1997, as cited in rahayuningsih, 2010) that the activity of paying attention and trying to obtain the meaning of something that we hear is called listening. after noticing some definitions above, it can be concluded that listening comprehension is the activity to interpret the meaning of the spoken message in order to get the information from the speaker. then, the listener gives the feedback or response to the speaker. connected speech connected speech “consists of a flow of sound which are modified by a system of simplifications through which phonemes are connected, grouped and modified” (underhill, 2005, p. 58). the simplification is the process that unconsciously happens for the first language speaker (native speaker) and most of them are often unaware of this process as they practice it. in addition, english native speakers specifically do not choose and pick their words but connect them together in the sound stream. this allows them to speak more rapidly and fluently. brown and kondo-brown (2006, as cited in ahmadian & matour, 2014, p. 229) also mention that connected speech is formed of the real spoken english that happens unconsciously to native in all level of speech from ordinary level to even very formal siti musfirah, khairil razali, & yuliar masna englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 67 level. a natural native speaker's speech which occurs with mostly rapid and continuous with frequent linking, sound changes, or a reduction in word boundaries, which can cause trouble when non-native speakers listen to it. thus, from all definitions that have been mentioned above, it can be concluded that connected speech is a process of a word that is concatenated with other words in one breath. it occurs unconsciously to a native speaker and they are often unaware of these processes as they use it whether it is in the formal context or even informal context, fast or slow. methodology research design the researcher used a quantitative research design in order to find the data and the results of the tests in which the researcher has done in the field. the design of this research was pre-experimental research design, namely the one group pretest-posttest model design. the procedure design of pre-experimental research was that the sample was given the pre-test at the beginning of the meeting and posttest at the end of the meeting. in short, the success of the treatment was coursed after comparing the pre-test to the post-test result. then, the researcher distributed the questionnaires after giving the post-test in order to get the additional information to fulfill the research. participants and setting this research was conducted on students of the eleventh-grade who study at private islamic senior high school (mas) darul ihsan. it is because darul ihsan is a boarding school providing their students with listening and speaking classroom which differs from other schools that only have an english classroom in general. moreover, the sample of this research was 30 students of class xi.f that was chosen purposively since the class had a lot of problems in listening classroom, as stated by an english teacher of darul ihsan. data collection and procedure there were some techniques of data collection used in this research: improving students’ listening comprehension by teaching connected speech 68 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 a. experimental teaching the researcher conducted experimental teaching before applying posttest for fourth meeting. in the first meeting, the students were given the pre-test before the treatment in order to measure their understanding of listening comprehension. in the second and third meeting, the researcher did the treatment in which the researcher taught the students about connected speech aspects and gave them some exercises. in the last meeting, the researcher gave them the post-test in order to see their improvement in listening comprehension after being taught connected speech. at the end of the class, the questionnaires were distributed. b. tests tests in this research were given to see the extent of their success in listening comprehension before and after the treatment. the tests included two phases; the test of listening comprehension and dictation test. both of the tests consisted of 10 questions for each comprehension and dictation test that would be used in pre-test and post-test. in the dictation test, the students were asked to listen to audio and asked to fill in the blank with what they heard. furthermore, the instrument used to test students’ comprehension and dictation test was extracted from developing tactics for listening book 3rd edition by jack c. richards (2010) published by oxford university press. c. questionnaires the researcher distributed the questionnaires in order to get the additional information from students about connected speech to see whether students’ interest in listening increases after being taught connected speech. the questionnaires were distributed after both experimental teaching and test completed. the questionnaires of this research consisted of 7 close-ended questions. results the following tables show results of the pre-test and post-test: siti musfirah, khairil razali, & yuliar masna englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 69 result of the pre-test table 1 the frequency distribution of students’ pre-test score no students’ score 𝑓1 x1 x1-x (x1x) 2 𝑓1 (x1x) 2 1 23-30 10 26.5 -13.03 169.78 1697.81 2 31-38 3 34.5 -5.03 25.30 75.90 3 39-46 5 42.5 2.97 8.82 44.10 4 47-54 3 50.5 10.97 120.34 361.02 5 55-62 5 58.5 18.97 359.86 1799.30 6 63-70 4 66.5 26.97 727.38 2909.52 total score 30 279 6887.67 after calculating the mean of the pre-test, it showed that the mean score of the pre-test was 39.53. then the researcher used a standard deviation to calculate how individual measurements should be expected to deviate from the mean on average. it can be found that the standard deviation of the pre-test was 15.41. result of the post-test table 2 the frequency distribution of students’ post-test score no students' score 𝑓1 x1 x1-x (x1x) 2 𝑓1 (x1x) 2 1 32-40 3 36 -17.9 320.41 961.23 2 41-49 7 45 -8.9 79.21 554.47 3 50-58 8 54 0.1 0.01 0.08 4 59-67 4 63 9.1 82.81 331.24 5 68-76 2 72 18.1 327.61 655.22 6 77-85 6 81 27.1 734.41 4406.46 total score 30 351 6908.70 after calculating the mean of the post-test, it showed that the mean score of the post-test was 53.90. then the researcher used a standard deviation to calculate how individual measurements should be expected to deviate from the mean on average. it can be found that the standard deviation of the post-test was 15.43. improving students’ listening comprehension by teaching connected speech 70 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 t-score calculation t-score was used in order to find out the significant differences between pretest and post-test. t – score = 53.90−39.53 �(238.23 30 ) + (237.50 30 ) t – score = 14,37 √7.94 + 7.91 t – score = 14.37 √15.85 t – score = 14.37 3.98 = 3.61 hypotheses testing the researcher used the result of the t-score analysis in testing the hypotheses. based on the t-table at the level of significance α 0.05 (5%), according to bungin (2005, p. 185) says that to measure the result of the hypothesis, it can be used this criteria; if t-test > t-table, it means that the alternative hypothesis (ha) is accepted and null hypothesis (ho) is rejected. after t-score examined the hypothesis, the result of t-score was 3.61. therefore, the next step was to interpret the t-score by determining the degree of freedom (df). df = n-1 = 30-1 = 29. as the result, the researcher compared tscore to significant t-table with df 29 with value tt.sv5%= 2.04 and tt.sv1%= 2.76 . so, t-score was bigger than t-table. 2.04 < 3.61 > 2.76 furthermore, in referring to the criteria above, because of t-score was higher than t-table, it could be concluded that the alternative hypothesis (ha) was accepted and the null hypothesis (ho) was rejected. the results of the questionnaires table 3 the results of questionnaires (close-ended questions) no statement frequency (f) percentage (%) sa a d sds sa a d sds (4) (3) (2) (1) (4) (3) (2) (1) 1. i like connected speech that is used by the teacher in learning listening 15 15 50 50 siti musfirah, khairil razali, & yuliar masna englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 71 2. i am excited in learning listening by using a connected speech 17 12 1 56.7 40 3.3 3. learning listening with connected speech is not boring 7 23 23.3 76.7 4. learning listening with connected speech makes the learning atmosphere active and enjoyable 11 19 36.7 63.3 5. i feel connected speech can help me overcome various problems in listening 15 15 50 50 6. the use of connected speech is very influential and helps me in understanding various conversations in english 16 12 2 53.3 40 6.7 7. i enjoy learning listening right after i studied connected speech 14 15 1 46.7 50 3.3 total 95 111 4 317 370 13.3 equation degree 13.6 15.86 0.571 45.2 52.9 1.9 total % 98.1 % 1.9 % from the table above, it was found that the percentage of the positive answers (strongly agree and agree) were 98.1%, while in the negative answers (disagree and strongly disagree) were 1.9%, it means that the positive answers were higher than the negative answers. discussion there are two points of discussion in this study to answer the research questions. firstly, it finds out the students’ improvement in listening comprehension after connected speech being taught to them. based on the result shown, the comparison between the mean score of the pre-test and the post-test was different; 39.53 < 53.90. moreover, the t-score also showed that there was a significant improvement of students’ listening comprehension score after being taught connected speech. as it was proven by the result of hypotheses testing: t-test > ttable or 3.61 > 2.04. it means the result of this research was higher than t-table that caused the ho to be rejected and ha to be accepted. similarly, the research that was conducted by mahmood et al. (2012) found that the teaching connected speech aspects in listening improved students’ listening comprehension. this was improving students’ listening comprehension by teaching connected speech 72 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 also proven by the mean score of the experimental group which was 32.75 and control group which was 25.85. in addition, other research (e.g. baghrahi et al., 2014; khaghaninezhad and jafarzadeh, 2014) also confirmed that teaching connected speech aspects significantly raised the students’ awareness of those aspects in listening. unfortunately, although teaching connected speech significantly improved students’ listening comprehension but most of their scores were still under the school’s minimum criteria (kkm). this might be due to several external factors during the process of data collection, such as getting ill, having dormitory picket, or going home that caused the students unable to attend the classroom during the treatment phases so they missed the lesson. secondly, it was figured out that the students’ interest in listening increased after being taught connected speech. based on the questionnaires, the students have had a positive view towards teaching connected speech that could increase their interest in learning listening. as seen in table 3, the percentage of their positive answers were 98.1%, while in the negative answers were only 1.9%. the result was also in line with mahmood, et al. (2012) and bagharni et al. (2014) who also stated that the students were more motivated, confident and participative in learning english especially in listening course after connected speech aspects being taught to them. conclusion in conclusion, teaching connected speech in the listening classroom helped the students to solve their problems in listening comprehension and it was effective in improving their listening ability as shown in the students’ mean scores in both pre and post-tests. the mean score of pre-test was 39.53 and the mean score of posttest was 53.90. moreover, the t-score revealed that the score was higher than t-table (3.61 > 2.04) and thus, ha was accepted. in addition, the students’ interest in learning listening also increased after being taught the aspects of connected speech as the majority (98.1%) of the students had positive perceptions and while only 1.9% of them were negative. siti musfirah, khairil razali, & yuliar masna englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 73 references ahmadian, m., & matour, r. 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(1984). teaching listening comprehension. cambridge, ny: cambridge university press. englisia may 2019 vol. 6, no. 2, 102-116 students’ perception toward the effectiveness of teaching english at universitas teuku umar endah anisa rahma universitas teuku umar, meulaboh, indonesia endahanisarahma@utu.ac.id rusma setiyana universitas teuku umar, meulaboh, indonesia rusmasetiyana@utu.ac.id manuscript received august 02, 2018, revised december 10, 2018, first published may 31, 2019, and available online june 19, 2019. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.22373/ej.v6i2.3289 abstract this paper aims to investigate the students’ perception about the effectiveness of teaching english at universitas teuku umar from non-english major students. data were collected from the students of six faculties: economics, social and political science, fisheries and marine science, engineering, and agriculture. a number of 120 participants were selected from each faculty by using the random sampling technique. the instruments used included questionnaire and interview guide. the data were analyzed qualitatively following four effective learning criteria; material, learning method, learning motivation, and classroom management. the results showed that (1) some students were still disstatisfied with the materials given since they were hard, (2) the teaching methods used did not stimulate the students to learn english well, (3) some students did not like learning english because they could not speak like native speakers, and (4) the lecturers paid little attention towards the students’ questions and rarely did they give rewards to their students such as praising for students’ achievement. further, the students’ obstacles in learning english included lack of vocabulary, problem in pronunciation, and grammar difficulty. keywords: effective teaching; teaching english; non-english major http://dx.doi.org/10.22373/ej.v6i2.3289 endah anisa rahma & rusma setiyana englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 103 introduction english courses for the students of non-english majors are called english for specific purpose (esp). in general, esp consists of english for academic purpose (eap), with the purpose of learning english for academic needs, and english for occupational purpose (eop), with the purpose of learning english for work needs (putri, 2010). esp is a compulsory subject at the universities in indonesia in every department. the english course at some universities, such as at universitas teuku umar (teuku umar university), basically directs students in dealing with the demands of the working world. hutchinson and waters (1987) as cited by ahmed (2014, p. 4) explain that “as a specific approach to language teaching, esp required that all decision as to content and method are based on the learner’s reason for learning”. therefore, esp is an approach of teaching which emphasizes students’ need based on certain purpose. there are two types of teaching english in higher education. first, as a nonenglish general course which is one of the means of developing science being studied by students based on the field of study. second, english is learned as the subject for students and should be studied more deeply. teaching english at universitas teuku umar as a general course for non-english students requires them to understand english terms particularly related to their field. in addition, according to salkind (2008) learning english at higher education is more emphasized on reading skills than any other skills. this is because students have to read various lecture material sources in english related to the subject in their field. therefore, students need to master english so that they are able to obtain relevant information in their respective fields. however, based on the researchers’ observation, the students at teuku umar have not been able to apply english well despite having learned english for six years in both junior and high school. most students have difficulty in understanding vocabulary and are passive in learning. consequently, they were not motivated to learn more deeply. ideally, the students should be able to master much vocabulary after years of learning english. in addition, the students’ awareness of learning a students’ perception toward the effectiveness of teaching english at universitas teuku umar 104 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 foreign language is still so low that it affects them in learning english in the classroom. the previous research conducted by barnes and lock (2013) who investigated the effectiveness of teaching english for the non-english major of women university, south korea, found that the students who learned english in the university expected friendly, care, and patient lecturers as well as a personal relationship between students and lecturer. on the other hand, lecturers should have involved the students in the classroom by asking questions and providing time for them to take part in classroom activities as they were important to activate the students’ involvement in the classroom. departing from above discussion, the researchers formulated the research questions as follows: (1) what is the students’ perception towards the effectiveness of teaching english at universitas teuku umar? and (2) what are the students’ obstacles in learning english at universitas teuku umar? literature review effective teaching harris and duibhir (2011) state that language teaching is called effective if the teaching method or practice used can improve the proficiency and acquisition of students in the language. in addition, teaching that is not based on the effective and efficient method can make students become so bored that it affects the achievement in absorbing the knowledge taught. effective teaching involves a student-oriented teaching and learning process. kreber (2002) explains that effective teaching is a teaching that is able to motivate students, conveys concepts, and helps their difficulties in learning. according to saroyan et al. (2004), teaching in college requires a clear concept of the material delivered and understands how to convey it to the students. therefore, teaching in college is more emphasized on knowledge and presentation. moreover, effective teaching that is a more dominated teaching by students and teachers is required to be able to manage the learning process in order to generate students to learn by both motivating and understanding the difficulties faced by students. endah anisa rahma & rusma setiyana englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 105 according to muijs and reynolds (2005), the effective method for teaching includes direct teaching that is popular with the term of active teaching or whole class teaching, which refers to the teaching style where the teachers actively carry out the instruction for their students by teaching directly to the whole class. there are some reasons why direct teaching is more effective than individual approach, including (1) teaching the whole class enables the teachers to interact directly with each student, (2) students’ involvement is higher than individual teaching, and (3) teachers can create various activities or change them to react their students’ boredom and lack of understanding to the material. the followings are some elements of direct teaching as suggested by muijs and reynolds (2005): 1. the instruction is taught explicitly 2. the explanation is delivered structurally and explicitly 3. giving explicit model toward a skill or procedure 4. conceptual mapping 5. interactive questioning the criteria of effective teaching in higher education are understood to comprise particular skills and practices applied within particular contexts. english is one of the general courses that should be taught by english lecturers to the students of universitas teuku umar. english as a foreign language is often a frightening specter for students. in relation to the education field, the students’ perception is important mostly for a teacher who wants to know how successful teaching of students is and also can be used as an evaluation material in english learning. therefore, an investigation about the perception of teaching effectiveness is important because teachers and students have different views about what should happen in the classroom even though the students are not confident in their abilities. without confidence, learning motivation and effective learning will not be achieved (dӧrnyei, 2001). students’ perception toward the effectiveness of teaching english at universitas teuku umar 106 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 young and shaw (1999) as cited by devlin and gayani (2010) describe six components in effective teaching: (1) the value of a teaching material, (2) motivated students, (3) a comfortable atmosphere class, (4) the composition of teaching materials, (5) effective communication, and (6) focus on students. in addition, hativa, barak and simhi (2001) write that the four dimensions of effective teaching include clear interest, explicit, good organization, and positive classroom condition. besides, the learning material is also one of the important aspects as a stimulus that gives some effects on learning motivation. brown (2000) proposes five learning principles based on the cognitive side: 1. automaticity both adult and children learners acquire the language subconsciously without overanalyzing the form of language. an effective second or foreign language learning involved a timely movement of language forms into the automatic processing of unlimited language form. 2. meaningful learning meaningful learning refers to subsume new information into the existing structure and memory system which result in the associative link and stronger retention. the power of meaningful learning is symbolized by appealing students’ interest, academic goals, and career goal. 3. anticipation of reward reward plays an important role in learning. it helps the students to see why they are doing something clearly and what its relevance to their long-term goal in learning english is. the reward can be in the form of compliments and supportive actions. 4. intrinsic motivation. intrinsic motivation encourages successful learning because the behavior comes from need and desire. 5. strategic investment this term refers to the strategy that the learners employ to internalize and to perform the language. successful mastery of a second or foreign language is due to the learners’ investment of time, effort, and attention to the language. endah anisa rahma & rusma setiyana englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 107 effective teaching is highly in need of the involvement of both students and teachers in teaching and learning activities. therefore, effective teaching should engage the students thoroughly since learning not only emphasizes the final outcomes but also the learning process. in other words, the lecturers must focus on the students during the learning process. methodology the study was conducted in april and may 2018 at universitas teuku umar. the population of this research was all 1,197 students of the university of 2017/2018 academic year from all faculties: economy, agriculture, public health, fisheries and marine, social and political sciences, and engineering. the sample taken was only 10% of the population of 119 participants, who have already taken english course at the first or the second semester. they were selected randomly to represent the whole participants from each faculty. the questionnaire used consisted of 40 closed ended questions while the interview had six questions related to the material, learning method, learning motivation, and classroom management. both instruments were written and/or spoken in indonesian rather than in english so that all participants could fully understand and complete it well. the questionnaire was analyzed manually for its descriptive statistics. results and discussion the students’ perception towards teaching process. in the response to the first research question, the finding in the following tables shows the overall perception of the students about teaching english. the material here is the students’ perception in terms of material satisfaction provided by the lecturers in teaching english. table 1. students’ perception about english material students’ perception toward the effectiveness of teaching english at universitas teuku umar 108 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 no item option (%) agree neutral disagree 1 the leaning goal is clear 100 0 0 2 the material given during a semester runs smoothly 93.4 6.6 0 3 additional materials (photocopy, powerpoint, audio etc.) help me to increase the understanding in learning english 100 0 0 4 the material meet students’ need 100 0 0 5 the material is interesting 93.4 6.6 0 6 the material is easy 26.7 20 53.3 7 the lecturer guides the students 100 0 0 8 the material given is explicit and helpful 86.6 0 13.4 9 the material helps to stimulate students’ motivation 66.6 13.4 20 10 the lecturer reviewed the material every meeting 73.4 26.6 0 the results of the data analysis in table 1 show that almost all students agreed that the purpose of the lectures given by their lecturers was clear and the additional materials provided helped to improve their understanding of learning english. similarly, the material described was detailed and very helpful in understanding the materials. however, under 70% of them agreed that the given english material was able to stimulate their motivation and 26.7% of them assumed that the material given in the class was not easy. however, almost 60% students disagreed about the material provided was easy. it seemed to be a consideration for the lecturers that the material should be reviewed and equaled with students’ proficiency. based on the problem discussed above, the students got hard in understanding material because they had lack of vocabulary and grammar knowledge even though they were satisfied with the material provided (above 50% students agreed that the material was interesting, explicit and helpful, motivated). during interviewing with the students, the result shows that they did not like grammar because of having different patterns from indonesian language. moreover, they did not know the meaning of vocabulary. they still claimed that grammar was endah anisa rahma & rusma setiyana englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 109 symbolized with rule and memorization. it is line with jing’s study (2010) which found that limited vocabulary as their problem in learning language. based on the result of study of al-nouh, kareem, and taqi (2014), the students had vocabulary and grammar problem because the teacher might ask students memorize the rule in the essay grammar test. to sum up, majority of students indicated that they have positive response. brown (2000) suggests that grammar should be taught inductively because of some reasons. it is more keeping natural acquisition since the rules are absorbed subconsciously and it builds intrinsic motivation by allowing students to discover the rules by themselves without being told earlier. learning method the table below shows the students' perception of the learning methods used by the lecturers in the teaching and learning process: table 2. students’ perception about english learning method no item option (%) agree neutral disagree 1. the lecturer introduces syllabus and explains the learning contract in the beginning of meeting 100 0 0 2. the lecturer stimulates students to learn english 86.6 6.8 6.6 3. the lecturer discusses more in classroom and responds the questions 86.6 13.4 0 4. the task given relates to the material learned 100 0 0 5. the lecturer understands the material will be taught 93.4 6.6 0 6. the learning methods used vary to achieve learning goal 100 0 0 7. the lecturer challenge students to do their best task 53.4 26.6 20 8. the teaching pattern encourage students to learn 73.4 26.6 0 9. the lecturer does learning evaluation 80 13.4 6.6 10. feedback given enable to increase students’ motivation 100 0 0 students’ perception toward the effectiveness of teaching english at universitas teuku umar 110 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 based on the students' perception of english teaching methods in the classroom, it can be concluded that most students agreed that "the lecturer introduces the syllabus and lecture contract at the beginning of the meeting", "the task given in accordance with the material", and "the method used varies to achieve the learning objectives ". moreover, almost 100% of students agreed that the lecturers understood the material well and 86.6% of them agreed that the lecturers stimulated them to learn and discussed and responded their questions. nearly 80% also agreed that the teaching patterns of their lecturers were able to stimulate the students’ interest in learning and to conduct learning evaluations. however, only 53.4% of them disagreed with the statement "lecturers challenge students to do their best work". so, 20% of them assumed that lecturers were not challenging to do their best work. the challenge here can be in form of reward or score. from the result above, it can be concluded that the lecturer should be evaluated. goodman et al. (2011) argued that individual perception of reward and task has a greater impact toward the successful learning and academic achievement. it can influence the level of effort the students put when engaging the task that leads to better performance. learning motivation the following table describes the learning motivation of the students in learning english. table 3. students’ perceptions about learning motivation in english no item option (%) agree neutral disagree 1 i study englishto help to understand book, journal and film 80 0 20 2 i want to learn english because i want to know foreign life style 86.6 0 13.4 3 i learn english becausei want to know the people around the world 73.4 6.6 20 4 english opens my mind 53.3 26.6 20 endah anisa rahma & rusma setiyana englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 111 5 i want to learn english because i want to know foreign culture 66.6 13.4 20 6 i want to learn english to increase my language skill and capacity 100 0 0 7 i think what i have learned is applied in daily life context 100 0 0 8 i want to learn english because i want to speak like native-speaker 66.6 13.4 20 9 i am able to reach the learning target 73.4 26.6 0 10 i learn english to support my future career. 100 0 0 the result shows that 80% students responded that english was used to understand book, journal and film. this as nababan (1994) says that the students have to read various lecture material sources in english related to the subject in their field. therefore, they have to learn and understand english well. in addition, more than 50% students were so care about foreign life style and their culture that the students really want to learn english language. besides, around 70% of them desire to be able to communicate with foreigner around the world and want to speak like native-speaker too. furthermore, all university students of universitas teuku umar agreed that by learning english their capacity in language skill could be increased and their future career could be supported. this statement is in the same line with putri (2010) that the purpose of learning english is for work needs. in addition, mahu (2012) writes that english is “a tremendous asset for your professional career” especially for them who want to develop their career at firms or other companies where english language will be used in communication. from above finding, it can be highlighted that the students dominantly have a good motivation in learning english. however, some students still got unachieved target score because they recognized that they had bad level of knowledge in english in their senior high school (jiménez, 2018). in conclusion, many participants were influenced by external motivation because of the reasons above. yet, brown (2000) remarks that intrinsic is the most effective motivation when learning. students’ perception toward the effectiveness of teaching english at universitas teuku umar 112 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 classroom management this following table illustrates the classroom management in teaching and learning process: table 4. students’ perception about classroom management no item option (%) agree neutral disagree 1 i know how much i involve in classroom 73.4 13.3 13.3 2 i know what i have to achieve in learning english 86.6 0 13.4 3 i cooperate with other friends when group working and doing the task 86.6 6.7 13.4 4 the lecturer pays attention a lot to my question than others 53.4 26.6 20 5 i got a lot of guidance from lecturer like my other friends 80 6.6 13.4 6 i got much encouragement from the lecturer during learning english 80 20 0 7 i got the feedback from my mistake 93.4 6.6 0 8 i got equal opportunity like other students to involve in classroom 93.4 0 6.6 9 i got reward and score from my work 40 33.4 26.6 10 i got the same opportunity to respond the lecturer’s question like the other students 93.4 0 6.6 from the results of the data, it is found that nearly 100% of the students were involved in the teaching-learning process, as they received a lot of encouragement and feedback, had equal opportunities to engage in learning, and answered questions from lecturers in the classroom. nearly 90% of them understood what to accomplish in learning and they worked with each other in both group work and individual task. 80% of them agreed that they had enough encouragement and guidance from the lecturers like other friends while studying in the classroom, but only 73.4% of them realized how much of their involvement in the classroom. under 60% of students realized that many lecturers responded to their questions and less than 50% of them got praised for what had been done. endah anisa rahma & rusma setiyana englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 113 in this case, brown (2000) says that reward plays an important role in learning. moreover, wӓchter, lungu, liu, willingham and ashe (2009) add that the reward gives some effects on students’ behavior. it is believed that praise is one of reward can influence students in studying english especially as foreign language. from the finding above, it can be concluded that some students still were unsatisfied with the reward from the lecturer since their lecturer rarely scored their work, rarely responded their question and guided them. instead, reward helps the students to see why they are doing something clearly and its relevance their long-term goal in learning english (brown, 2000). the students’ obstacles in learning english in responding the second research question, there were some problems in learning english: firstly, they had lack of vocabulary. based on the interview result, it was revealed that they found the unfamiliar words and the words that they needed to learn were numerous. besides, the students found difficulty in choosing appropriate meaning of the word since knowing the words involves more than knowing their dictionary meaning. consequently, the students were still confused to use the appropriate words based on the context. the second problem is the students had a difficulty in pronouncing the words. it was caused that the written form of the word was different from the spoken form in english. these sound spelling mismatches are often caused by the lack of similar sound between english and students’ native language. it means that there are different pronunciations between written and spoken form of english. unlike english, the indonesian words are pronounced exactly as they are written. the last issue is the students had a difficulty in understanding the english grammar. since english is learned as a foreign language in indonesia, the students undoubtedly meet difficulty in learning the structure of the language. as stated by dekyser and sokalski (1996) in shiu (2011), grammar difficulty relates to comprehension and production. it means that in some cases, grammar structures are easy to comprehend but difficult to produce. however, in other cases, it is difficult to comprehend but easy to use. the result from interview showed that some students’ perception toward the effectiveness of teaching english at universitas teuku umar 114 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 students faced difficulty in forming the sentence when relating to tenses. they used inappropriate verb forms in formulating a sentence because of lack of knowledge about grammar. this might happen because of lack knowledge of the target language environment and lack of motivation. because english is learned as a foreign language in indonesia, there is no real contact with the target culture, and the lecturers and classes are the main sources for the learners. consequently, the students felt unmotivated to learn english. conclusions and suggestions this study concludes that the students have had positive responses toward the teaching of english at universitas teuku umar. however, the present english taught as english for specific purpose (esp) still has not achieved the learning goal. most students were also dissatisfied with the given material since it was hard for them, the teaching method used did not stimulate them to learn english, some students did not like learning english because they were not confident enough, and the lecturers paid little attention toward the students’ questions and they rarely gave rewards to their students’ achievement. it should be mentioned here that since english is viewed as a foreign language in indonesia, it is recommended for foreign language lecturers apply various interesting teaching methods that can solve the students’ learning difficulties since the difficulties may also be affected by a particular method used, and adapt the methods with the actual teaching environment. on the other hand, english foreign language (efl) lecturers should address their learners’ concern in planning the activities in classroom such as providing the material based on the students’ needs and level. the material should stimulate them to learn. lastly, lecturers should also give rewards and respond to the students’ questions as goodman et al. (2011) state that rewards and task have a greater impact toward the successful learning and academic achievement. references ahmed, m. k. (2014). issues in esp (english for specific purposes). international journal for teachers of english, 4(1), 36-59. endah anisa rahma & rusma setiyana englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 115 al-nouh, n. a., kareem, a. m. m., & taqi, a. h. (2014). efl college students’ perception of classroom english test. international journal of higher education, 3(1), 71-84. doi:10.5430/ijhe.v3n1p71 barnes, b. d., & lock, g. (2013). student perception of effective foreign language teachers: a quantitative investigation from a korean university. australian journal of teacher education, 38(2), 19-36. brown, h. d. (2000). teaching by principles: an interactive approach to language pedagogy. california: longman. devlin, m., & gayani, s. (2010). the criteria of effective teaching in a changing higher education context. higher education research and development, 29(2), 111-124. doi: 10.1080 / 07294360903244398 dӧrnyei, z. (2001). teaching and researching motivation. london: longman. goodman, s., jaffer, t., keresztesi, m., mamdani, f., mokgatle, d., musariri, m., pires, j., & schlechter, a. (2011). an investigation of relationship between students’ motivation and academic performance as mediated by effort. south african journal psychology, 41(3), 373-385. harris, j., & ó duibhir, p. (2011). effective language teaching: a synthesis of research. dublin (merrion square): national council for curriculum and assessment. hativa, n., barak, r., & simhi, e. (2001). exemplary university teachers: knowledge and believe regarding effective teaching dimension and strategies. the journal of higher education, 72(6), 699-729. doi: 10.2307/2672900 jiménez, p. k. (2018). exploring students’ perception about english learning in a public university. how, 25(1): 69-91. doi :10.5539/elt.v4n2p73 jing, l. (2010). language learning strategies and its training model. international education studies, 3 (3): 100-104. doi: 10.5539/ies.v3n3p100 kreber, c. (2002). teaching excellence, teaching expertise, and scholarship of teaching. innovative higher education, 27(1), 5-23. mahu, d. p. (2012). why is learning english so beneficial nowadays? international journal of communication research, 2(4), 374-376. muijs, d., & reynolds, d. (2005). effective teaching: evidence and practice (2nd ed). london: sage. nababan, p. w. j. (1994). esp language materials preparation in foreign language situation. in r. khoo (ed), the practice of lsp: perspectives, programs and projects, anthology series 34 (pp. 132-142). singapore: seameo regional center. putri, k. (2010). english for specific purpose di universitas jember: tantangan dan solusi [english for specific purpose at universitas jember: challenges and solutions]. jurnal pengembangan pendidikan, 7(2), 182-189. salkind, n. j. (2008). encyclopedia of educational psychology. london: sage publication. students’ perception toward the effectiveness of teaching english at universitas teuku umar 116 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 saroyan, a., amunsen, c., mcalpine, l., weston, c., winner, l., & gandell, t. (2004). assumption underlying workshop activities: rethinking teaching in higher education. sterling, va: stylus shiu, l. j. (2011). efl leaners’ perception of grammatical difficulty in relation second language proficiency, performance, and knowledge (doctoral dissertation). university of toronto. retrieved from http://www.tspace.library.utoronto.ca wӓchter, t., lungu, o. v., liu, t., willingham, d. t., & ashe, j. (2009). differential effect of reward and punishment on procedural learning. journal of neuroscience, 29(2), 436-443. doi: https://doi.org/10.1523/jneurosci.4132-08.2009 englisia november 2017 vol. 5, no. 1, 17-28 correlation between ability to recognize sentence errors and ability to produce grammatically correct utterances masrizal university of southampton, england masrizal@unsyiah.ac.id abstract this article summarizes and reports an empirical study investigating students’ ability in recognizing grammatical errors and producing grammatically correct sentences. 38 university students were involved in a set of grammar tasks which were specifically created to measure their ability to both identify errors and avoid them in language productions. the main purpose of the study is to prove whether their ability to pinpoint errors within sentences resembles their ability in producing grammatically correct sentences using the same features. the study also measures the appropriateness of the test items in order to see how it affects students’ performance. final test data collected from the students in two different groups reveal that their ability to recognize sentence errors has positive correlation to their ability to produce correct sentences. the correlation figure among the more proficient students (group 2) is relatively larger, indicating that the amount of knowledge on relevant features positively influences, to a certain extent, the quality of language production and responses. keywords: error recognition; sentence production introduction the ability to spot grammatical errors in sentences is a very important skill required from l2 students. in an academic setting, this ability shows learner’s proficiency of a particular language, both in passive (receptive) and active (productive) skills (read, 2015). in a passive context, an l2 learner is required to be able to recognize errors and decide whether a sentence, or parts of it, has fulfilled correlation between ability to recognize sentence errors and ability to produce grammatically correct utterances 18 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 necessary grammatical requirements. on the other hand, this skill is necessary when the learner is required to supply a part of a phrase or sentence into either written or oral production. it is essentially required to assure that the produced utterances comply with basic language requirements. this particular study has particularly looked at students’ ability in recognizing english language errors and supplying correct parts into sentences. thirty eight undergraduate university students have been involved in a set of grammar tests which took place in two different classes. the main purpose of this study was to look at whether participants’ ability in recognizing sentence errors correlates positively with their ability in producing correct sentence structures. in addition, it would finally try to evaluate the appropriateness of the test items by using two different measures, difficulty index and discrimination index. test specifications table 1:test specification purpose of the instrument this test was designed to assess test-takers’ ability in recognizing english sentence errors and supplying correct parts in the similar context. it would also predict whether their ability to recognize sentence errors resembles their ability to produce correct form in the same context. construct or domain that will be measured english grammar knowledge was assessed in this test. length of the test thirty minutes. context in which the instrument is to be used this instrument was used in an english medium education. in this case, it is used to assess university students in the department of english education. characteristic of intended participants participants are university students from the faculty of education and teacher training, majoring english education. two groups of participants took part in the test, one of which being in the third semester while the masrizal englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 | 19 other is in the fifth semester. conditions and procedure of administering the instrument the test was administered in two sample classes by an assigned lecturer. test sheets were manually distributed and participants had been required to complete the test within the allocated time. procedures of scoring for the multiple choice questions in part a, each correct answer was given one point. incorrect and unanswered questions were marked ‘0’. for part b, the marking procedure is still the same. however, spelling was checked before deciding whether an answer was correct or wrong. if the word was misspelled, but lead to a correct answer, it would be regarded as correct. intended level of difficulty this test is designed for intermediate to lower advanced level of english grammar ability. reporting of the results correlation between skills in each part, item difficulty, and discrimination index. discussion how construct validity is ensured and checked in order to establish construct validity for this test, every endeavour has been done to prevent the presence of two main threats to construct validity identified by messick (1989), construct under-representation and construct-irrelevant variance. as further discussed by zheng and de jong (2011), a number of ways could be alternative solutions in order to prevent the presence of the threats. to avoid construct-under representation, the tasks had been ensured to have sufficient coverage of target language situations, especially in regards to situational and interactional authenticity (bachman & palmer, 1996). however, since this only assesses grammar knowledge, the efforts have been done to assure that all the questions given are relevant to the test takers background knowledge. correlation between ability to recognize sentence errors and ability to produce grammatically correct utterances 20 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 in regards to construct-irrelevant variance, it has been ensured that no testtakers were advantaged or disadvantaged by the test as a result of their personal background. everyone speaks the same first language and is learning english as a foreign language. everyone shares the same topical knowledge and, therefore, the probability of providing correct answers are purely dependent on their own personal knowledge regardless of any non-academic background everyone shares (kuncel & sackett, 2014). impact of consequences of the test on stakeholders this test is expected to give an overview about students’ strengths and weaknesses in analysing english sentence errors. often, non-native english speakers tend to have better ability in recognising errors from pre-produced sentences, while at the same time they struggle to produce such utterances on their own. from this mini test, which obviously covers limited features of english grammar, it is expected that their weaknesses can be revealed so that further adjustments can be made in regards to teaching materials, classroom test design, and lesson coverage. design of assessment tasks and scoring system as previously mentioned, the test instrument consists of two separate but related parts. part a and b assess analytical and productive skill respectively. further details and how the questions in both parts are connected to each other will be given in the following table. part a the following sentence parts have been supplied incorrectly. participants have to identify which one is incorrect in each particular sentence. q uestio ns part b the basic form of the following sentence parts have been provided. participant need to insert/supply them into the gap by using correct forms. s-v agreement (incorrect verb form) q1 s-v agreement. (supply correct verb form) s-v agreement (incorrect copula verb) q2 s-v agreement. (supply correct copula) s-v agreement (incorrect copula verb) q3 s-v agreement. (supply correct copula) s-v agreement(incorrect passive verb form) q4 s-v agreement. (supply auxiliary in passive form) s-v agreement (incorrect verb form) q5 s-v agreement. (supply correct verb form) masrizal englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 | 21 inverted subject and verb(incorrect copula) q6 inverted subject and verb(supply correct copula) s-v agreementwith either … or (incorrect copula verb) q7 s-v agreementwith either … or (supply correct copula verb) parallelism in object/complement (to+infform is not parallel) q8 parallelism in object/complement (supply parallel -ingform) aux+v(modal + inf, incorrect infinitive) q9 aux+v(modal + inf, supply correct infinitive) aux+v(aux had + past participle, incorrect pp) q10 aux+v(aux has + past participle, supply correct ‘be’ form) correlative conjunctionnot only…but (incorrect pair) q11 correlative conjunctionnot only…but (supply correct pair) word form q12 word form plural & singularnoun using amount vs. number(incorrect reference) q13 plural & singularnoun using amount vs. number(supply correct reference) pronoun (incorrect pronoun) q14 pronoun (supply correct pronoun) administration of assessment tasks the test took place in two grammar classes at syiah kuala university, indonesia. these classes were chosen due to the availability of access to the targeted participants. special authorisation had initially been granted and the class lecturer, who happens to be a colleague of mine, had initially expressed her willingness to distribute the test materials as well as to administer the test herself. prior to the test date, a research assistant has been hired to prepare the test materials and handed them to the lecturer. thirty eight students coming from grammar 1 and grammar 3 classes (further labelled as group 1 and 2 respectively) participated in the test. technically, the students from grammar 3 class are considered to be more proficient in english grammar, while those from the other group are mainly starters or at pre-intermediate level at the most possible. therefore, i expected to see better results produced by the students from grammar 3 group due to having higher proficiency. correlation between ability to recognize sentence errors and ability to produce grammatically correct utterances 22 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 as mentioned elsewhere in this paper, this test consists of two different parts. the first part contain multiple choice items about recognising sentence errors, while the other is a kind of filling the gap questions in which test takers are required to productively supply correct grammatical forms into the gap. each item consists of three answer choices, except in number 11 to 14 of part b. there are still debates over whether a multiple choice test item should contain fewer or more options (lee & winke, 2013). in this test, the options are kept to minimum so that test-takers’ needs for testwiseness to succeed can be minimized (rogers & harley, 1999).the instruction for the test has been provided as clear as possible in order to assure that the test was completed within the time provided. it is expected that their level of proficiency in these two tasks can be distinguished after completing the test. scoring of performances and analysis of results the scoring for this test has been done as simple as possible. each correct answer is worth one point, while the incorrect or unanswered items are not given any score. the answers, along with the score obtained by all participants were then calculated and summarized in relevant tables to be further analyzed appropriately. evaluation of participants’ performance group 1 after running pearson’s correlation test on spss, it is clearly seen that the pearson’s r coefficient for this particular group is 0.251. this means that there is a positive, but small, correlation between the questions in part a and b. however, at sig. (2-tailed) value of 0.299, which is greater than 0.05, we can determine that there is no statistically significant correlation between the two variables. these lead us to conclude that a better score in one part of the test, i.e. part a, might probably have a little contribution to the increase in the other, i.e. part b, or vice versa. correlations parta partb parta pearson correlation 1 .251 sig. (2-tailed) .299 n 19 19 partb pearson correlation .251 1 sig. (2-tailed) .299 n 19 19 masrizal englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 | 23 in addition, the distribution of test results by each participant can be seen in the following scatterplot chart. considering this above correlation value, there is still possibility that the results of the test are not fully representative to the actual students’ proficiency. with this type of results, the chances that some answers come from guessing are big, especially if we look at particular results of individual questions. average correct answer achieved by the whole group is 8.2 out of 14 in part a, while in part b there are only 6.3. this simply shows that part a seems to be easier for them considering that they do not have to produce their own form of answer. in question number 10, for example, pearson’s correlation coefficient -0.368 at 0.121 level of significance proofs that this particular question in one part of the test correlate negatively with its relevant pair in the other. therefore, we cannot confidently confirm whether a student who is good in one part of the test would perform equally in the other. group 2 within this particular group of students, the test seems to reveal slightly different but higher figures. based on the pearson correlation coefficient of 0.548, we can see that there is a bigger positive correlation between part a and part b scores of the test. at 0.015 significance level (2-tailed), which is obviously lower than correlation between ability to recognize sentence errors and ability to produce grammatically correct utterances 24 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 0.05, the correlation between the two parts of the test is significant. therefore, we can conclude that, among these participants, a good achievement in one part of the test, i.e. part a, can somehow predict a better accomplishment in the other, i.e. part b, or vice versa. correlations parta partb parta pearson correlation 1 .548* sig. (2-tailed) .015 n 19 19 partb pearson correlation .548* 1 sig. (2-tailed) .015 n 19 19 *. correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). a clear overview on how scores are positively distributed can be seen in the following scatterplot graph. from the graph, it is confirmed that students’ achievement in part a of the test reflects their score in the other part. the group’s mean score of correct answer also confirm this, which is 9.5 correct answers for both part a and b. in a simple definition, the number of correct answer they score in one part of the test is not very different from the one in the other part, except for a few students. this is sufficient to tell us that most of the participants in this group have a better proficiency level in masrizal englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 | 25 recognizing sentence errors and, at the same time, producing grammatically correct english sentences on their own. evaluation of assessment instrument in order to determine whether the test items are appropriate or not, a set of item analysis is required. this section of the paper will discuss two different measures of item analysis called difficulty index and discrimination index.the following table will provide an overview and numerical figures regarding these, while further details will be discussed in the subsequent sections. item analysis using difficulty index this measure is used to determine the level of difficulty of the test items. to do this, the proportion of student who answered the test item need to be calculated accurately. this will give information whether a test item is relatively easy or difficult, and if it needs replacing or not. this is done by simply dividing the number of students who choose the correct answer by the total number of students. this formula will reveal the level of difficulty of each item, also known as p-value. a general ‘rule of thumb’ is that an item is relatively easy if the difficulty is more than 0.75, whereas it is more difficult if the difficulty is below 0.25 (fcit, 2016). therefore, for example, if an item is answered correctly by 85% of test takers, it would have an item difficulty, or p-value, of 0.85 (matlock-hetzel, 1997). based on the figures in the item analysis table, it is clearly seen that the difficulty index of each question from this test varies from 0.05 to 1.00. students in group 1 seem to struggle more with a number of questions in part b and with very few in part a. moreover, students in group 2 look more proficient with only one issue in each part of the test. it is also clear that the average difficulty index value is different between the two groups, with group 1 having lower score. according to the p-value, question 11 in part b seems to be the easiest question to both groups. question 13 of part a appears to be the most problematic one for both groups. since index of difficulty measure of both groups are below 0.25, this is considered to be a difficult item to all students of different proficiency level. this suggests that this item needs to be reviewed and replaced if necessary. another correlation between ability to recognize sentence errors and ability to produce grammatically correct utterances 26 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 important point is that students in group 2, which is supposedly a higher performing group, seem to struggle the most in question 1 in part b. surprisingly, students in group 1 have recorded a completely opposing result, confirming that they seem to perform better in this particular question item. overall, only a small number of questions are either too easy or too difficult. item analysis using discrimination index this measure is used to know how well an assessment differentiates between high and low scorers. in this regard, we would like to know how often the highperforming test takers would select right answers for each question in comparison to the low-performing ones. if an assessment has a positive discrimination index (which is between 0 and 1), high score participants are expected to choose correct answer for specific questions more often than those with lower total score. on the other hand, an assessment is considered having a negative discrimination index (between -1 and 0) if this happens otherwise (fcit, 2016). discrimination index can be determined by subtracting the number of students in lower group who got correct answer from the ones in the upper group, then divided the number of half of the total samples. according to the measurement results, question 2 in part a has a negative discrimination index in both groups. this means that low performing students are more likely to get this item correct. considering this, the items need to be carefully analyzed and probably deleted or changed. apart from this, a number of other questions with negative discrimination index need to be further reviewed, suggesting the replacement of the items or simply re-writing them. furthermore, it is interesting to see that four question items given to participants in group 1 have recorded a 0.00 discrimination index. for group 2, there are 3 such questions. this simply means that both the high-performing and low-performing students in each group did not find these questions as being too easy, which indicates that the items are doing a great job to challenge the testtakers. overall, the fact that most of the items have positive discrimination index has led us to assume that most of these questions are appropriate enough to the students, with a small number of them need to be either revised or discarded. masrizal englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 | 27 conclusion based the result of the study, a number of conclusions can be reported as in the following. 1. correlation between assessment parts the results of pearson’s correlation test proves there is a correlation between students’ ability in recognising sentence errors and supplying correct parts of sentences. based on this result, participants in group 2 produce a higher correlation score, which helps us assume that their ability to recognize errors perfectly matches with their ability to produce correct forms of sentence parts. 2. item analysis results in terms of the test instrument, item analysis through item difficulty and item discrimination index has proven that most of the test items are appropriate. however, some questions, with either too high or too low difficulty index, will need to be reviewed, revised, or even discarded. likewise, items with negative discrimination index will also need to be treated as such. references bachman, l. f., & palmer, a. s. (1996). language testing in practice: designing and developing useful language tests: oup oxford. fcit. (2016). classroom assessment. retrieved 10 january 2016, from http://fcit.usf.edu/assessment/selected/responsec.html kuncel, n. r., & sackett, p. r. (2014). resolving the assessment center construct validity problem (as we know it). journal of applied psychology, 99(1), 38. lee, h., & winke, p. (2013). the differences among three-, four-, and five-optionitem formats in the context of a high-stakes english-language listening test. language testing, 30(1), 99-123. matlock-hetzel, s. (1997). basic concept in item and test analysis. retrieved 10 january, 2016, from http://ericae.net/ft/tamu/espy.htm messick, s. (1989). meaning and values in test validation: the science and ethics of assessment. educational researcher, 18(2), 5-11. read, j. (2015). assessing english proficiency for university study: palgrave macmillan. rogers, w. t., & harley, d. (1999). an empirical comparison of three-and fourchoice items and tests: susceptibility to testwiseness and internal consistency reliability. educational and psychological measurement, 59(2), 234-247. correlation between ability to recognize sentence errors and ability to produce grammatically correct utterances 28 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 zheng, y., & de jong, j. (2011). research note: establishing construct and concurrent validity of pearson test of english academic: pearson academic ltd. englisia may 2018 vol. 5, no. 2, 66-81 applying cognitive load theory in teaching tenses for second language learners leni amalia suek universitas nusa cendana, kupang, indonesia leni.suek@yahoo.com abstract cognitive load theory is a very useful concept that can be used by instructional designers, teachers, and educators to create effective instruction. it has been applied and developed in many areas including teaching english as a second or foreign language. in designing the instruction for teaching tenses, worked example, splitattention effect, goal-free effect, modality effect, and redundancy effect are effective techniques that are used to reduce extraneous load, increase germane load, construct and automate schema. designing and developing new instructions using cognitive load theory is also very useful. teachers should understand this concept thoroughly because each instructional technique is connected to one another. in addition, it is very important to consider learners’ level of expertise, elements of interactivity and forms or sources of information before designing the instruction. those elements of information and instructional techniques that are covered in the concept of cognitive load theory, should be well understood and applied by teachers particularly language teachers. teaching foreign or second language is a big challenge for non-native english teachers; hence, effective instructional design can assist and enhance teaching learning process. this theory will contribute to positive outcomes where students understand the concept of tenses thoroughly and teachers develop their teaching skill. keywords: cognitive load theory; second language teaching; teaching tenses; second language learners; non-native english teachers leni amalia suek englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 67 introduction effective teaching learning process is determined and influenced by various factors including instructional design. effective instructional design has significant impacts on students understanding of knowledge. hence, it is highly recommended for teachers and educators to understand and apply concepts related to instructional design particularly cognitive load theory. cognitive load theory originated in 1980s and has been developed by researchers around the world in many disciplines since 1990s (paas, renkl, & sweller, 2003; schnotz & kurschner, 2007). because of its expansion and huge impacts on educational field, this paper is going to discuss the application of cognitive load theory in teaching tenses for second language learners. five important effects that can be used effectively to avoid cognitive overload will be elaborated in details. the examples of instruction in teaching tenses that incorporate worked examples, split-attention effect, goal-free effect, modality effect, and redundancy effect will be discussed thoroughly. it has been argued that it is important to have knowledge about human cognitive architecture in order to design effective instructional design (schnotz & kurschner, 2007). this is because by understanding human cognitive architecture, teachers or educators are able to design effective instruction. human cognitive architecture contains two main elements, working memory and long term memory (paas et al., 2003). one of the characteristics of human cognitive architecture is limitation of working memory in duration and capacity particularly when dealing with novel or totally new information (kirschner, 2002; paas, renkl, & sweller, 2004; schnotz & kurschner, 2007; tindall-ford & sweller, 2006). working memory is a limited place where two to three items of information are processed, contrasted and compared simultaneously (kirschner, 2002; paas et al., 2003; sweller, merrienboer, & paas, 1998). on the other hand, long term memory is an unlimited space to storage unlimited amount of information permanently in a form of schema that later can be used or activated to understand knowledge (kalyuga, 2007; kalyuga, chandler, tuovinen, & sweller, 2001; kirschner, 2002; sweller et al., 1998). working memory and long term memory are components of brain that play huge applying cognitive load theory in teaching tenses for second language learners 68 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 and significant roles in learning process. these characteristics of human cognition influence instructional design. effective instruction should be applied in teaching learning process in order to achieve positive outcomes. effective instructional design should be based on cognitive load theory that derives from a series effects or techniques (kirschner, 2002; paas et al., 2003, 2004; tindall-ford & sweller, 2006). cognitive load theory is a concept that deals with a process of meaningful learning where schema is constructed and automated (kalyuga et al., 2001; kirschner, 2002; paas et al., 2003, 2004). schema is a unit of knowledge about particular concepts or information. this theory is basically about managing intrinsic, germane, and extraneous load in order to construct schema (kirschner, 2002; merrienboer & sluijsmans, 2009; paas et al., 2003, 2004; renkl, atkinson, & grome, 2004; schnotz & kurschner, 2007). in addition, good instruction may assist individuals to activate schema when dealing with other information. those three loads should be well-managed in order to achieve understanding. intrinsic load is a necessary load caused by number of elements and elements of interactivity, germane load is a relevant load caused by activities that catalyse information processing, and extraneous load is unnecessary load caused by poor instructional design (gog, paas, & merrienboer, 2004; kirschner, 2002; paas et al., 2003, 2004; schnotz & kurschner, 2007). since intrinsic and germane load are important for learning, and high element of interactivity of information should not be reduced (paas et al., 2003); in designing instruction, it is crucial to keep the extraneous load to the lowest level (gog et al., 2004). hence, total cognitive load will stay within its limit (paas et al., 2003). this means that when intrinsic and germane load are high, extraneous load should be low in order to avoid cognitive overload. this is because when cognitive load is beyond its limit total, learning is impaired. however, when intrinsic load or elements of interactivity is low, ineffective instructional design may not impair learning because total cognitive load stays in its limit. it has been asserted that cognitive overload can be reduced by applying several instructional procedures such as; worked examples, split-attention effect, goal-free effect, modality effect, and redundancy effect in designing instruction (kalyuga, 2007; kirschner, 2002; paas et leni amalia suek englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 69 al., 2003, 2004; schnotz & kurschner, 2007; tabbers, martens, & merrienboer, 2004). those instructional procedures are very useful and related to one another. cognitive load theory can be applied in many areas of teaching including in teaching foreign or second language (diao & sweller, 2007). hence, in order to structure this essay, i take a unit of lesson from my school. since i am an english teacher particularly teaching english for specific purposes for environmental health practitioners at one of the higher education institutions in indonesia, that unit of lesson is taken from the curriculum of the first semester of this school. specifically, course outline of week one to four with the aim to make students understand tenses and are able to formulate sentences using appropriate tenses that cover the material of present tense, past tense and future tense will be used to design and redesign instructions. since tenses is the basic concept that second or foreign language learners of english should acquire before they are able to speak and write appropriately, it is important to discuss and design effective instruction for teaching tenses. most of the students in this school are novices particularly on the knowledge about tenses. hence, most of the instructions that are going to be discussed will consider learner’s level of expertise in tenses. each of the five effects followed by the examples of instruction will be discussed thoroughly in the following section. discussion worked example effect in teaching learning process, in order to assist learners to understand particular concepts, examples are considered to be one of the effective ways. worked example is considered to be an effective method because it provides procedures to solve particular problems that may reduce cognitive load (atkinson, derry, renkl, & wortham, 2000; chandler & sweller, 1991; gog et al., 2004; kirschner, 2002; paas et al., 2003, 2004; sweller et al., 1998). in addition, it consists of problems states and their solution steps (atkinson et al., 2000; kalyuga et al., 2001; schnotz & kurschner, 2007; sweller et al., 1998). in order to create effective worked example, it is important to consider learners’ prior knowledge or level of expertise because what is effective for novice may be redundant for experts applying cognitive load theory in teaching tenses for second language learners 70 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 or what is good for experts may be bad for novice learners (kalyuga, 2007; schnotz & kurschner, 2007). consequently, under particular conditions, problem solving is better for experts than worked examples (kalyuga et al., 2001). however, meansends analysis which is a strategy used to solve problems may impose high cognitive load to novice learners (gog et al., 2004; kalyuga et al., 2001). in order to facilitate schema construction and automation, novices need to be exposed to worked examples as the guidelines to solve particular problems (gog et al., 2004). this is because learners will direct their attention to the problems and the solution steps. it is recommended that worked example should focus more on process oriented than product oriented. this is because process oriented assists the students to not only understand the steps but also know the rationale behind those steps (gog et al., 2004). it is important for learners to not only know the solution but also why particular steps of solution are taken and the reasons for performing those steps under particular orders. learning and reasoning facilitate and enhance the understanding of concepts or knowledge. in designing instruction, in this case worked examples, teachers should not only consider learners’ prior knowledge but also the sources of information and how to integrate and manage those different modes of information (chandler & sweller, 1991). this is because those factors contribute to information processes. in learning tenses, worked examples can be used as a technique to design instruction. this can be done by giving students examples of how tenses pattern is formulated into sentences. for example, when teaching simple past tense, teachers can use worked examples by providing steps of creating sentences using simple past tense. there are several steps that the students can apply. first, they should know the pattern of simple past tense. then, they are provided with the explanation of each element in the pattern such as what kind of verb and also what typical of time signal that should be used. in addition, it is very crucial for students to understand the function of this type of tense. by exposing students to those steps and giving examples of each step, learning and schema construction are facilitated. one of the main objectives in learning tenses is that the students are able to formulate sentences using appropriate tenses in writing paragraph. in order to leni amalia suek englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 71 facilitate learning, worked examples about how to formulate the sentences are needed. after students already understand and are able to formulate sentences using appropriate tenses pattern, teachers can increase the level by asking them to write a paragraph. in designing the instruction, teachers can provide some examples of writing paragraph using each tense clearly. the steps to write the paragraph should be elaborated by giving the pattern and familiarize the students with verbs, subject pronoun, and time signal of each tense. to avoid worked-example that is product oriented, teachers should be able to provide information about how paragraph should be organized using particular tenses patterns. before the students are able to formulate the sentences, firstly, they should understand the tenses pattern and paragraph. then, they have to analyze the context where the actions are performed in order to construct sentences using appropriate tenses. there should be minimal one worked-example of how to formulate sentences for each tense that includes simple present tense, present progressive tense, simple past tense, past progressive tense, simple future tense, and future progressive tense. by following those steps, they should be able to create sentences with appropriate tenses in writing a paragraph. split-attention effect providing students with worked examples of how each tenses pattern used in sentences should consider several factors such as the sources of information whether it is text, diagram, or audio. this is important to avoid split-attention. split attention happens when learners have to split their attention between multiple source of information such as written text and diagram which are presented in isolation (atkinson et al., 2000; chandler & sweller, 1991; merrienboer, kirschner, & kester, 2003; schnotz & kurschner, 2007; tindall-ford & sweller, 2006). worked examples will be more effective if separate sources of information such as text and diagram are physically integrated (florax & ploetzner, 2010; kalyuga et al., 2001; schnotz & kurschner, 2007; sweller et al., 1998). instead of separating diagram and the text that contain the explanation of the diagram, it is highly recommended to physically integrate them. applying cognitive load theory in teaching tenses for second language learners 72 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 in teaching tenses, before going into details about how teach tense works, it is important to provide general overview of tenses timeline. this is because some of learners’ native languages do not morphologically display such pattern like tenses. therefore, the tenses timeline will help them to understand what tenses is and how each tense is different from one another. the tenses timeline can be explained using a diagram accompanied by text that describes the tenses timeline. in order to avoid split attention, enhance learning and reduce cognitive load; physically integrating text that contains the explanation of tenses and the diagram that consists of the timeline is considered to be effective instructional design. the diagram shows the changes of verb pattern and also time signal of each tense across the time. moreover, the timeline which is integrated with the text clearly shows the difference between simple tense and progressive tense. the most important point is that students do not have to split their attention between the text and the diagram of timeline. figure 1 illustrates how the instruction benefits the students to comprehend the concept of tenses. simple past present future describe actions that happen in the past. example: i conducted an inspection two years ago describe actual or habitual actions. example: i conduct an inspection every 6 months describe actions that will happen in the future example: i will conduct and inspection next year progressive describe actions that were happening at some point in the past. example: i was describe continuing action or something going on now example: i am conducting an describe actions that will be happening at some point in the future. example: i will be leni amalia suek englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 73 conducting an inspection at 2 p.m. yesterday inspection at the moment conducting an inspection at 7 p.m. tonight from the instruction above, it is obvious that the students do not have to split their attention because the text and the diagram are integrated. they can easily see how the changes on verbs and time signal in both simple and progressive forms. in addition, the different pattern of each tense is also identified. hence, hopefully, this instruction can reduce learners’ cognitive load and assist their working memory in processing the information. another example of applying split-attention effect in teaching tenses is when teaching the difference between simple tense and progressive tense. it is a difficult concept because it has high intrinsic load particularly for novices. providing the diagram of timeline pointing on the differences between simple and progressive tense may assist students to understand the concept. the diagram with the text that explains how those two types of tenses are different is considered to be good instruction. this instruction is even better when the diagram and text is integrated. this is because students do not have to split their attention. the differences of simple and progressive tense includes the difference of verb, auxiliary verb and time signal. each aspect of differences can be explained in the diagram by integrating the text. moreover, cuing and highlighting may also be useful to direct learners’ attention on particular state of problem. goal free effect setting goals in learning is one of strategies to achieve good results. however, in designing instruction, setting specific sub goals and goals may not be effective for learning. goalfree problems assist learners to solve problems by considering any problems encountered and find any operators to solve the problems state (schnotz & kurschner, 2007). goal free effect is effective because it reduces cognitive load by eliminating effort to do means-ends anal ysis (schnotz & kurschner, 2007; sweller et al., 1998). this instruction procedure is also called no-goal effect because it is aimed to reduce goal-specificity effect (sweller et al., 1998). figure 1. example of instruction to avoid splitattention applying cognitive load theory in teaching tenses for second language learners 74 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 in teaching tenses, in order to assess students’ understanding of particular tenses patterns, drill practice or exercises after each class session is an effective assessment. in conventional instruction, teachers usually ask their students to produce sentences using particular tenses pattern, for example, making sentences using simple present tense or present progressive tense. another example of instruction is asking students to construct sentences using particular tenses by giving particular subject pronouns, verbs, and time signal. this conventional instruction may cause means-ends analysis because learners should first analyze the time signal in order to determine which tense pattern they should apply. then, they have to identify the verb and modify it by referring to time signal and subject pronoun before they construct the appropriate sentences. this type of instruction imposes high cognitive load because students have to work backward by analyzing each state of problem before being able to solve the problems. in order to enhance learning and avoid means-ends analysis, the instruction should facilitate the students to work forward. figure 2 shows the comparison of instruction that does not use goal free effect and the one that use it. figure 2. comparison of conventional instruction and instruction using goal-free effect conventional instruction goal-free effect make sentences using appropriate tenses: 1. (+) she / make / yesterday 2. (-) we / study / next week 3. (+) he / collect / everyday 4. (+) they / take / two years ago 5. (-) it / go / next year make positive and negative sentences by using as many tenses as possible! from the table above, there are several differences between traditional instruction and instruction using goal-free effect. for traditional instruction; students have to follow several steps or achieve some sub-goals before they are able to construct appropriate sentences. they first should identify times signal to choose appropriate tenses. for question number 1, the time signal is yesterday. it means leni amalia suek englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 75 that the tense that learners should use is simple past tense or past progressive tense. then, verb form should be identified whether it is regular or irregular verbs. for example, in number 2, the verb is study and it is regular verb. after changing the verb form by referring to subject pronoun and time signal, auxiliary verb and to-be should be identified before the learners can make positive or negative sentences using appropriate tenses pattern. for example, in number 3, the verb is collect and it should be inflected by adding “s”, it becomes collects because of the subject pronoun “he”. finally, the sentences are formulated. this kind of instruction imposes high cognitive load especially for novices because they have to work backward and the element of interactivity is too high for them. redesigning the traditional instruction by using goal-free effect is more effective. this is because the students can work forward by choosing any tenses, vocabularies and subject pronouns that they want to use. then, learners directly apply the tenses pattern in making positive and negative sentences. for example, if students want to make sentences using simple present tense, they simply apply the tenses pattern by choosing any regular or irregular verbs, subject pronoun and time signal. in designing instruction, teachers can use more than one mode of information, such as, text, audio, and visual. however, teachers should be able to manage those different sources of information in order to enhance learning. modality effect may assist instructional designers in designing instruction that uses more than mode of information. modality effect a good instruction is an instruction that can assist learners to construct schema. schema construction is facilitated when cognitive load is reduced by increasing available working memory resources (tindall-ford & sweller, 2006). those resources consist of audio and visual channel. it has been argued that presenting material in dual mode, audio/visual is better than visual only because it increases working memory capacity (kirschner, 2002; moreno & mayer, 1999; tindall-ford & sweller, 2006). this is because working memory consists of multiple channels such as visual and audio channels (moreno & mayer, 2002; paas et al., 2003, 2004; schnotz & kurschner, 2007; sweller et al., 1998; tindall-ford & applying cognitive load theory in teaching tenses for second language learners 76 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 sweller, 2006). hence, it is better to activate both channels than only one channel in designing instruction. it has been argued that text is better if it is presented in audio than visual form (paas et al., 2003; schnotz & kurschner, 2007; sweller et al., 1998; tabbers et al., 2004; tindall-ford & sweller, 2006). therefore, visual diagram and auditory text is better than visual diagram and visual text (tindall-ford & sweller, 2006). figure 1 can be explained using modality effect by presenting the text in audio mode. audio mode here means the explanation of the diagram will be presented in audio form by mixing the native language of the learners and the target language. in teaching second language, in order to assist students in understanding a concept such as tenses, using learners’ native language may be useful. this is because their effort will be focused on understanding the concept not understanding the way the concept is explained. this is important because when students have to put more effort in understanding the way the concept is presenting while they have to understand the concepts being taught, it will result in ineffective learning. ineffective learning in this context means that the students are overloaded with the information about the form and meaning of tenses and also instructions delivered in target language. for example, teachers explain the form and an meaning of simple present tense using english not indonesian this imposes high extraneous load because they have to work hard on understanding teachers’ instruction and also the concept of simple past tense at the same time. learning will be more effective if the instruction of form and meaning of the tense is delivered in students’ native language. beside consider learners first language, in designing instruction for teaching second or foreign language, the designers should also consider learners’ level of expertise (kalyuga, 2007). rather than integrating text and diagram of timeline as shown in figure 1, the text can be explained in audio form. this facilitates learning because learners activate their visual and audio channels. when all tenses have been covered, at the end of the fourth meeting, students are required to write a paragraph based on several questions. before the students are able to write the paragraphs, there are several steps that they should follow. those steps are better presented using modality effect. the instruction will be leni amalia suek englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 77 presented using dual mode channel. there is a diagram of a step, and an explanation of the diagram in a form of text. this instruction should be redesigned to be more effective by changing the form of a text into audio mode. figure 3 shows the diagram of the steps. the diagram will explain using both native language and second language. figure 3. instructional design using modality effect follow the steps below as a guideline to write the paragraph! the audio content covers the explanation of each step in both native and target language. for the first step, students should analyze the context of the given questions. by analyzing the context, students can identify types of tenses that they should use. after selecting the appropriate tenses, then, students can directly apply the tenses pattern in writing the sentences in the paragraph. after that, they should consult dictionaries and the given vocabulary list in order to choose appropriate vocabulary that is related to the topic they have chosen. after consulting the dictionary and choose the vocabulary, students can write the paragraph by using good grammar. 1.analyse context 2. apply tenses pattern 3. consult dictionaries or vocabularies list 4. choose vocabularies 5. write the paragraph applying cognitive load theory in teaching tenses for second language learners 78 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 when students read the diagram while listening to the explanation above in audio form, hopefully they can understand the steps easily. later, they can write good paragraphs that contain sentences with appropriate tenses pattern. however, sometimes, this type of instruction may be redundant for learners. this is because when students level of proficiency increases, they do not need the explanation either in a form of text or audio. the diagram itself can help them understand the instruction and the audio or text is not relevant for them. hence, instructional designer should also consider redundancy effect as a technique to assist schema instruction and activation. in terms of instruction, redundant can be both the amount of information and also the sources of information. redundancy effect in designing instruction, redundant information is irrelevant for learning. this is because when learners’ have to digest irrelevant information, it will impose high cognitive load. under particular circumstances, integrating text and diagram may be redundant (diao & sweller, 2007; kalyuga et al., 2001; moreno & mayer, 2002). this is because the diagram and text can be understood in isolation without referring to one another particularly when the learners level of expertise increases (schnotz & kurschner, 2007). learners perform better if redundant information is eliminated because this reduces cognitive load (mayer, heiser, & lonn, 2001; sweller et al., 1998). the instruction displayed in figure 1 is the introduction of the lesson. after the students understand the general concept of tenses, the next sessions will be focused in each tense. all tenses: simple present tense, present progressive tense, simple past tense, past progressive tense, simple future tense, and future progressive tense, will be explained one by one. when teaching each tense, it is unnecessarily to provide the timeline again. it is considered to be redundant because students can learn each tense in isolation without referring to the diagram of timeline. another example is when teachers teach students about the concept of past tense, it is considered irrelevant when teachers have to add information about present or future tense. sometimes, referring to those other tenses is useful, but if it leni amalia suek englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 79 is excessive, this may be redundant. then, this will result in ineffective learning. this is because students have to put more effort to correlate those tenses while they are struggling to understand a particular tense pattern. this is even worse for novices because they have to understand a tense and relate it to another tense pattern at the same time. for example, novice students will experience cognitive overload when they have to relate simple past tense and simple present tense while the have not completely comprehend the form of simple past tense. therefore, teachers should be careful in selecting the information that they want to incorporate in a lesson. conclusion in conclusion, cognitive load theory is a practical concept that can be used by instructional designers, teachers and educators to create effective instruction. effective instruction does not cause cognitive overload and considers characteristics of human cognitive architecture. cognitive load theory has been applied and developed in many areas including language teaching particularly teaching english as a second or foreign language. in designing the instruction for teaching tenses, worked example, split-attention effect, goal-free effect, modality effect and redundancy effect are effective techniques that are used to reduce extraneous load, increase germane load, construct and automate schema. when the students are asked to create sentences using appropriate tenses, some examples can be given by explaining the rationale for applying several steps before they are able to create the sentences. teachers should consider split-attention effect when designing the worked examples. in order to avoid split attention, physically integrated text and diagram is better than separate them in isolation. this reduces extraneous load and enhance learning. in teaching tenses, the diagram that consists of timeline of tenses can be integrated with the text that contains the explanation of the diagram. learners are not limited to particular steps or goals before they are able to answer the problems. learners should be asked to create sentences using as many tenses as possible rather than given them particular tenses to be used to make the sentences. modality effect is also another technique to design good instruction by addressing the audio and visual components of information. human brain consists of dual channel, audio applying cognitive load theory in teaching tenses for second language learners 80 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 and visual channel. hence, it is highly recommended for teachers to use dual mode channels to enhance learning. this is because when both channels are activated, cognitive load is reduced. therefore, instead of explaining the diagram that consists of steps of writing paragraph in visual mode using text, it is better to explain the steps in audio mode. since teaching tenses is a challenging task for second language teachers and students, hopefully, redesigning traditional instruction is expected to enhance learning. designing and developing new instructions using cognitive load theory is also very useful. teachers should understand this concept thoroughly because each instructional technique is connected to one another. in addition, it is very important to consider learners’ level of expertise, elements of interactivity and forms or sources of information before designing the instruction. those elements of information and instructional techniques that are covered in the concept of cognitive load theory, should be well-understood and applied by teachers particularly language teachers. teaching foreign or second language is a big challenge for non-native english teachers; hence, effective instructional design can assist and enhance teaching learning process. hopefully, by applying this theory in teaching tenses will contribute to positive outcomes where students understand the concept of tenses thoroughly and teachers develop their teaching skill. references atkinson, r. k., derry, s. j., renkl, a., & wortham, d. (2000). learning from examples: instructional principles from worked examples research. review of educational research, 70(2), 181-214. chandler, p., & sweller, j. (1991). cognitive load theory and the format of instruction. cognition and instruction, 8(4), 293-332. diao, y., & sweller, j. (2007). redundancy in foreign language reading comprehension instruction: concurrent written and spoken presentations. learning and instruction, 17(1), 78-88. florax, m., & ploetzner, r. (2010). what contributes to the split-attention effect? the role of segmentation, picture labelling, and spatial proximity. learning and instruction, 20(1), 216-224. gog, t. v., paas, f., & merrienboer, j. j. g. v. (2004). process-oriented worked examples: improving transfer performance through enhanced understanding. instructional science, 32(1), 83-98. kalyuga, s. (2007). expertise reversal effect and its implications for learner-tailored instruction. educational psychology review, 19(1), 509-539. leni amalia suek englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 81 kalyuga, s., chandler, p., tuovinen, j., & sweller, j. (2001). when problem solving is superior to studying worked examples. journal of educational psychology, 93(3), 579-588. kirschner, p. a. (2002). cognitive load theory: implications of the cognitive load theory on the design of learning. learning and instruction, 12(1), 1-10. mayer, r. e., heiser, j., & lonn, s. (2001). cognitive constraints on multimedia learning: when presenting more material results in less understanding. journal of educational psychology, 93(1), 187-198. merrienboer, j. j. g. v., kirschner, p. a., & kester, l. (2003). taking the load off a learner's mind: instructional design for complex learning. educational psychologist, 38(1), 5-13. merrienboer, j. j. g. v., & sluijsmans, d. m. a. (2009). toward a synthesis of cognitive load theory, four-component instructional design, and self-directed learning. educational psychologist review, 21(1), 55-66. moreno, r., & mayer, r. e. (1999). cognitive principles of multimedia learning: the role of modality and contiguity. journal of educational psychology, 91(2), 358-368. moreno, r., & mayer, r. e. (2002). verbal redundancy in multimedia learning: when reading helps listening. journal of educational psychology, 94(1), 156-163. paas, f., renkl, a., & sweller, j. (2003). cognitive load theory and instructional design: recent developments. educational psychologist, 38(1), 1-4. paas, f., renkl, a., & sweller, j. (2004). cognitive load theory: instructional implications of the interaction between information structures and cognitive architecture. instructional science, 32(1), 1-8. renkl, a., atkinson, r. k., & grome, c. s. (2004). how fading worked solution steps works a cognitive load perspective. instructional science, 32(1), 59-82. schnotz, w., & kurschner, c. (2007). a reconsideration of cognitive load theory. educational psychology review, 19(1), 469-508. sweller, j., merrienboer, j. j. g. v., & paas, f. g. w. c. (1998). cognitive architecture and instructional design. educational psychology review, 10(3), 251-296. tabbers, h. k., martens, r. l., & merrienboer, j. j. g. v. (2004). multimedia instructions and cognitive load theory: effects of modality and cueing. british journal of educational psychology, 74(1), 71-81. tindall-ford, s., & sweller, j. (2006). altering the modality of instructions to facilitate imagination: interactions between the modality and imagination effects. instructional science, 34(1), 343-365 englisia may 2019 vol. 6, no. 2, 88-101 researching students’ oral performance: what’s wrong with their use of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation? amiruddin universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia sulaimanamir1965@gmail.com manuscript received june 09, 2018, revised september 17, 2018, first published may 31, 2019, and available online june 19, 2019. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.22373/ej.v6i2.3485 abstract this study was conducted to investigate errors in oral performance among the third year english education department students of uin ar-raniry. it was aimed at two folds of research objectives. first, it sought to investigate the most frequentlycommitted error of the third year english education department students of uinarraniry. second, it attempted to identify the causes of students’ errors in their oral performance. this study employed qualitative research methods. the participants of this study were 20 students registering in public speaking course. to investigate the students’ errors, a speaking test was used as a research instrument. the test was in the form of individual speaking performance on a topic of “do we need native speakers in our tarbiyah faculty?” the participants were required to speak about the issue, which lasted for 10 minutes each. 20 oral performances were transcribed to enable the analysis of the errors. to analyze the student’s oral performance errors, the content analysis was used. this process was followed by analyzing the different aspects of language: grammar, pronunciation, and categories of error causes in communication. the results revealed that puzzling vowel insertion was the most commonly committed error (316/62.7%) compared to shifts in tense (10/2.0%), word order (19/3.8%), subject verb agreement (14/2.8%), and case of referent (15/3%). these errors were identified to have been caused by interlanguage factor. in an effort to respond to these compelling issues in the students’ speaking performance, lecturers who teach english at the university are required to give their maximum attention in order to improve their students’ oral performance. keywords: errors analysis; oral performance errors; causes of errors http://dx.doi.org/10.22373/ej.v6i2.3485 amiruddin englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 89 introduction the peak mastery of language learning is characterized by the ability, as most language learners perceive, to successfully communicate in any target language. however, despite knowing grammatical rules and their uses, foreign language learners have a difficulty in making native speakers understand their utterances in real situations; causing these learners to consider themselves fail in oral communication. therefore, foreign language learners need to make improvement in pronouncing foreign language words to become more confident in using the language orally. there are many factors that hinder foreign language learners to have a good command of speaking, one of which is first language interference. in the context of english language learning, differences of grammar, structures and sounds between learners’ first language and those of english have been recognized to be one of the factors affecting teaching, mastering and the assessing process (celce-murcia & olshtain, 2001; richards & renandya, 2002). furthermore, to speak native-like english is difficult to achieve for foreign language learners even though they have lived in english speaking country for many years as “one can wait a life time without achieving a respectable standard; we all know of foreigners living permanently in our country who continue indefinitely to betray the characteristic speech habit of their mother tongue” (maccarthy, 1978 as cited in zaghlul, 1987, p. 2). to speak english well, students need to be able to fully understand its grammar, word stress, and pronunciation. at the same time, they are also required to have a wide range of english vocabulary since one who has a good idea is still unable to express the idea well due to lack of vocabulary. to have a good command of speaking english requires extra efforts and practice, and many foreign students fail to speak english fluently as it takes extra time, efforts, and persistence for one to have a good command of speaking english. therefore, many linguists and methodologists, while being skeptical about the interference of the first language on the performance of other skills in the second language acknowledge the possibility of the influence of the first language on that of the second language. researching students’ oral performance: what’s wrong with their use of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation? 90 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 in the acehnese context, most university students who have spent their time to study english since secondary education are still struggling to produce error-free structures. even though they have studied english for six successive years at junior and senior high schools, many students still commit frequent errors in their productive skills (speaking and writing). as a result, some students are unable to meet the demand of the institution that requires them to use productive skills (speaking and writing) and to be communicatively competent. therefore, one of the universities in aceh, particularly the department of english language education, has attempted to facilitate the students to become effective english communicators through various subjects that can enhance their communicative skills including english public speaking. english public speaking is one of the challenging courses for the english department students of uin ar-raniry. this subject is compulsory for the third year students in english education department at uin ar-raniry. on improving students’ language skill, the public speaking course is aimed at providing students with a high level of language practice in different register of language. along the course, they were trained and taught how to be proficient english users by tasking to respond to a set of current relevant issues on politics, education, religion, economics and the like. as such, in this course, they are required to read, write, plan and present the language. the reality, however, holds different views that most of them were hardly able to communicate effectively in english. a bimonthly report (uin english lectures forum, 2018) showed that students registering in english public speaking course were not consistent and of basic grammar ability in initiating and maintaining the english conversation. they were unable to satisfy most academic requirements and often found with ineffective use of language such as in terms of the use of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. this evidence encourages the head of english education department and teaching staff to put every effort to overcome the problem. even though oral communication skills can be taught, not many studies have been conducted to investigate the linguistic errors made by english education department students in their oral communication skills. subramanian and saadiyah (2009) state that such an error analysis can help teachers identify specific language amiruddin englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 91 problems which can be used as a guide for more effective teaching. error analysis of their work will make the students aware of the errors when speaking english and this awareness will make them more proactive in terms of self-correction. such complexities require further effort to explore and analyze the causes, the type, and frequency of errors students make during their speaking. hence, this study investigates the errors in the oral performance of the third year of english education department students of uin ar-raniry. my ability to identify these errors has enabled me to correct the students’ errors and prevent the same errors to occur in the future. therefore, investigating student’s oral performance would eventually give both the lecturer and students a strong outlook of english learning improvement. hincks (2003) has stated that students with strong motivation can stretch their productive use of the english language beyond the skills required in every day communication. having gone through available related literature on error analysis and contrastive analysis, two main research questions are formulated below. 1. what are the most frequently-committed errors in the oral performance of the third-year english department students of uin ar-raniry? 2. what are the causes of the errors in the oral performance of the third year english department students of uin ar-raniry? literature review error analysis error analysis has enabled teachers to review their students’ language mastery such as in speech and writing and provide thorough evidence to address better language teaching strategies. the process of learning a foreign language has been scientifically supposed as that of learners’ initial way in mastering their first language. during this process of learning, errors and the mistake in the production of target language are observable such as learners’ inner factors or the result of incomplete linguistics learning (corder, 1967; mohideen, 1991; heydari & bagheri, 2012; jabeen, kazemian, & shabaz, 2015). in addition, it is believed that l2 learners also experience the same process while learning any new languages. that is why there is no much difference between the processes of learning a second or foreign language acquisition. error analysis is considered important in esl/efl researching students’ oral performance: what’s wrong with their use of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation? 92 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 teaching as it can help teachers to provide new ways of teaching by giving the feedback on the errors made by the learners (mohideen, 1991; jabeen et al, 2015). sources of errors the classification of errors is conducted through identifying the possible sources of errors which do not exploit the negative transfer of learners’ first language. these frequent errors sourced from inter-lingual transfer, intra-lingual transfer, contact of learning and the communication strategies used by foreign language learners (brown, 1980; ainon et al., 2013). other (james 1980 as cited in ainon et al., 2013) subsume the sources of errors into two major categories: linguistics and the taxonomy of surface structure. the linguistic category comprises errors in the whole target language system such as of phonology, grammar, lexis, textual discourse. without knowledge in the target language, language learner would find it difficult to correct them in the language performance such as those of interlanguage which is derived from the learners’ mother tongue (bootchuy, 2008; ainon et al., 2013). the inter-lingual errors which is supported by the behaviorist theory that it is an influence of the l2 learners; errors, was unable to prove what is happening in a classroom; however, it is known as the errors that initially emerged from learning second/foreign language. these are transfer of phonological, morphological, and the grammatical elements (keshavarz, 2008; ebrahim & majid, 2011). intra-lingual errors, on the other hand, refer to the errors which reflect the general characteristics of rule learning. this type of error can further be broken down into three types namely, over-generalization, ignorance of rule restrictions, and incomplete application of rules. meanwhile, developmental errors refer to “errors which appear since learners try to build up hypotheses about the english language from his/her limited experiences of it in the classroom or textbook. developmental errors frequently occur at the initial stages of language learning and are positively seen as the sign of improvement. error classification is useful for teachers by allowing them to record data, observe the student progress and plan remedial lessons (phettomkam, 2013). amiruddin englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 93 communications strategies in second language acquisition the use of certain strategies reflects the capacity of learners’ knowledge in communicating their message across the target language skills, most of which is being lack of target language rules and forms. as a result, learners may do circumlocution, literal translation, and topic avoidance and use the incorrect vocabulary. færch and kasper (1983) further elaborate the other terms for sources of errors related to strategies in communication. for example, the achievement strategies occur when the communicators do not have sufficient linguistic resources as in the code switching strategies such as seen in foreign language (fl) learning when students often share their l1 with their teacher and switch the code extensively between l2 and l1. the inter-lingual transfer strategies can be characterized by learners’ using combination of linguistics features from il and l1. furthermore, in the il based strategies, the learners deal with generalization, paraphrasing, or even coin new words or restructuring with their quest in communication barriers e.g. “we were sitting in the rounding of the stadium”. restructuring strategy is often applied when the learners realize that they cannot finish their previous plan, and develop an alternative constituent plan to ensure the expressing process of their message. at the phonological aspect, some items are indispensible in communication; learners cannot simply communicate by a reduced phonological system. also, some particular phonemes are restricted to specific words which can still not use a reduced phonological such as topic avoidance (wei, 2011). error analysis studies on efl speaking class phettomkam (2013) argues that it is not easy to examine linguistic accuracy in spoken language. in this regard, beattie (1983) as cited in phettomkam (2013) states that spontaneous speech is unlike written text, in which it contains many mistakes, sentences are usually brief. rula (2013) conducted a study on spoken english to investigate and analyze ungrammatical sentences uttered by senior jordanian english students of princes alia university of jordan to explore whether they are errors or mistakes. the participants of this study were 100 senior students majoring in english. the findings were reported that some students commit ungrammatical utterances known as either errors or mistakes which were caused by researching students’ oral performance: what’s wrong with their use of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation? 94 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 l1 interference, overgeneralization, lack of competence and carelessness. ainon et al. (2013) investigated types of grammatical errors made by malaysian students in oral presentation in english for academic purposes course taught by one of the researchers. the subjects of the study were 32 by the third and fourth year students of faculty of reveal knowledge and human sciences, law and economics international islamic university malaysia (iium). the study employed the surface structure taxonomy of dulay, burt, and kreshen (1982) to analyze the data of the student’s presentation focusing on four main ways by which the students modify the target forms: misformation, misordering, addition, and omission. the findings of the study reported that the majority of the grammatical errors made by the students was misformation (50.24%), followed by omission (24.21%), and addition (23.96%). this reflects that most students had a problem related to the rules of words formation since they were different from those of their native language. these types of language errors were not only encountered as the area of difficulty for malaysian learners of english but also for other asian learners. with regard to the errors made, ainon et al. (2013) remark that errors are necessary in order to improve their language performance. in addition, this study has provided an important input which can be employed to improve student’s oral presentation skills. since oral presentation in academic setting is structured and requires a good language, ainon et al. (2013) suggest that peer error analysis be a good exercise in raising the students’ awareness and consequently correcting their errors. another relevant study was conducted by hojati (2013) on oral performance errors snd was participated by 20 postgraduate students in the field of tefl (teaching english as a foreign language), in sheikhbahee university in iran. the results of the study showed that advanced learners made numerous errors in pronunciation and grammar. pronunciation-associated errors had the highest frequency (60), followed by grammar-related errors (51). in the grammar category, the use of articles had the highest frequency (12), and errors in the use of clauses and prepositions were reported to be the second the third highest frequencies of grammatical errors (11 and 8, respectively). in terms of lexical errors, the students amiruddin englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 95 made more errors in the choice of proper lexical items, and also in near synonyms and collocations. further, ting, mahdhir, and chang (2010) examined the grammatical errors in spoken english of malaysian university students. the sample of this study was 42 students whose english was less proficient. the findings indicated that 126 oral interactions and five common errors were found including in the use of preposition, plural form of nouns, subject-verb agreement, and tenses. methodology research design qualitative research design was employed in this study. data were collected from students’ oral performance. in qualitative research, using test is thought of an access to gather particular information of the respondents. this test can have many forms such as an open essay, a factual and heavily directed essay and divergent thinking items. in addition, the test is done to diagnose students’ strength, weakness and difficulties (grondlund & linn, 1990 as cited in cohen et al, 2007). in terms of oral performance, a speaking test was used based on communicative language teaching. the presentation activity was intended to be a means to later examine the students’ oral performance. in the test, the students were asked to give their opinion orally on the topic of “do we need an english native speaker at tarbiyah faculty?”. they were given 10 minutes each, making clear their standing’s argument upon the given topic. the errors investigated might be related to grammar features, vocabulary, and pronunciation during speaking. of the above features, the students’ works on the oral performance were classified in accordance with the types of the errors they made. coding and categorizing the students’ oral performance were done based on the three aspects: grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. meanwhile, the sources of the errors were analyzed against the sources of errors provided by faerch and kasper (1983), mohideen (1991), keshavarz (2008), and wei (2011). finally, the process of data elicitation of errors was done through content analysis as content analysis is the process of summarizing and reporting written data, researching students’ oral performance: what’s wrong with their use of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation? 96 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 the main contents of data and their messages (cohen, manion, & morisson, 2007). the data were processed by qualitative data analysis (qda miner lite) software. research setting and participants this study was conducted at english department education of uin (state islamic university) ar-raniry, darussalam, banda aceh, where i have served to my utmost for the teaching and learning english. in particular, the students’ performance in english oral task was taken at my public english speaking class. the participants of this study were 20 undergraduate students enrolling in my class. the sample was generated by using the purposive sampling technique. to adjust with qualitative research methods, the number of research participant should not be large (berg, 2001; cohen et al, 2007). yin (2011) affirms that dealing with this issue, purposive sampling should be used in selecting a certain number of participants in accordance with the problem being sought: “the goal or purpose for selecting the specific study units is to have those that will yield the most relevant and plentiful data, given your topic of study” (p. 88). a classroom of students was chosen as it allowed to gain an entire view of the errors in the oral performance and that it could address proper solutions and recommendations to the investigated-weaknesses. findings most commonly committed errors this study revealed significant and remarkable data upon the most commonly committed error and the causes of errors in the oral performance investigated from students’ public english speaking course. the data are shown in the following table: table 1 class of students’ error in oral performance aspect of language freq. % examples error use of grammar 139 25.6 goodly, an department student, learn from native, incorrect use of vocabulary 36 7.1 do a mistaken, different with, want distert, incorrect pronunciation 316 62.7 authentic /ɑʊtæntɪk/, qualified /kwɒlɪfɪ:d/, total 491 95.4 % amiruddin englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 97 table 1 indicates that the incorrect use of pronunciation was the most commonly committed errors in the students’ oral performance (62.7%). the puzzling use of pronunciation was mainly in the incorrect use of vowel sounds. as many as 316 cases of wrong vowel sounds were found, such as in the word “authentic” (/ɑʊtæntɪk/). in relation to wrong vocabulary, some students had less knowledge on appropriate collocations, as shown by some examples “do a mistaken”, “different with” and “want distert”. the errors in grammar also appeared quite frequent in almost 20 students’ oral performance; many were identified to be the incorrect use of adverb, shift in tense, and subject verb agreement. sources of errors interlanguage errors one of the dominant underlying factors influencing the learners’ language performance is their first language. this factor, according to the proponent of the interlanguage errors, occurs when one makes a hypothesis about how the target language is used and based upon his mother tongue language rule (brown, 2002). in indonesian, words are generally pronounced unlike those in english, triggering wrong pronunciation of the english words, such as when saying the word “authentic” (indonesian = /auténtik/; english = /ɑːˈθen.t ̬ɪk/) (see table 1). moreover, such intervention is contributed by students’ limited coverage of grammatical competence, which is triggered by either individual habit in learning language or by receiving indiscriminate language. thus students have no excuse but to develop their own structure of language without paying attention to how the rules of target language are actually used. intralingual errors it is important to reiterate that the term overgeneralization is thought of as a situation in which one form or rule of language is over-generalized over the other forms; a further persistence to extend the certain of language inside another is called a transfer of learning (jabeen, kazemian, & shabaz, 2015). as such, students’ overgeneralization in speaking performance found on their language content on “do we need native speakers in our tarbiyah faculty” can be identified on their relocating certain language rule into another. for example, students under this analysis overuse researching students’ oral performance: what’s wrong with their use of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation? 98 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 the rule of adverb, adding suffix “-ly” in making the adverb of manner and place (see table 1). in the case of noun use or group of nouns, factor causing the error are also identified in that students have extended the use of one form of grammatical aspect to what they believe is true to another aspect such as in “ten person”, “much vocabulary”, and so forth. such overgeneralization and the extending of target language form also come across in the use of subject verb agreement as in among other thing “there is so many vocabulary” and “there is a lot of perceptions”. in addition, the spelling sound of the 8th alphabet “i” in english is “ai” such in “i have a computer with an updated windows icon” overgeneralized into the other beginning “i” word, which is absolutely wrong as in for “idiom/aidiem/”. it revealed that most puzzling vowel sounds had been influenced by learners’ overgeneralization of a certain vowel sound inside another. discussion the investigation of grammatical error in students’ speaking performance has brought about a total sum of 491 items or 95.4 % of errors. these figures are grouped in different aspects of language ranging from the incorrect use of article to the elaborate puzzling vowel sound insertion. each aspect of language receives its own portion of error. without unified and well-formed knowledge of target language, students do not hesitate to employ inappropriate phrases embedded in their speaking discourse. wei (2011) believes that lacking command of english student often certainly insert certain strings of word which do not have any root in the target language (see table 1). therefore, the long span of gap between an appropriate language use and students’ lacking amount of knowledge can trigger to avoidance of topic as the concept of language is not known to speaker (wei, 2011). pair of students out of 20 selected respondents is seen to have made language avoidance and message abandonment of communication strategies which was done by inserting another topic they have knowledge with, which is different from that of requiring to. the findings of the investigation of students’ errors in the oral performance reveal that a significant insight to the quality of the students’ speaking skill is students’ self-habit to diy the target language. amiruddin englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 99 conclusion and recommendations issues in teaching english to students should not be neglected rather it must be handled with a profound investigation to look for the causal hidden factors, which influence students’ language competence (hojati, 2013). the findings of this study indicated that a large number of errors were identified in different aspects of english. the causes of errors came from several factors affecting students’ command of oral performance. it was indicated from previous data that the cause of abovementioned errors were indexed from self-constructing vocabulary, incorrect vocabulary, and appeal for assistance to message abandonment. as such, although it is said that practice makes perfect, the reality is not as “that easy” to practice. teacher should have a sense of enquiry to quickly spot students’ weaknesses and introduce the alternative to cure the students’ language condition, removing their language obstacles. if this situation persists, high command of english would absolutely be a figment of students’ imagination and causes them fail to communicate effectively in the foreign language as well as in global work place. references ainon et al., (2013). oral presentation errors of malaysian students in english for academic purposes (eap) course.world applied sciences, 21, 19-27. berg, b. l. (2001). qualitative research methods for the social sciences. boston: a pearson education company. brown, h, d. (2002). principles of language learning and teaching (4th ed.). new york longman. boothchuy, t. (2008). an analysis of error in academic english writing by a group of first year thai graduates majoring in english. (thesis, kasetsart university, bangkok). cohen, l., manion, l., & morrison, k. (2007).research method in education. new york: routledge. corder, s. p. (1967).the significance of learners' errors.international applied linguistics in language teaching, 1(5), 161-167. celce-murcia, m., &olshtain, e. (2001). discourse and context in language teaching: a guide for language teachers. issues in applied linguistics, 11(2), 277-279. dulay, h., burt, m., &krashen, s. (1982).language two. new york: oxford university press. researching students’ oral performance: what’s wrong with their use of grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation? 100 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 ebrahim, s., &majid, g. (2011).an account of sources in language learners’ interlanguage.international conference on languages, literatures and linguistics, 26, 159-182. fries, c.c. (1945).teaching and learning of english as a foreign language. ann avbor: university of michigan press. faerch, c., & kasper, g. (1983).plans and strategies in foreignlanguage communication. in faerch& kasper (eds.),strategies in interlanguage communication (pp. 20-60).london: longman. hincks, r. (2003). pronouncing the academic word list: features of l2 student oral presentations department of speech, music and hearing. icphs barcelona, 5(48), 1545-1548. ghadessy, m. (1980).implications of error analysis for second/foreign language acquisition.language teaching.international review of applied linguistics in language teaching, 18(2), 93104. heydari, p., &bagheri, m, s. (2012). error analysis: sources of l2 learners’ error. theory and practice in language studies, 2(8), 1585-1589. hojati, a. (2013). an investigation of errors in the oral performance of advancedlevel iranian efl students.mediteranian journal of social sciences, 4(4), 171179. jabeen, a., kazemian, b., &shabaz, m. (2015).the role of error analysis in teaching and learning of second and first language.education and linguistics, 1(2), 52-61. keshavarz, m. (2008).contrastive analysis and error analysis. tehran: rahnama press. khansir, a. a. (2012). error analysis and second language acquisition: theory and practice in language studies. theory and practice in language studies, 2(5), 1027-1032. mohideen, h. 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(2009). error analysis of written english essay for secondary school students in malaysia: a case study. european journal of social sciences, 8(3), 483-495. tarone, e. (2006).interlanguage.social sciences and humanities, 4, 747-752. ting, h, s., mahdhir, m., & chang, l, s. (2010). grammatical errors in spoken english of university students in oral communication course.gema online™ journal of language studies, 10(1), 53-70. uin english lecturer forum. (2018). students’ learning progress: toward underlining barriers in language achievement. wei, l. (2011). communicative strategies in second language acquisition: a study of chinese learners’ attitude and reported frequency of communicative strategies.(1st ed). [ebook] kristianstad university. retrieved from www.divaportal.org/smash/get/diva2:429103/fulltext01.pdf. yin, k, r. (2011).qualitative research from start to finish. new york: the guilford press. zaghlul, a. (1987). a contrastive analysis of acehnese and english vowel sounds and its implication in teaching the english vowel sounds to acehnese learners of english. (thesis, kansas state university, kansas). zaki, m. (2015). implications of contrastive analysis and error analysis in secondlanguage acquisition.journal in english language teaching, 2(1), 1-14. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2023. vol.10, no.2, 231-242 the analysis of the use of satire in the daily show with trevor noah sitti rahma*, syahron lubis, alemina perangin-angin universitas sumatera utara, medan, indonesia manuscript received january 4, 2023, revised february 10, 2023, accepted february 18, 2023, and published online may 7, 2023. recommended apa citation rahma, s., lubis, s., & perangin-angin, a. (2023). the analysis of the use of satire in the daily show with trevor noah. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(2), 231-242. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.16611 abstract various tv channels established with various talk shows stand out among other shows for presenting bitter facts in a very light-hearted way by commenting, satirizing, analyzing and criticizing in a very funny style. "the daily show with trevor noah" is a very popular comedy talk show in the united states because of its high language, witty praise, and especially the characters of "the daily show with trevor noah" criticizing various aspects of society. the aims of this study are to categorize various types of satire and reveal trevor noah's technique in expressing satire. this study uses a qualitative descriptive design with a sample of six episodes of the daily show with trevor noah downloaded from the official comedy center website. the data concentrated on the satire utterances of the host of the daily show with trevor noah were analyzed using interactive analysis. the results of the analysis showed that three types of satire appeared in the event: 21 horatian satires, 13 juvenile satires, and 16 menippean satires. the satire that is used in the daily show has conveyed a message of criticism of someone's ideas and behavior based on what they have said and done based on events that actually happened. sacrificial conclusions have become the most powerful and effective way of getting a message across, even today, no matter what means a satirist chooses to create their work. keywords: satire; daily show with trevor noah; tv show *corresponding author: sitti rahma universitas sumatera utara, medan, indonesia jalan dr. t. mansur no.9, padang bulan, kota medan, sumatera utara 20222, indonesia email: rahmasittir@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.16611 the analysis of the use of satire in the daily show with trevor noah 232 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 1. introduction satire is a highly effective art form for criticizing specific human behaviors. it is very diverse, ranging from horace's satires to pride and prejudice by jane austen to full frontal with samantha bee and modern nigerian poetry (akingbe, 2014). satire is a genre that has, since the time of the romans, influenced how works are interpreted and assessed based on the critique and entertainment they aim to provide (declercq, 2018). leboeuf (2007 as cited in gift, 2019) classifies the characteristics of satire into three aspects: satire is always a criticism of some aspect of human nature, ugliness, or stupidity with the aim of making the audience view it with disrespect and, as a consequence, the potential to cause social change. the irony, which is deliberately used lightly to draw attention to the problem behavior being criticized; behavior being criticized, deconstructs itself by being absurd, exaggerated, or taken out of its usual context. nowadays, technologies have enabled a change in how satire is presented. humorous television shows with satirical imitations often occur in popular comedy shows (peifer, 2018). as a type of entertainment-oriented political content that aims to criticize politics and reveal violations of social norms in an implicit and playful way, political satire has drawn scholarly attention in terms of whether it could play a significant role in facilitating a more engaged public (chen, gan, & sun, 2017). politicians, government policies, or entire regimes can be criticized, mocked, and exposed for their flaws through the use of political satire (jones, 2017). according to chen, gan, and sun (2017), the most widely watched form of satirical media in the west today is satirical tv programming, such as the daily show (tds) and the colbert report, and became the favorite source of news information for young citizens (becker & bode, 2018). the daily show with trevor noah was examined in this study which has attracted audiences to critical thinking about consuming news media that contained satirical messages. the messages are needed to be comprehended by audiences to obtain the point of what is intentionally said by the host. the daily show, a reliable news source, provides critical reflection along with the facts, engaging audiences and enabling them to think for themselves (čomić, 2019). trevor noah is someone with a global perspective, extremely bright, and wickedly funny that he could host the show with satire in an entertaining way (brownstein, 2017). moreover, tds represents what is accepted in society, but they also highlight what is not widely acknowledged (newman, 2010). through the use of irony and humor, satire aims to challenge people's perceptions and increase public awareness of current events (burgers & brugman, 2022). it helps people face unpleasant realities and see the world for what it is so they can change it. satires simplify and have a moral. both processes are contrary to the spirit of the scholarly age, though they are related but not the same. in the decades leading up to the turn of the millennium, one can count on academic research in the humanities and social sciences to present the subject matter under study as complex and nuanced (phiddian, 2013). therefore, by outlining the key traits and uses of political humor and satire, the researcher sitti rahma, syahron lubis, & alemina perangin-angin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 233 explores how various studies approach this issue throughout the article. it starts by giving a general overview of humor and satire while also discussing the similarities and differences between the two genres, including how heavily they rely on common cultural norms and symbols as well as the significance of comic effect and criticism. in an effort to address the clear gaps, this study looked at how satire was used on the daily show with trevor noah, as it provided a new way of thinking as well as the ability to assess and analyze what was being told. the context is understood in order to obtain the satirical message, which is delivered with wit and leads the audience to reflect on the situation and become aware of the truth. by understanding the context and manner in which satire is expressed, this study was effective in improving people's intellectual abilities in consuming satirical news. a satirist, he/she must be able to think critically and have a sense of humor in order to inspire people to make positive changes (hoffman & young, 2011). therefore, with the explanation of the use of satire, this study aims to classify the types of satire used by trevor noah and reveal the technique of satire that is expressed in the daily show with trevor noah. 2. literature review 2.1. definition of satire satire is an art form, primarily literary, and dramatic, in which human or individual vices, follies, or shortcomings are held up to ridicule with the intention of inspiring social reform (elliot, 2022). critical mockery and humor have been incorporated into satire, an age-old discursive practice, in a variety of ways over the years (condren, 2012). due to its propensity to abuse and manipulate a variety of genres, satire can be thought of as pregeneric and parasitic (peifer & lee, 2019). satire as an immediately recognizable form of comedy is a common element of everyday spoken and written interactions. it becomes a technique through which the satirist is unable to speak directly. it has been noted that satire has been widely employed as a critical tool throughout history (murodova, 2022). thus, it is a highly powerful and successful method for critiquing specific human behaviors. the goal of effective satire is to shock the audience into realizing the vice and forcing it to be eliminated from the individual or society as a whole, not to cause harm or damage. in fact, the satirical acts are not to entertain or amuse but it has a moral purpose to provoke change or reform. as swift (2016) argued that literary people employ satire to bring about improvement in a group of ideas and human behavior as it reveals the absurdity of a person or an organization as well as the disconnect between the mask and the face. examples of satire include jonathan swift's book travel, which makes fun of the british and people in general, sinclair lewis' book babbitt, which details the attacks on american businessmen, and joseph heller's catch 22, which depicts the assaults on the american air forces. the analysis of the use of satire in the daily show with trevor noah 234 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 2.2. types of satire according to abrams and harpham (2015), satire is classified into two types which can be formal/direct and indirect. formal satire is when the satirist adopts a persona that addresses the audience or a different character in the work under discussion. two types of formal satire are distinguished by taking their names from the great roman satirists horace and juvenal. the classifications are defined by the character of the first-person satiric speaker presented by the author, as well as the attitude, and tone that such a persona displays toward both the subject matter and the readers of the work. meanwhile, menippean satire is a type of indirect satire in which mental attitudes are criticized rather than societal norms or specific individuals. when using indirect satire, the author's intention is made clear by the narrative and its plot. also, it is concerned with current and topical issues (leymann, lentz, & burgers, 2022). 2.3. the daily show with trevor noah the daily show with trevor noah is an american news satire talk show that uses humor to amuse viewers. making jokes about current events, politicians, and media outlets is a common way to entertain young audiences for a half-hour show (tandoc, lim, & ling, 2018). it is broadcast on comedy central every monday through thursday. from 1996 to 1998, the program was officially known as the daily show with craig kilborn. from 1999 to 2015, it was known as the daily show with jon stewart. since 2015, it has been known as the daily show with trevor noah. in fact, one of the main reasons noah was chosen to host the daily show was his propensity for waxing satirical on a variety of subjects, much like stewart did before taking the throne (brownstein, 2017). with respect to all three tenures, the daily show has been on comedy central the longest and has garnered 24 primetime emmy awards (barton, 2016). the daily show's aim is to amuse its audience, but it's interesting to note that the humor it delivers also touches on political subjects, including its political leaders. young (2017 as cited in nugraha, 2022) argued that the fake news sources in that tv show could be helpful to the public by serving as a gateway into actual news sources and educating the public about political issues. therefore, the daily show has known as a distinct phenomenon, unlike other late-night shows, which adopt the personality of a news program and frequently incorporate more political content (chen, gan, & sun, 2017). besides, trevor noah is a stand-up comedian who has won awards twice in the south african comic's choice awards, as well as best host on "the daily show with trevor noah" in 2017 (biography.com, 2016). furthermore, this tv show is chosen as the subject of this study because the host, trevor noah, has his own language style in which the message that he delivers and expresses contains sarcasm that is related to the political situation in america, particularly after joe biden is elected as the next president of the united states. furthermore, the topic of political satire was chosen because, while satire can be aggressive and offensive in the eyes of others, the underlying premise of the sarcastic text is frequently optimistic (young, 2013). sitti rahma, syahron lubis, & alemina perangin-angin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 235 3. method this study employed descriptive qualitative as the research design. there were six episodes of the daily show that analysed in this study. the six episodes were purposively chosen from 8th to 17th june 2021 or from episodes 103 to 108 to highlight the current issues being discussed. the data was the utterances contained types of satire that are based on three classifications explained by abrams and harpham (2015). the data was taken from the internet www.cc.com/shows/the-daily-show-with-trevor-noah the official website of the daily show with trevor noah which airs on comedy central. documentary technique in collecting the data was used for data collection. the documents were the daily show with trevor noah videos and their transcripts. triangulation was used as data validation to explore and test the validity of the data. therefore, the data acquired and tested were analyzed by applying an interactive model (miles, huberman, & saldana, 2014). 4. findings and discussion after analyzing the data, there were 50 utterances that contained satire in the daily show with trevor noah. the data were analyzed based on types of satire with the theory presented by abrams and harpham. the types of satire found in the daily show with trevor noah are horatian, juvenalian, and menippean. the result showed that the data represented the direct form of satire was significantly expressed by the host trevor noah. to give an easier display of findings, the table is presented below: table 1 types of satire in the daily show with trevor noah. type of satire episode 103 episode 104 episode 105 episode 106 episode 107 episode 108 total f % f % f % f % f % f % f % horatian 6 28.6 2 9.5 4 19 2 9.5 2 9.5 5 23.9 21 42 juvenalian 1 7.7 0 0 1 7.7 4 30.8 5 38.5 2 15.3 13 26 menippean 2 12.5 2 12.5 5 31.3 1 6.3 3 18.7 3 18.7 16 32 total 9 18 4 8 10 20 7 14 10 20 10 20 50 100 table 1 shows that 21 utterances (42%) were identified as horatian type, 13 utterances were juvenalian (26%), and there were 16 utterances of menippean (32%). the results are further elaborate in the explanation below: 4.1. horatian satire abraham and harpham (2015 as cited in salsabila & simatupang, 2021) “in horatian satire the speaker is an urbane, witty, and tolerant man of the world, who is moved more to wry amusement than to indignation at the spectacle of human folly, pretentiousness, and hypocrisy, and who uses a relaxed and informal language to evoke from readers a wry smile at human failings and absurdities—sometimes including his own”. this type of satire intends to focus on how to amuse people by criticizing some the analysis of the use of satire in the daily show with trevor noah 236 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 social evils through soft, gentle, and light humor. for instance, the utterances below are identified as a horatian type of satire that is found in the daily show with trevor noah. [1]: “i feel like america's laws are like-like a mom's handbag.” first, it was critical to determine whether trevor noah was being criticized for a single person, a group, a specific event, or humanity in general. this would pinpoint the classification of the satire, narrowing down what will be written about in the analysis. according to the data, trevor was being witty to liken the issue of “america’s laws” to the reliable thing “mom’s handbag” to make it sounds gentler in criticizing. trevor mentions that america’s laws are similar to a mother’s handbag and that everything we need is could probably found there. in this case, trevor noah believed something was wrong with the laws of america and it needs to be discussed. the context of the situation was mentioned by trevor noah about biden's announcement of the vaccine mandate. president biden has announced sweeping coronavirus vaccine mandates requiring all federal workers and government contractors to be fully vaccinated. however, many people are questioning whether biden has the authority to do so. by all means, the federal government has the power to protect workers from grave danger under the occupational safety and health act (osha) of 1970. osha is in charge of enforcing the occupational safety and health act that applies to all employers in all industries. the provision, officially stated in section 5(a) (1) of the act, serves as osha's mandate which requires employers to provide a safe working environment for their employees (u.s. department of labor). thus, the utterance “i feel like america's laws are like a mom's handbag.” was classified as a horatian form of satire that trevor has a quick sense of humor to relate the laws of america as the mother's handbags. the handbag which the mother has anything she needs and the regulation that is found depend on americans' requirements. from the utterance, it was meant that the americans have found the law accordingly to the current situation needed vaccination for coronavirus. this form is the mildest form among others as trevor has humorously critiqued the u.s laws. [2]: “...bitcoin without untraceability is like superman without any powers.” in analysing the utterance that contains satire, context, and background knowledge are needed in order to understand how the satirist expressed satire and what is the satirical message understood from the utterances. satire frequently makes allusions to current affairs or societal norms, so understanding the point requires familiarity with the subject matter on the part of the audience. in the case of data 2, trevor criticized bitcoin through light-hearted humor and he addressed issues with clever mockery to highlight the problem. sitti rahma, syahron lubis, & alemina perangin-angin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 237 bitcoin is a type of money that is completely virtual such as an online version of cash. it is designed to be untraceable which preferred payment method of drug lords and international hackers. this cryptocurrency is favored by cybercriminals because it allows for direct online payments, regardless of location. trevor stated bitcoin without untraceability is like superman who has lost his power. ‘superman without any powers’ means that he is just some creep with underwear on the outside as bitcoin was no longer safe to do any illegal payment as it was finally noticeable by the fbi. [3]: “the united states is donating 500 million vaccines to the rest of the world. which seems generous until you remember that biden can’t get anyone else in america to take them.” trevor’s expression has satirically expressed the reason why the united state decided to donate vaccines to the rest of the world. donating a million vaccines to those who are needed was kind-hearted, however donating it because you were forced was like giving your friend that old exercise bike you have just been hanging your clothes on, said trevor in episode 104 of the daily show. from the illustration, trevor sarcastically stated that the vaccine that was donated was the vaccine used for americans, whereas many americans refused to be vaccinated, thus, biden had massively donated it. the utterance was delivered gently and vividly to expose the truth of being generous. by analyzing what was being told, a new way of thinking has been made to reveal the actual issue. 4.2. juvenalian satire juvenalian, by contrast, employed a very different style and satiric persona. in this type of satire, the juvenile is used to criticize someone as a target by using harsh and voilent language. this satire contains hatred and anger through the use of sarcasm or irony. it turns juvenalian into a darker satire than horation satire. “juvenalian laughter is meant not to heal but to wound” (holbert, hmielowski, jain, lather, and morey, 2011, p. 192). moreover, the character in this satire has a serious moralist, a dignified style of utterance to blame form of vice and error so that it makes the reader feels angry and sad about, moral resentment or humanity’s anomalies (abrams and harpham, 2015). the data with juvenalian form might explain in the data below: [4]: “this dude is going to run for congress? he’s a dangerous extremist who’s completely unqualified and unprepared. so, yeah, he’ll fit right in.” as juvenalian satire is angrily attacking, irony was commonly used as it is a sharp remark and bitter expression of disapproval. in the data above, the irony is applied to mock the rioter which might be a good idea if the guy gets elected as trevor said “he will the analysis of the use of satire in the daily show with trevor noah 238 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 fit right in” to be on the other side when the next insurrection happened. ironically, if the guy got elected, trevor hoped he will face and learn how to handle the next insurrection. the data was marked that trevor indignantly judges the rioter according to his previous mistake. the context of the situation was explained in episode 107 aired on june 16th, 2021 the issue happened in january when the protesters stormed the u.s. capitol hoping to overturn the 2020 presidential election. now, one of the protesters is planning to return to the scene of the crime as an elected official. in response to the issue, trevor stated that the protester is a dangerous extremist which unqualified to run for congress. he is judged as an extremist and unqualified because he does not have a super solid grasp of the political process. as that guy was also admitted to entering the capitol building on january 6th and chugging from a bottle of wine he found in a lawmaker’s office which went viral on media. [5]: “i think we can all agree that chrissy teigen has been a particularly horrible person online.” anger is detected in trevor’s utterances by judging crissy teigen as an awful online person. teigen was judged as a particularly horrible and brutal person for saying mean and nasty things on twitter purposively to destroy others. the context has related to the utterance containing moral indignation and personal invective which are known as the features of the juvenalian form of satire. in this case, trevor has exposed chrissy teigen’s arrogance and terrible attitude with cyberbullying scandals. it is reminded that what chrissy teigen has done to people was human-less and people agreed to call her a horrible person online. 4.3. menippean satire in the indirect type of satire, the satirist uses several other literary forms apart from direct addresses to the reader. the most common form of menippean is a fictional narrative. menippeans are defined by inventing ridiculous or obnoxious objects of satire and their opinions by what they think, say, and do (holman, 1985), and sometimes add satirical narrative style and comments that make the satire even more ridiculous. [6]: “…my favorite part of this whole thing is how rudy giuliani can’t even get his story straight while he's telling it.” menippean satire is identified in the data above that rudy is mocked for what he has said in the september 11th commemoration speech. september 11th is the 20th anniversary of the attack on 2001 in the united states. the accident was 20 years ago when rudy giuliani was america's mayor and now was asked to give a speech related to the commemoration. however, the speech was unrelated in that he talked about the time he hung out with jeffrey epstein's alleged pedophile friend. moreover, trevor sitti rahma, syahron lubis, & alemina perangin-angin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 239 ridiculously criticized rudy that his speech went off the rails and even he could not get his story straight while he is telling it. trevor has echoed rudy in his story "i never once met prince andrew. never! i mean, yeah, one time we hung out in my office." according to the story, menippean form was classified to expose how rudy was a self-contradict of his own story. he said "never" then later he clarified himself "yeah, one time" had met prince andrew once in his office. it was seen from trevor's utterance "rudy cannot get his story straight". hence, the context explained rudy has been judged as hilariously inconsistent with his words. [7]: “oh, you see? only killers laugh at “are you a killer?” because normal people are like, “what did you call me?!” the utterance above is satirized from the context of the peculiar response of vladimir putin which seems unusual. trevor wanted to reveal normal people's reactions when were asked "are you a killer?" question. on the contrary, putin was laughing at such judgmental questions which meant that it was not normal to be acted in such a way. also, trevor explained the normal people will react to the "are you a killer" question by responding like "what did you call me?!" because they are not a killer. but putin was like "(chuckling) i get called this all the time. no surprise (russian accent)" in this case, trevor is being echoic by copying putin's accent and mimicking to get a comic effect of putin's personality for being publicly stable. as trevor said, putin's laughter at "are you a killer?" was a ridiculous answer because only killers laugh at such judgmental questions. among the three types of satire, juvenalian was the least utterances compared to other types expressed by trevor. it meant he would rather use humor to satirize than anger. furthermore, horatian was significantly expressed which trevor intended to criticize with humor rather than fury. the specific type of satirical material examined in this study, however, restricts the generalizability of the findings to other satirical material, according to the researcher, various satirical presentations can each have their own particular effects. moreover, in the adjustment of types contained satire, it is also associated with the way to convey the utterance. trevor noah used satire in many ways such as irony, parody, and exaggeration to criticize and satirize someone or something. indeed, satire was more than just a source of amusement. the informational potential of satire is known to the general public. they consume it not simply for entertainment but also to contextualize the news and learn about current events (young, 2013). the satirical can be found in a variety of contexts, but it appears more frequently in texts that are governed by other generic rules than in the relatively small group of texts that can be labeled simply as satires (phiddian, 2013). many different techniques and tools have been employed over the thousands of years that satire has evolved from comedy. a component of humor can be found in both ancient and contemporary satire, making it one of the most popular and effective forms of satire (murodova, 2022). the goal of satire, according to holeman (2017), is to elicit an emotional response from the the analysis of the use of satire in the daily show with trevor noah 240 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 audience, whether that reaction is outrage or laughter. every satire criticizes something, and the way the satire is perceived or received can vary depending on the viewer's position on the subject matter. the ability to evaluate and analyze what was being said was one of the benefits of satire. instead of just passively consuming information, it was a process. in this way, the satirist makes an attempt to communicate what they perceive to be true about a certain aspect of the world; whether the viewer understands this or not is entirely up to them. in the case of the daily show, noah satisfies the awareness instinct by giving his audience information that is outside of their experience and accomplishes the fundamental duties of journalists, such as authenticating, making sense of, and keeping watch, as described by kovach and rosenstiel (2001). the daily show with trevor noah embraces its place in the media landscape of today, blurring the lines between news and entertainment as noah uses humor to communicate underlying universal truths while maintaining his subjectivity and personal values (groel, 2020). according to the findings of this study, trevor mostly used vividness and irony to satirize individuals. trevor intended to expose something by utilizing exact words in order to silence an audience's objection. trevor wanted to describe painful or absurd situations, as well as ignorant or immoral people, as clearly as possible. as a result, satirists' perspectives on the subject are usually delivered with a sharp wit that causes the audience to reflect on the situation and become aware of the truth. the daily show's ability to successfully blend news and humor is largely due to the way it simultaneously presents itself as a parody of traditional television news programs while making it abundantly clear that its primary objective is entertainment. satire has a significant social function, which explains why it has evolved throughout history. throughout the development of humanity, numerous satirical genres and forms have emerged. so, all literary works, including poems, short stories, novels, and tales, can be satirical (murodova, 2022). context and background knowledge are needed in order to understand how the satirist expressed satire and what is the satirical message understood from the utterances. satire frequently makes allusions to current affairs or societal norms, so understanding the point requires familiarity with the subject matter on the part of the audience. the cultural context, among other things, may have an impact on how satire is viewed or received. a satirist's goal is to enable the reader, or the viewer addressees to pick up on the satirical message that can shed light on how satire is expressed (leymann, lentz, & burgers, 2022). to be effective, the satirist's message must be understood by the audience. the satire would not be effective and would not accomplish its goal in any other case. 5. conclusion after analyzing the data, it can be concluded that, first, the utterances in the daily show with trevor noah were analyzed in the study significantly employed the direct form of satire which horatian and juvenalian types were significant compared to sitti rahma, syahron lubis, & alemina perangin-angin englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 241 menippean. second, with regard to the second objective of the study vividness, irony, parody, and exaggeration were revealed as the satirical techniques in expressing satirical news in the daily show with trevor noah. also, the message that is conveyed in the utterances was criticism of one's ignorant behavior as well as according to what one has said and done. the analysis of the context in the daily show with trevor noah shows the current issues which are being criticized by trevor noah and it shows the situation that is drawn in the utterances. the utterance that contained satire has become the most powerful and effective way to spread a message, even in the present time, no matter what tools a satirist chooses to use to create their work. thus, this study was effective in improving people's intellectual abilities in consuming satirical news by understanding the context and how satire is expressed. as a satirist, critical thinking and a sense of humor are required so people could be encouraged to make positive changes. references abrams, m. h., & harpham, g. g. 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(2013). laughter, learning, or enlightenment? viewing and avoidance motivations behind the daily show and the colbert report. journal of broadcasting & electronic media, 57(2), 153–169. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2013.787080 englisia may 2019 vol. 6, no. 2, 117-129 critical research on the pedagogical, individual, and social impact of the toefl pbt introduction as a testing instrument imam munandar stain gajah putih, takengon, indonesia imameducator@gmail.com manuscript received march 14, 2019, revised may 22, 2019, first published may 31, 2019, and available online june 19, 2019. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.22373/ej.v6i2.4547 abstract this research is a descriptive research by nature which tries to demonstrate various impacts to diverse communities. it gathers several important findings from previous research and draw a comprehensive outlook on how the toefl test has influenced the decision makers, teachers, students and outer community themselves. it is found that there has been a significant impact as the toefl test is administered as a test instrument worldwide. these include positive and negative impacts. for instance, the test has demanded schools to include teaching toefl preparation as an integrative part of syllabus. still, students are forced to learn english intensively, but they are more inclined to attend the toefl class rather than regular classes. the research also shows that students prefer studying american english dialect since it is found in the test content. in wider community, the test opens job opportunities for many people especially publication industries and english private courses. however, the test also contributes to the inequality of educational opportunity between wealth and poor families. keywords: english language testing; toefl test; english language institution introduction a language testing instrument is used to measure the language ability of a particular person (fulcher & davidson, 2007). by testing, we will be able to either to rank him or decide if he has met a criterion and then pass the test. however, while a test can give us useful information and a clear picture about a particular test taker, it http://dx.doi.org/10.22373/ej.v6i2.4547 critical research on the pedagogical, individual, and social impact of the toefl pbt introduction as a testing instrument 118 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 is widely believed that it also has various impacts as a result of its introduction. these consequences range from internal and external impacts. the former is the impact that affects the individual test takers and teaching-learning activities in the classrooms and the latter is the impact on a wider scale of community involving industries and business. the impacts of the testing that affect those individual and community can be positive and negative. the positive impact is seen as those impacts that can improve the pedagogical teaching in a language classroom and benefit the society, while the negative consequences are those that undermine the teaching and learning activities in achieving the goal of language education and create a social problem among the community. the scope of the research this research is purposed to look closely at the various impacts resulted from the adoption of the paper based test of test of english as foreign language (toefl pbt) as a testing instrument in various places. the article will begin with the literature review of impact, washback and consequential validity. what follows is the introduction of toefl pbt as the assessment instrument. the impacts under this analysis will involve those related to the language classroom teachings (washback), with more specific review at how the testing instrument affects teaching techniques and strategies performed by teachers, as well as learning activitiesin the language classrooms. the impacts also will be concerned with those affecting the individual test taker. the analysis will look at how the testing instrument influences their learning strategies and affects their life opportunities and career. lastly, the impacts of testing instrument on social community outside the classrooms will be discussed. furthermore, i will draw together the main points of discussion in the conclusion in the end of this article. methodology in obtaining and analyzing the data, this research employs qualitative method with content analysis procedure. content analysis can be understood as a research technique used to make replicable and valid inferences by interpreting the existing material in order to gain a broader perspective and conclusion. the research focuses on content generated by another previous qualitative study carried out imam munandar englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 119 elsewhere. all data gathered by means of purposeful sampling. in this type of sampling, the documents are selected based on pre-selected criteria based on research question. those pre-selected criteria are the written documents containing; 1. washback of the toefl test, 2. impact of the toefl test, 3. consequential validity of toefl test. meanwhile, this research is limited to heavily focus on the impact of toefl test towards teaching english, students learning, individual test takers, and wider community (society, business, and industries) which happen in some part of the world. research findings and discussion washback, impact, and consequential validity anderson and hamp-lyons (1996) point out that it is widely believed that, examinations can influence attitudes, behavior and motivation of teachers, learners and parents. this statement implies that a test can affect both internal and external aspects of language institutions. the term “backwash” has been generally referred to the effect of a test to the language classroom. it can be defined as “the way a test affects teaching material and classroom management” (hughes, 1989, as cited in taylor, 2005). mcnamara (1998, p. 308) defines washback as “the extent to which the test influences teaching and learning”. spratt (2005) identifies that teaching method and students’ learning are two of several aspects of language classroom that are affected by an adoption of a test.anderson and wall (1993, as cited in anderson & hamp-lyons, 1996) in their washback hypothesis posit that a test will influence teaching and learning, with more specific influences to what and how teachers teach and what and how students learn. furthermore, washback can affect classrooms in positive and negative ways. morris (1972, as cited in anderson and hamp-lyons, 1996) suggests that a test can ensure that the curriculum is put into effect. similarly, language testing can be a tool in the language curriculum (anderson, 1986, as cited in anderson and hamp-lyons, 1996). meanwhile, as negative washback, teachers are more inclined to coach students to passing the test, rather than teaching them the language proficiency according to the curriculum. at the same time, according to spratt (2005), washback is inextricably linked to the social and educational contexts in which a test is administered. this shows critical research on the pedagogical, individual, and social impact of the toefl pbt introduction as a testing instrument 120 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 that a test may affect not only schools where teaching-learning take place, but also outer community within which the test is enacted. this is what mcnamara (2000) has referred toimpact.it is understood as the wider effect of a test on the community as a whole, including the schools. this community may involve parents, industries and businesses.however, impact of a test towards classroom has never been fixed. spratt (2005) suggests that scholars have debated the potential impact of tests for many years. some of them have considered that tests have the potential to bring about a favorable impact on teaching and learning (e.g. alderson, 1986; bailey, 1996; wall, 2000), while alderson and banerjee’s (2001) review articles indicated that most researchers maintain that tests have negative effects. the term consequential validity is introduced by messick (1996, as cited in mcnamara, 1998) to cover all areas which are affected by a test. according to mcnamara (2000) consequential validity is an aspectof test validation which includes changes that may occur as a consequence of introduction of a testing instrument. he indicates that such changes may affect what is being measured by a test, and thus inference about a test score of a test taker can be questioned. the consequential validity is more concerned with the introduction high-stake tests since they will have impacts ona wider scope of community.it looks closely at every level of community affected by the test, from classroom to broader social and economic community that may be affected by the introduction of a test. the profile of the pbt toefl as a language testing instrument the toefl pbt test is “a paper-based test that measures the ability to use and understand english in a classroom setting at the college or university level” (educational testing service [ets]). the toefl pbt test is a proficiency test which is “designed to measure people’s ability in a language, regardless of any training they may have had in that language” (hughes, 2003, p. 11). it is classified as a paperand-pencil based test which is also known as traditional test which test the language skills separately including listening comprehension, structure and written expression, reading comprehension and test of written english (shu-mei, 2009). the listening section is purposed to measure the ability to understand spoken english, which is limited to 30 minutes. furthermore, structure section is limited to 25 minutes, which imam munandar englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 121 is used to measure the ability to recognize language appropriate for standard written english. reading comprehension section takes 55 minutes which is aimedat measuring the ability to understand non-technical reading material. additionally, writing section is limited to 30 minutes, which measures the ability to write in english (ets). the overall allocated time for the test is 140 minutes. the test was developed in 1963 by the national council on the testing of english as a foreign language (wall & horak, 2006), which is later administered by ets and the college whose base is in michigan, usa. even though the test is followed by the introduction of toefl cbt and toefl ibt in 2005, the toefl pbt is still valid and used in wide purposes. the test is offered six times a year in 87 countries around the world.the score of the test is accepted in more than 7,500 universities and colleges in over 130 countries accept toefl. besides, other agencies make use this test, which involve immigration department, and medical and licensing agencies (ets website). the type of test is proficiency test which is used to measure the english ability of test takers who want to pursue their education in english speaking world. furthermore, the type of the assessment task under this review is fixed-response task which are realized in form of four-optionmultiple-choice question, except for witting section test. the writing test is scored from band 0 to 6, while the overall score of the test ranges from 310 to 677, which exclude the writing section. the test of writing ability integrated with toefl pbt is called test of writing english (twe), which specifically measure the ability of (1) generate and organize ideas, (2) support ideas in writing with examples or evidence, and (3) use standard written english formats (ets). as stated above, this test takes 30 minutes for test takers to write an essay from an academic topic. the impact of pbt toefl test on teaching english anderson and hamp-lyons (1996) and banerjee (2003) are three researchers among those who have found the negative impacts of toefl pbt in their classroom investigation. these findings demonstrate that teachers tend to teach the test to students. on her study on toefl impact, banerjee (2003) reveals that while the toefl test has led some schools to make toefl preparation course for students, this course teaches students test-taking techniques rather than language critical research on the pedagogical, individual, and social impact of the toefl pbt introduction as a testing instrument 122 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 proficiency.most teachers are deviant from teaching objective that have been outlined in the communicative language curriculum. equally, anderson and hamplyons have pointed out that the toefl test clearly affect the content of english teaching in schools since in many parts of countries, toefl is offered as a regular language classes in schools. this shows that due to the perceived importance of teaching toefl for students, it has had its own place in the content of syllabus in language institutions. this syllabus specifically demands teachers to have a good understanding of teaching toefl for students to prepare them to enter universities that require toefl score.as a result, teachers often seek trainings in teaching toefl preparation before and during their toefl classes were commenced. this is a positive side as they enrich their knowledge about the toefl test. however, following my experience as a toefl course participant, teachers who have been trained teaching toefl test tend to include the toefl test material in every english lesson, especially during the time when the actual test in approaching.although teachers have been given a toefl preparation class to teach the test, they cannot escape from teaching it in other regular class where they are supposed to teach english lesson, not the test. hamp-lyons (1998, as cited in shih, 2007) in her investigation,more specifically found that teachers in helping the students to pass the test, taught the skills promoted by the textbooks which generally consist of test-taking strategies and mastery of language structures, lexis and discourse rather than to any efl/esl curriculum or syllabus that promote model of language in use. teachers were found to teach discrete point of language in the classroom and thus it does not meet with the communicative language teaching (clt) prescribed in the language syllabus. relating to this, venon, (1956, as cited in anderson & wall, 1993) in a long time before, has warned this potentiality. he points out that tests “distorts the curriculum” and believes that teachers tend to ignore subjects and activities which do not contribute directly to passing the test, which is a form of excessive coaching for the test. this situation then can be considered as a negative effect of the test becauseas being influenced by toefl pbt, teachers do not promote communicative language approach which requires the integrative language teaching. imam munandar englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 123 furthermore, anderson and hamp-lyons (1996) report that as being influenced by toefl, teachers in teaching english in classroom are found to talk more and students have less time available to talk. also, students have less opportunity to do pair work or discussion. they also found the frequent appearance of teacher dominated lengthy explanations of grammatical points, with the use of much meta-language and little opportunity for students to practice.in my personal experience, this situation is a very nature of teaching toefl class. teachers seem to be more willing to teach grammatical points of the test and the class has a monologue discussion. in this teaching, teacher gives students copies of toefl test and let them to give responses. later, teachers give the correct answers and check if students have responded correctly. then, teachers explain why the options are correct and incorrect, without involving students to discourse with their peers. furthermore, given the fact that toefl pbt does not include speaking task, most teachers subjected to anderson and hamp-lyons’ research have negative attitude towards the test. they argue that while the toefl test primarily consists of discrete items focusing on language below discourse level, and occurring independent of each other, it may not suitablewith discourse-based communicative teaching. they say that the test is inauthentic and non-communicative, and that teaching toefl is boring and fragmentary, and they resented the time pressure they feel when they teach toefl preparation. apart from this,teachers also reported that the methodology in teaching english is also influenced by toefl. they mentioned that it was the students who want the methodology and insisted on practice tests and work on toefl-like items. as a result, they felt like teaching english with a narrow direction to teaching the toefl test, rather than teaching english proficiency as they are supposed to. toefl impacts on student’s learning anderson and hamp-lyons (1996) also have provided a resourceful research finding on how toefl affects english learning.the research is conducted in the usa which involved overseas students from china, indonesia, korea, vietnam, japan, mexico, venezuela and guatemala.the finding captures a positive impact of the toefl test fro students. they found that the typical response of these students when critical research on the pedagogical, individual, and social impact of the toefl pbt introduction as a testing instrument 124 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 asked about the way they can improve english ability, especially toefl, is to have american friends, going to movies, using english outside class, and reading a lot. these examples reveal a positive washback of the toefl test for students, by which they are actively involved in learning english with high dedication and investment of time. the test has been able to generate the students’ awareness of the importance of english in accessingenglish speaking universities that leads them to have a strong motivation to improve their toefl score. similarly, mehrens and kaminsky (1989, as cited in anderson & hamplyons, 1996) mentions that as toefl is such a very high stake test, students have been forced to participate in toefl preparation courses. the test gives psychological pressure for students. in most cases, they need to invest their time to learn and practice with the toefl test in privately offered courses beyond their schools in the hope to increase their toefl score. cheng et al (2004) report that a larger number of students enroll in short-term courses which typically run from 2 to 15 weeks long, which is specifically designed to help them reach the required score. this situation can be viewed from two different perspectives. on one hand, it is a positive impact that those courses can increase the probability of achieving a desired score of the test, and thus they are eligible to enter the universities they want to. on the other hand, it is expected that those beyond-school preparation courses put more burden on students as they have more learning activities to follow in addition to leaning activities in their schools. consequently, this may ruin their performance at school as they become more the test-oriented. relating to this, alderson and hamp lyons (1996, as cited in shih, 2007) in their study indicate the negative washback of the toefl test to students. they report that there were many more students in the toefl exam preparation classes than in the ‘regular’ classes especially when the test is approaching. this indicates that students are more inclined to attend the class where a lesson about passing the test techniques is explicitly taught, rather than the regular class where the english as a lesson in taught. the toefl test also gives the incentive for a certain dialect of english to be more dominant than others in a particular setting of community. it has led american imam munandar englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 125 english dialect is preferable. choi (2008) reports that as toefl are predominantly enacted as english language testing in korea, there is a tendency among schools students to adopt american accent of english. toefl test consists of american dialect and readings which are related to american culture. equally, from my personal experience, students in aceh even misleadingly assume that american english is the only standard form and therefore it is worth studying. this view is enhanced by the fact that the toefl preparation course are offered in many places in the province. moreover, most universities have established relations to american and canadian universities from which the toefl are introduced to acehnese universities.these situations have a negative implication towards teaching english as lingua franca (elf) which is being campaigned for in many countries. from the elf’s perspective, this situation is not suitable in promotingenglish language as not to be bound to a particular country or culture. another drawback of toefl pbt test is reported by shu-mei (2009) that shows the test’s influence on students’ learning. she points out that as a consequence of taking toefl pbt test that does not test the speaking ability,chinese students overseas with high mark of the toefl pbt score have limited skills in communicative ability in english. in learning english before the test, they direct the learning outcome to pass the toefl test so that they can enter the international universities. the students are found to be more inclined to learn discrete point of the testwhich follows the test, with lots of attention is given to receptive skills of the language. toefl impact on individual test takers mcnamara (2000, p.4) points out that a language test plays a vital role in many people’s life, “acting as gateways at important transitional moments in education, in employment, and in moving from one country to another”. as the toefl test is considered as a high-stake test, its impacts towards the test takers are significant. the first effect of the test is regarded with test takers’ future educational careers. the test in one hand gives ways for the test applicants to pursue their study in english speaking world; on the other hand, it becomes one of the inhibiting factors for those fail the test in accessingenglish-mediated universities. interestingly, critical research on the pedagogical, individual, and social impact of the toefl pbt introduction as a testing instrument 126 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 sometime the toefl test is also used in non-english speaking countries as a requirement in the university admission. hankookkyoungje (2005, as cited in choi, 2008) reported that the test serves an academic purpose at domestic institutes of learning in korea, primarily as a requirement for admission to and graduation from colleges and universities and graduate schools. most foreign language high schools also require candidates to submit the toefl score report for entrance.he further mentions that all korean universities adopt a policy where students have to obtain certain range of scores on some of the standardized efl tests including toefl to fulfill graduation requirements. prapphal (2008) mentions that in thailand, a student must obtain 500 toefl score in order to be eligible for doctoral program.meanwhile, some universities in aceh controversially require their students to take the pbt toefl test and achieve a standardized score in order to be eligible to graduate from the university. this score varies for different universities, from 450 to 500 of the overall test score. additionally, the toefl test also can affect the job opportunity of the test takers. in some places, toefl is used inappropriately as an instrument to measure the ability of the test taker.in japan, sasaki (2008) reports that people need to obtain 550 of toefl score when they want to be official english language teachers. in indonesia, toefl is used to test english ability of participants in public service entrance examination (psee). if the test takers achieve a particular criterion, they will pass the test and get the job, whilethey are neglected for the job in case that they fail to achieve a certain score. given the fact that the unemployment in the country is relatively high, becoming a public servant is strongly desired, which is perceived the only chance to secure a safe job, and because of that, obtaining the highest score of toefl is extremely determining for the test takers. toefl impacts on society, businesses and industries the social impact of the toefl test can be positive and negative. while the former is applied when the toefl gives social or economic incentive to the community, the latter cause social problems. prapphal (2008) suggests that the test plays a role in causing a social gap among thai students. he reports that there has been a social concern in thailand on the issue of equality in accessing bilingual imam munandar englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 127 education in the country. for students, this bilingual education is taken for improving english proficiency and achieving a particular score in english foreign language testing including the toefl test. however, it is found that only the children from elite families can afford this kind of education and therefore brings about a gap with those from middle class families. in line with this, mcnamara (2000) has mentioned that the introduction of a test is open to the abuse of wealthier families who can afford coaching for their children to achieve the score needed to enter a university. meanwhile, the toefl test has been able to give economic incentive for many people. according to ets, nearly a million individuals take the toefl test to show their english-language proficiency every year and over 25 million people from all over the world have taken the toefl test since it was founded.with this number of test applicants, along with the cost of toefl pbt test in us$ 160 per a test taker, ets as a business in english language testing service gain huge amount of income.furthermore, the toefl test has opened jobs and market opportunities for many people. in many countries, publication industries have published toefl preparation materials for the test takers. this publication is done continuously to upgrade their toefl test materials according to the latest version of the test content. similarly, many private english courses offering toefl preparation have been established. with the test center in 87 countries, it also opens employment for many people in those countries to work in testing centers. conclusion the impacts of the introduction of toefl pbt test can be considered significant to language classroom and outer community. these impacts range from positive and negative consequences. the test has demanded schools to include teaching toefl preparation as an integrative part of syllabus. within classroom, the material and methodology that teachers use are influenced by the test. the teachings are found to be test-oriented where students are coached how to pass the test rather than learn the language proficiency. teachers-students interaction also tends to be monologue, with less peer discussion. from the clt’s perspective,this situation is worsened by the fact that the toefl pbt measures the language discretely and does not account for speaking ability of language learners. critical research on the pedagogical, individual, and social impact of the toefl pbt introduction as a testing instrument 128 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 furthermore, students are forced to learn english intensively, but they are more inclined to attend the toefl class rather than regular classes.they also prefer studying american english dialect since it is found in the test content. in wider community, the test opens job opportunities for many people especially publication industries and english private courses.however, the test also contributes to the inequality of educational opportunity between wealth and poor families. apart from this, the absence of communicative concern in toefl pbt has led toefl cbt and ibt to be proposed. these kinds of test include speaking as an aspect of the test which is expected to give positive washback to the context of teaching communicative english in schools. references alderson, j. c., & banerjee, j. (2001). testing languages from researcher perspectives. language testing, 14(1), 36-50. alderson, j. c., & hamp-lyons, l. (1996). toefl preparation courses: a study of washback. language testing, 13(1), 280-297. anderson, j. c., & wall, d. (1993). does washback exist? applied linguistics, 14(2), 115-129. banerjee, j. (2003). the toefl cbt (computer-based test). language testing, 20(1), 111-123. cheng, l., rogers, t., & hu, h. (2004). esl/efl instructors’ classroom assessment practices: purposes, methods, and procedures. language testing, 21(1), 360389. choi, i. (2008). the impact of efl testing on efl education in korea. language testing, 25(1): 39-62. ets. (2010). about the toefl® pbt test. (2010). retrieved from, http://www.ets.org/toefl/pbt/about on 6 october, 2010, fulcher, g., & davidson, f. (2007). language testing and assessment: an advanced resource book. abingdon, uk: routledge. hughes, a. (2003). testing for language teachers (2nd ed.). cambridge, new york: cambridge university press. mcnamara, t. f. (1998). policy and social considerations in language assessment. annual review of applied linguistics, 18(1), 304-319. mcnamara, t. f. (2000). language testing. england: oxford university press. prapphal, k. (2008). issues and trends in language testing and assessment in thailand. language testing, 25(1). imam munandar englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 129 sasaki, m. (2008). the 150-year history of english language assessment in japanese education. language testing, 25(1), 63-83. shih, c. (2007). new washback model of students’ learning. the canadian modern language review/la revue canadienne des langues vivantes, 64(1), 135– 162. shu-mei (2009). efl education in china: testing perspective. language testing, 12(2): 21-25. spratt, m. (2005). washback and the classroom: the implications for teaching and learning of studies of washback from exams. language teaching research, 9(5), 5-29. taylor, l. (2005). washback and impact. elt journal volume, 59(2), oxford university press. wall, d., & horák, t. (2006). the impact of changes in the toefl examination on teaching and learning in central and eastern europe: phase 1, the baseline study. ets research report series, 2006(1), i-199 englisia november 2019 vol. 7, no. 1, 15-25 the perceived influence of part-time teaching on students’ performance in micro-teaching class siti khasinah universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia siti.khasinah@ar-raniry.ac.id yuliar masna universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia yuliar.masna@ar-raniry.ac.id anita siregar universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia anitasiregar49@gmail.com manuscript received september 2, 2019, revised october 27, 2019, first published november 30, 2019, and available online january 20, 2020. doi: 10.22373/ej.v7i1.5205 abstract the main objective of this study was to examine the perceived influence of part-time teaching on students’ performance in micro-teaching class. a quantitative research approach using questionnaire was carried out to get the view of thirty students of 2014 intake year of department of english language education, faculty of tarbiyah and teacher training, universitas islam negeri (uin) ar-raniry banda aceh. the findings indicated that students were helped by having part-time teaching through developing skills and confidence, reducing anxiety and fear, developing ability of managing classroom, increasing ability in selecting teaching goals and in preparation of lesson plans, proper worksheet, assessment tools, instructional media, and teaching methods. in addition, it supported them to improve their ability in asking questions and speaking in front of groups as well as to use time effectively. to conclude, part-time teaching has increased students’ skills in micro-teaching class. keywords: perceived influence; part-time teaching; micro-teaching class the perceived influence of part-time teaching on students’ performance in microteaching class 16 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 introduction nowadays, part-time job becomes a popular phenomenon among students in universities. in fact, a study by vickers, lamb, and hinkley (2003) showed that the number of learners taking part-time job significantly increases. many students at universitas islam negeri (uin) ar-raniry, a public university in aceh province, indonesia, especially at the department of english language education have parttime jobs in teaching, either teaching english lessons or others even though they have not completed their micro-teaching class yet. this is a unique phenomenon that most of the students teach english at private courses while some of them teach english at private schools even though they do not have sufficient skills in teaching. they help the schoolteachers in designing lesson plans, providing teaching materials, instructional media, assessment tools and other teaching aids as well as observing the teaching done by the teachers. besides, the teachers allow them to teach school students under their guidance. consequently, these kinds of activities train the english department’s students to shape and sharpen their ability in developing lesson plans, in teaching, in assessing the students and in managing classroom simultaneously. in addition, the activities enable the students to get sufficient skills to teach and provide great experience for them in taking micro-teaching class. in short, the students who have already had experience in teaching will find it easy to transfer knowledge to the target students since the goal of teaching itself is to transfer information or knowledge from teachers, lecturers, instructors, or tutors to students or learners, as they have role as a facilitator, motivator and guidance for students (badu-nyarko & torto, 2014). thus, this research focuses on those students who have had experience in teaching by observing whether there is an influence of their part-time teaching on their performance in micro-teaching course at uin ar-raniry. literature review part-time teaching according to a definition proposed by the ilo (2004), part-time job is determined as regular employment in which working time is substantially less than siti khasinah, yuliar masna, & anita siregar englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 17 normal. the same idea is expressed in the statement that a job is part-time when the time of working is considerably less than the time of in a full-time job (van bastelaer, lemaître, & marianna, 1997). according to wahyuni (2008), some types of part time jobs for students include: (1) part-time job which is in line with their background of study or major, (2) part-time jobs based on talent and expertise, and (3) part time jobs because of the opportunities. some students choose the part-time jobs based on their major, for example, english department students will teach english at a language course institution (wahyuni, 2008). the students can use this way as one of the strategies to practice their skill in teaching. brown (2000) defines that teaching is an educational process where teachers and students participate and its purposes are to support and to promote learning. teaching should be defined with a term of learning because teaching gives the facilities in learning process, giving instructions, giving the learner a chance to learn and guiding in study. in this study, part-time teaching involves students’ part-time job to teach english learners at private courses or schools at which the students spend time less than 20 hours per week despite their studies. in addition, according to d’amico (1994, as cited in robinson, 1999, p. 128), the general benefit of part-time job is as “asserted opportunities to assume greater responsibility and cooperative interdependence”. a specific benefit of part time teaching is to train student-teacher in the real education settings, especially to face of various types of learners. thus, part-time teaching makes the students more trained in facing the real world of teaching work. they can use part-time teaching as the strategies to practice teaching. teaching practice is a very important element of teacher education. adesina (2005, as cited in ajileye, 2013) agrees that teaching practice is vital to teachers’ preparation and training. the student teachers acquire the responsibility, gain self-confidence to address large audience in lesson, and absorb acceptable personalities. they also learn how to evaluate, assess, modify and correct their behaviors during teaching practice. in addition, teaching practice can be used as the application of professional knowledge and understanding of the learners, methods, media, lesson plan, communication and learning environment so as to promote learning. in contrast, most of the researchers indicate that part-time the perceived influence of part-time teaching on students’ performance in microteaching class 18 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 job negatively affects both academic and health of students. the negative effects in academic, as proposed by carney, mcneish and mccoll (2005), are students tend to find the difficulties to manage working hours and study. research also indicates that many hours of work can increase fatigue and may cause lower academic performance (carney, mcneish, & mccoll, 2005). students’ performance students’ performance may be assessed along a variety of dimensions including class participation, individual written work on papers and exams, and group activities such as projects and presentations. according to bean and peterson (1998), performance refers to the level of grade or scores that a student obtains in class test or internal and external examination after process of evaluation. the success of students can be assessed by measuring their academic performance. there are two kinds of outcome in learning process, academic performance showed by gpa (grade point average) and the quality of life after graduating in collage (bean & peterson, 1998). micro-teaching micro-teaching is one of the innovations to increase the skill of teacher education. according to allen and ryan (1969, as cited in ajileye, 2013), microteaching is used to decrease a teaching encounter. this is because it entails reduction in class size, time of the lesson, purpose of the subject matter and number of skills to be achieved. the student teachers should teach between 20-30 minutes in micro-teaching class. methods the research method employed in this study was the quantitative method. quantitative method is the method used in the particular population and sample, by using research instrument in collecting the data and analyzing by statistical data. according to heppner and heppner (2004, p. 139) “a quantitative method allows the researcher to collect data from multiple sources that could be meaningful to a siti khasinah, yuliar masna, & anita siregar englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 19 broad range of practitioners within the field.” it is applicable to phenomena that could be expressed in terms of quantity (kothari, 2004). the population of this research was english department students of 2014 intake year, totaling 215 students. they have part-time teaching and have taken the micro-teaching class. the study used purposive sampling or non-probability sampling in selecting the sample. the sample of this study was 30 students. there were three characteristics the sample should have: (a) they are english department students, (b) they have already taken micro-teaching class; and (c) they have part time teaching. to collect the data, the study used questionnaire and documentation. to analyze the data from the questionnaire, the statistical simple formula was used. according to sugiyono (2008), the formula below is for calculating the total percentage of each item’s frequency: p = 𝐹 𝑁 𝑥100% results and discussion the obtained data of the questionnaires can be seen in the following tables, charts and description. table 1. the grade of respondents in micro-teaching class. grade frequency percentage a 23 76.7% b 7 23.3% total 30 100 the table 1 above shows that of 30 respondents, the majority obtained the score a (76.7%) while the minority got b (23.3%). from the table, it can be assumed that most students have had a very good performance in the micro-teaching class. the perceived influence of part-time teaching on students’ performance in microteaching class 20 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 table 2. the results of questionnaire. no statements strongly agree agree disagree strongly disagree 1 teaching is something enjoyable for me 20% 73.3% 6.7% 0% 2 i am not afraid of teaching in front of students because i have had experience in teaching 33.3% 63.3% 0% 3.33% 3 i can handle the class while teaching in microteaching class. 30% 66% 3.3% 0% 4 part-time teaching helps me to know how to prepare a lesson plan. 26.7% 26.7% 46.7% 0% 5 i know the suitable method for each material when teaching in micro-teaching class. 13.3% 76.7% 10% 0% 6 i know the suitable media for each material when teaching in micro-teaching class. 26.7% 66.7% 6.7% 0% 7 i am able to attract students’ attention and interest to the subject. 6.7% 80% 10% 3.3% 8 i know the steps in teaching because i have taught before. 23.3% 76.7% 0% 0% 9 part-time teaching helps me to know how to start the lesson. 30% 63.3% 3.3% 3.3% 10 part-time teaching helps me to know how to teach the lesson. 30% 66.7% 0% 3.3% 11 part-time teaching helps me to be confident while teaching in micro-teaching class. 36.7% 56.7% 6.7% 0% 12 part-time teaching helps me to know how to end the lesson. 23.3% 70% 6.7% 0% 13 i know how to ask and answer question to the students properly 20% 63.3% 13.3% 3.3% 14 i can use classroom language while teaching in microteaching class because i have part-time teaching. 3.3% 80% 13.3% 3.3% 15 i know how to manage the students groups when teaching in micro-teaching class. 23.3% 66.7% 10% 0% 16 i know how to create/use worksheet when teaching in micro-teaching class. 13.3% 76.7% 6.7% 3.3% 17 i know how to assess students when teaching in micro-teaching class. 13.3% 73.3% 13.3% 0% siti khasinah, yuliar masna, & anita siregar englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 21 18 i know how to make a rubric assessment in microteaching class because i have taught before. 10% 53.3% 33.3% 3.3% 19 part-time teaching helps me manage time effectively in classroom. 20% 63.3% 13.3% 3.3% 20 part-time teaching increases my skills in microteaching class. 33.3% 56.7% 10% 3.3% regarding the table above, almost all of respondents chose ‘strongly agree’ and ‘agree’. it shows that part-time teaching positively benefits them in teaching practice. starting from the highest percentage, from question number 8 (q8), there are 30 (100%) out of 30 respondents said they knew the steps in teaching because they have taught before, none of them chose disagree and strongly disagree for the statement above. it means part-time teaching truly helped them to know how to lead the activities in the teaching process. the second high score of questionnaire can be seen in question number 17 (q17). the data shows that 26 respondents (86.6%) chose agree and strongly agree. they stated that part-time teaching helped them to know the process of assessing their students when teaching in micro-teaching class and only 4 respondents (13.3%) disagreed with statement above. the lowest percentage was showed by the fourth question that is stated about students’ perceived in creating lesson plan. based on the table and chart, it seems that more than half of respondents chose strongly agree and agree that part-time teaching helped them to know how to prepare lesson plan. they agreed part-time teaching offered the opportunity to improve a lesson planning skill. total of them is 16 respondents. however, almost a half of them, 14 respondents (46.7%) chose disagree which means they believed that part-time teaching did not help them. although they disagreed with the statement, it is clear that a majority of the answer was they were able to prepare a lesson plan. based on the result, it can be said that the respondents feel that there is a great influence of having part-time teaching on their ability in micro-teaching class. from the questionnaire, it is found that almost all of the respondents chose ‘strongly agree’ and ‘agree’ that part-time teaching has influenced them in a good way in micro-teaching class. as stated earlier, the english department students have taken the perceived influence of part-time teaching on students’ performance in microteaching class 22 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 micro-teaching class which means they have been familiar with teaching activities. the students mentioned that they were able to create lesson plans properly, handle the students, use time effectively, build a good communication skill, and reduce anxiety. at the end, they can improve their performance. the similar finding was founded by ajileye (2013) that teaching practice can be used as the application of professional knowledge and understanding of the learners, methods, media, lesson plan, communication and learning environment so as to promote learning. in short, the figure below shows the ratio of students’ perceptions for the aspects of teaching experiences given in part-time teaching. the chart above displays that students gave high supportive responses for part-time teaching in the aspect of self-confidence. the figure shows that the highest positive response was in the part of self-confidence. the students who have part-time teaching were not afraid when teaching in micro-teaching class because they have taught their learners at courses before. then, the part of communication skill, the students mentioned that part-time teaching as a way which promoted good opportunities to improve their communication skill. the last highest part is time management. from the result, it can be assumed that most english department students who have part-time teaching knew how to manage the time effectively and they knew how to manage between work and study in collage. they have experienced how to use and manage time effectively in real life. moreover, the similar result was reported by ha, thao, and son (2016), if the worker had part-time job they will learn many things related to management time, siti khasinah, yuliar masna, & anita siregar englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 23 skill in working, and responsibility. on the contrary, the statement of carney, mcneish, and mccoll (2005) that the students with part time jobs cannot manage the time and may decrease academic performance is debatable. 84% of the students claimed they were able to manage time effectively since they got used to it. however, especially in the lesson plan aspect, the negative responses were near a half from 30 respondents. the students responded it negatively because they felt the difficulty in creating the lesson plan during micro-teaching class. this thought was supported by adesina (2005, as cited in ajileye, 2013) who agrees that teaching practice is vital to teachers’ preparation and training. the student teachers acquire the responsibility, gain selfconfidence to address large audience in lesson and absorb acceptable personalities. another reason can be related to different form of lesson plan used at courses and private schools. in micro-teaching class at faculty of tarbiyah and teacher training of uin ar-raniry, the standard form of lesson plan design by the government is used so that the students became confused with the new lesson plan form provided by their lecturers. to support the results of this study, the researchers also assessed the students’ performance based on their scores in the micro-teaching class. according to bean and peterson (1998), performance refers to the level of grade or scores that a student obtains in class test or internal and external examination after process of evaluation. the data displayed that there were 22 students who had grade a and 8 students who had grade b, which means most of the students had very good scores. it can be said that students who had part-time teaching had a good performance in micro-teaching class. as the final point, it can be viewed that part-time teaching gives a good influence toward students’ performance in the micro-teaching class. the result of this study is in line with msangya, mkoma and yihuan (2016) that indicated that the students perceived teaching practice or part-time teaching as a crucial way of learning to teach because it promoted the development of teaching experience and prepared them for the real world of work. this statement was taken to support this study since it has the same issue. the perceived influence of part-time teaching on students’ performance in microteaching class 24 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 conclusions the findings revealed that the students of english department were helped by having part-time teaching through developing skills, developing confidence, reducing anxiety and fear, ability of managing classroom situations, proper selection of teaching goals and preparation of lesson plans, proper worksheet, assessment, media, methods, improvement in ability of asking questions and speaking in front of group as well as effective time management. moreover, this study was supported by the results of students’ score in microteaching class. almost all students got excellent scores; it means they have good skill in teaching and they were having a good performance in micro-teaching class. in addition, based on students’ perception; part time teaching gives a positive effect on students in many aspects such as knowledge and improving their skills which are useful to support their success in teaching. this can lead to a conclusion that students with parttime teaching experience can boost a good performance n micro-teaching class. it becomes one of best ways for the students to gain such experience on teaching before being a true teacher. due to the result this study, some suggestions and recommendations can be provided. the students who feel afraid of teaching can use part-time teaching as an experience to train their skill in teaching and it is suggested that they take a part time teaching related to their study. based on the results, it seems that minority of the students argued that part-time teaching did not help them in designing lesson plan. in contrast, most of them claimed that part-time teaching was very helpful in many aspects of teaching. that is why it is recommended that they can choose a place to teach in order to expand their teaching skill as well enrich their knowledge and skill in designing lesson plan since lesson plan is one of main focus in micro-teaching class. furthermore, some research need to be conducted to get more valid information related to this topic such as teachers’ view on the benefits of part time teaching for their students. references ajileye, m. a. (2013). effects of microteaching skills on student teachers’ performance on teaching practice in colleges of education, north-central, siti khasinah, yuliar masna, & anita siregar englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 25 nigeria. department of educational technology, university of ilorin, ilorin, nigeria. badu-nyarko, s., & torto, b. (2014). teaching methods preferred by part time tertiary students in ghana. international journal humanities and social science, 4(1), 226-233. bean, j. c., & peterson, d. (1998). grading classroom participation. new directions for teaching and learning, 1998(74), 33-40. brown, h. d. (2000). principles of language learning and teaching. englewood cliffs, nj: prentice hall carney, c., mcneish, s., & mccoll, j. (2005). the impact of part time employment on students' health and academic performance: a scottish perspective. journal of further and higher education, 29(4), 307-319. ha, c. n., thao, n. t., & son, t. d. (2016). student part-time employment: case study at ton duc thang university in vietnam. heppner, p. p., & heppner, m. j. (2004). writing and publishing your thesis, dissertation, and research: a guide for students in the helping professions (research, statistics, & program evaluation). columbia, mo: cengage learning. ilo (conditions of work and employment programme). (2004, june). retrieved from http://www.ilo.org/global/lang--en/index.htm kothari, c. r. (2004). research methodology: methods and techniques. new delhi, india: new age international. msangya, b. w., mkoma, s. l., & yihuan, w. (2016). teaching practice experience for undergraduate student teachers: a case study of the department of education at sokoine university of agriculture, tanzania. robinson, l. (1999). the effects of part-time work on school students. longitudinal surveys of australian youth (research report). acer customer service, victoria, australia. sugiyono. (2008). metode penelitian kuantitatif, kualitatif dan r&d. bandung, indonesia: alfabeta. van bastelaer, a., lemaître, g., & marianna, p. (1997). the definition of part-time work for the purpose of international comparisons. oecd labour market and social policy occasional papers, no. 22, oecd publishing. http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/132721856632 vickers, m., lamb, s., & hinkley, j. (2003). student workers in high school and beyond: the effects of part-time employment on participation in education, training and work. acer customer service, victoria, australia. wahyuni, e. t. (2008). upaya menumbuh kembangkan kewirausahaan di kalangan mahasiswa. jurnal akmenika upy, 2 englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2023. vol. 10, no.2, 255-275 weighing research competencies of department of english language education graduates at uin ar-raniry banda aceh syarifah dahliana*, saiful akmal, rizka malda phonna universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia manuscript received february 9, 2023, revised april 8, 2023, accepted april 15, 2023, and published online may 7, 2023. recommended apa citation dahliana, s., akmal, s., phonna, r. m. (2023). weighing research competencies of department of english language education graduates at uin ar-raniry banda aceh. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(2), 255-275. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.17226 abstract the purpose of this study is to scrutinize participants’ research competency, source of research competency, and problems related to the research conduct. nine graduates of the department of english language education were purposefully selected; three of them completed their theses in one semester, three others finished in two semesters, and one other finalized in three semesters. in this qualitative study, semi-structured interviews were used. the findings revealed that graduates with one-semester thesis completion rates have stronger research proficiency than other groups. they have a higher motivational value component, a higher methodology-reflective component, and a higher operational activity component of research competency. meanwhile, the emotional-volitional component of research competency remains equal for each group of participants. furthermore, graduates acquired research competency through coursework, research conduct, and self-study. in terms of problems with research conduct, the data disclosed that graduates frequently struggled with self-motivation, supervisors, time/class schedule, knowledge of prior studies, data analysis, and participants selection. keywords: research competency; research conduct; source of research competency *corresponding author: syarifah dahliana universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh jl. syaikh abdurrauf, kopelma darussalam, kec. syiah kuala, banda aceh, 23111, indonesia email: syarifah.dahliana@ar-raniry.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.17226 weighing research competencies of department of english language education graduates … 256 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 1. introduction in general, research competency refers to the capacity to resolve a scientific issue that calls for the application of certain scientific techniques (ivanenko et al., 2015). conducting a research means involving in systematic investigation that have particular processes and procedures in order to obtain some information related to the subject under investigation. experiences usually play an important role to lead someone to have competency in conducting a research. this means that a person needs to be exposed to research experiences before she/he is able to provide the data with a great report finding. thus, as a research report is one of the requirements to complete the study, some research courses are offered by university for students to enhance their ability in conducting research and writing their research report. the department of english language education uin ar-raniry offered four research courses to help students have knowledge and experience of research conduct. these four courses include research methodology, english language research 1, english language research 2. nevertheless, in fact, many students still have problems writing a research report or finishing their thesis. this may raise a question whether the research courses have really helped the students to have ability to conduct a research and report the findings properly; in other words, there is an issue whether the research courses really assist the students to have their research competency. to assess research competency, it is important to include the difficulty of doing research. fuentes (2017) asserts that the study assessing research competency also revealed the participants' level of difficulty in conducting research in addition to their research competency. this is so that a better research course tailored to each student's issues can be developed as part of the evaluation of research competency. the present study aims to ascertain how difficult it is for the participants to conduct research in order to acquire an adequate understanding of research competency. the authors also want to know where the research expertise came from. this is because it is possible that the analysed research competency could come from activities other than the university's research courses that are designed to foster research competency. graduates who finish their theses more quickly than other alumni will be compared to other alumni to gauge their level of research proficiency. for this reason, graduates will be classified according to the number of years they have complied and then examine them using the same criteria. the framework of research competency developed by prior research will serve as the basis for the analytical components. in this light, this present study formulated the following research questions: 1) what are the research competencies possessed by department of english language education department graduates? 2) what are sources of research competency used by department of english language education department graduates? 3) what are the problems related to research conduct experienced by department of english language education department graduates? syarifah dahliana, saiful akmal, & rizka malda phonna englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 257 2. literature review 2.1. research competency finding a solution to a scientific issue is the definition of research competency given by ivanenko et al. (2015). the motivational-value component, the methodologyreflective component, the operational-activity component, and the emotional-volitional component make up its four sub-competencies. the four sub-research competencies mentioned here are aiming at more process-oriented instead of procedure oriented mechanisms (bougie & sekaran, 2019; dekeyser, 2020). researchers' understanding of the importance of learning scientific research skills and knowledge is categorized as a motivational value component (usher, 2018). methodology-reflective refers to a teacher's reflective teaching abilities; it is the capacity to identify a teaching challenge and employ a discovery from scientific inquiry as a solution (böttcher & thiel, 2018). ability to identify a solution to a problem or a research outcome is an operational-activity component. an emotional maintenance in conducting research, such as a willingness to produce excellent research, is the last emotionalvolitional component (wahyudi, 2018). in brief, research competency goes beyond simply being able to conduct research. however, it also includes awareness in conducting research and emotional upkeep in producing high-quality research (ivanenko et al., 2015). some prior studies have been conducted that have similar findings with ivanenko and the four sub-research competencies. in particular, selvi (2010) claimed that all four components do make up for research competency. similar argument was also highlighted by van den berg (2016) who claimed that methodology-reflective component, motivational-value component, and operational-activity component are relevant, whereas bankauskien et al. (2005) maintained that only methodology-reflective component and operational-activity component are useful to improving research competency. on the other hand, celik (2011) argued that only the motivational-value component does. the work of ivanenko et al. (2015) is more thorough than the other four sources that have already been mentioned above. for this reason, ivanenko et al. (2015) will be used as the framework for evaluating research competency. 2.2. source of research competency according to fuentes (2017), sources of research competency include the current research course, self-study/reading of research-related reference materials, actual research experience, training and seminars (sponsored by universities), subjects/courses taken the previous semester that required conducting research, training and seminars, and fields of exposure/trip and study missions. furthermore, according to fuentes (2017), participants frequently prefer research courses as their primary source of research competency. however, the research course had generally little to no impact on students' ability to conduct research (sahan &tarhan, 2015; davidon & palermo, 2015). source of research competency may come from both university and community. some researchers (van den berg, 2016; celik, 2011; selvi, 2010; bankauskienne, et al., weighing research competencies of department of english language education graduates … 258 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 2005) believe that being directly involved in research projects is the best source to have research competency as the students will learn from interactions and communications during the research field. however, the combination between learning from a research course and having direct experiences in the field actually will greatly develop individual research competency (ivanenko, et al., 2015; ismail and meerah, 2012). 2.3. research conduct problems in addition to sources of research competency, some problems related to research conduct are noted. in terms of the variety of findings, there are certain common trends among researchers about research conduct problems. most studies mentioned above all agreed that one of the most frequent issues encountered during study conduct is a lack of research competency (albareda-tiana et al. 2018; supriyanto et al. 2019). lack of time, lack of funding, and lack of research resources and participant management challenges can all be ranked according to how many researchers share the same concerns. fuentes (2017) segmented research-related issues into some categories, including time/class schedule constraints, a lack of funding for research, a lack of research competency, and a lack of motivation. the largest issue that students run across when undertaking research, according to fuentes (2017), is a lack of time or a busy class schedule. it is a problem when students were not given enough time to do their miniresearch in the research-related courses they enrolled (desmennu & owoaje, 2018). management time, then, becomes an important factor as well as support from university (bocar, 2013). specifically, the research conduct problems include several components, personal matter, respondent issues, and university concern (fuentes, 2017; akyureh & avcan, 2018; matin & khan, 2017; lacanlale, 2017; bocar, 2013). 3. method in this qualitative study, the authors utilized interviews to collect data. semistructured interviews were the type of interview employed in this study to explore authentic and dialogical findings in educational related research (brown & danaher, 2019). tape recorder and a notebook to take notes were used during the interviews (hammer & wildavksy, 2018). the tape recorder makes it easier to analyse the data, and the notebook makes it easier to think of new questions. introduction to participants from the researcher at the beginning of the interview was carried out before going on to describe the goals of the study, its significance, how the participant will benefit from it, and how long the conversation will last. furthermore, the participants were selected based on stratified purposeful sampling (shaheen & pradhan, 2019). they were selected based on the three categorizations used in this study: a half year (one-semester bachelor thesis completion writing time), one year (two-semester bachelor thesis completion writing time), and one and a half year (threesemester bachelor thesis completion writing time). graduates who completed their theses within one semester category include da (participant 1/p1), duy (participant 2/p2), and syarifah dahliana, saiful akmal, & rizka malda phonna englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 259 ml (participant 3/p3). then, graduates who completed their theses within two semesters category include fz (participant 4/p4), cta (participant 5/p5), and ssn (participant 6/p6). finally, graduates who completed their theses within three semesters include rm (participant 7/p7), nf (participant 8/p8), and bd (participant 9/p9). the participants were given a consent letter at the start of the study that includes the name of the author, the nature of the research, the approach, the potential risks, and the advantages for the participants. this consent information form is important in conducting qualitative interviews to have participant’s approval and willingness to take part in this study (routston & choi, 2018). the participants will have one interview each after deciding to take part. the goal of the interview is to examine participants' research skills, their sources of research skills, and their challenges when conducting research. when conducting a data analysis, we use thematic coding (williams & moser, 2019). we first listened to the tape recording after gathering some information from the interview, then typed the transcription into paper, and then read the transcription. second, the subjects that each interview question brought up were used to categorise the data. we specifically reviewed the interview questions after receiving the transcript in order to turn them into certain subjects. after some time, these subjects were used to group the participant responses. after organising the material into a few topics, we then look for recurrent themes or concepts. in particular, we looked for phrases and concepts that were often used by the participants to respond to each topic. additionally, categories are created from the concepts or words that participants utilise frequently. these categories will be used to group the participant responses instead of subjects. building overarching themes from the data is the fourth step. this analytical phase focuses on breaking down the categories into more manageable groups (o’connor & gibson, 2018). we also looked for categories that can be combined into a single and comparable category. determining potential and believable interpretations for the results was the final phase in data analysis. 4. findings based on the interview data, some findings related to participants’ competency, source of competency, and problems in conducting research are noted. these findings are classified based on particular themes and research questions. 4.1. research competency of department of english language education department graduates the research competency of the graduates is analysed based on the work of ivanenko et al (2015) who divides research competency into four components; they are motivational-value component, methodology-reflective component, operational-activity component, and emotional-volitional component. weighing research competencies of department of english language education graduates … 260 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 4.1.1. motivational-value element the participants' awareness of the need for research work, desire for scientific study, and act of publishing research are used to assess their research competency in this component. we learned from the interviews that each interviewee has a unique awareness of research works and a unique desire for scientific works. in addition, one of the interviewees has had a research work or thesis published in a journal as stated by participant 1: “i am happy; my thesis is published in one national accredited journal. i did not expect this far. my supervisors supported me and guided me”. in motivational-value element, there are two points that can explain students’research competency; understanding the need for research and strong interest in scientific endeavour. 4.1.1.1. understanding the need for research the benefits that participants believe the research has had on their lives are utilised to measure participants' awareness. according to the findings of the interviews, the graduates who completed their theses in one or two semesters stated that research is crucial when attempting to address an issue. they added that research aids in the improvement of one's ability to solve problems on both a personal and professional level. adding new knowledge or insight is the final goal of study. in this light, participant 4 demonstrated an awareness of the research work she had done at the time by stating: the research role... in which we are looking for an innovation, an idea, a new, a more modern solution that is more efficient, ah... solving a problem that we have, for example, like solving a problem that we get from the college... a lecture assignment, from the internet, from books, from people's opinions, it could also be from our own creativity, from our head… in response to this, participant 3 said: …like we previously stated, it is something that we can take from... it is the skill, because we have learned elr (english language research) subject and also did the processes until the examination, so we know the process of it... hmm...if it for the benefit of life, may be it more to the finding of it... and also yes, the research is priority, if we don't research it how could we know it. according to their response, alumni with oneand two-semester thesis completions are aware of the value of research work in their lives. it can be determined from their remark that research is a crucial step in solving every problem; in other words, research is a pre-activity in problem-solving. in contrast, alumni who completed their theses in three semesters merely mentioned that research is an activity that aims to develop research skills and offer fresh perspectives or knowledge. in this instance, participant 9 stated that: syarifah dahliana, saiful akmal, & rizka malda phonna englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 261 we gain a lot of fresh knowledge or insights from our study approach as well as the findings, so, um... based on my thesis work at the time, i believe that research played a role in improving our capacity for providing better explanations, such as when a problem arises, we know what the solution is. i don’t know if it can be done quickly or not. i just don’t see the urgency to rush my research. i have other things to do, such as working and helping my parents. based on their response, one might draw the conclusion that graduates who completed their theses in three semesters are unaware of the value of conducting research. in contrast to other alumni who also highlighted the necessity of research works to their lives, particularly in solving every difficulty, it can be inferred from their answers that they only mentioned the advantages of research works to their lives. 4.1.1.2. strong interest in scientific endeavour the participants' involvement in any form of scientific work, such as research activities, seminars, conferences, and workshops that seek to develop research competency, is used to gauge their desire. according to the interview, the author discovered that the alumni who completed their theses in just one semester have a strong interest in scientific research. participant 3 mentioned her involvement in a variety of scientific endeavours to demonstrate her interest in the field of science: i have only conducted one study on my own, which is my thesis. however, i have taken part in four interviews, including this one, making it the fourth time i have been interviewed. i have also attended a number of workshops and research projects. one that comes to mind is the aceh international workshop and expo on tsunami disaster, where many people's research projects were presented. participant 2 addressed this issue as follows: i do not join any research-focused groups; at most, i become a respondent in surveys. this is similar to how you would find a respondent for a thesis if you were looking for someone who participated in surveys, possibly on a sex-based scale. in contrast, other research outside of the thesis has not yet been conducted, so attending seminars is very helpful to me. according to their responses, graduates who completed their theses in one semester had been active in research projects as participants, taking part in seminars, workshops, and conferences that they thought were very constructive for enhancing their research competency. on the other hand, it is found that graduates who completed their theses in two or three semesters do not have a strong interest in scientific works. participant 7 reiterated: “i had never before, with the exception of while i was learning elr, considered taking weighing research competencies of department of english language education graduates … 262 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 part in seminars that aimed to improve my researching abilities. i only learn research from elr”. graduates with twoand three-semester thesis completion rates had participated in research projects, but they had never attended seminars, workshops, or conferences, which they perceived as sources for enhancing their research ability. as a consequence, graduates who completed their theses over the course of two or three semesters had less interest in engaging in scientific research than alumni who completed their theses in a single semester. in other words, compared to other graduates categories, those who completed their theses in one semester had a greater motivational-value component of research competency because they are more aware of the importance of research work and have a strong desire for it. 4.1.2. methodology-reflective element this section assesses participants' research competency by looking at their ability to do research, how they use research and reflection to enhance their classrooms, and how significant they view research as a part of their daily lives. 4.1.2.1. researching prowess according to the results of the interview, graduates who completed their theses in one semester are more capable of conducting research than other graduates. in this occurrence, participant 1 said: in terms of lacking research skills, when i was conducting my thesis i don’t see that as a problem. i like it a lot. making a choice about the title is therefore the first action to take. actually, the most crucial aspect is the title. we must first decide what we enjoy doing in order to avoid stress. i must first select which title i believe to be the most enjoyable, accessible, and manageable for me. additionally, it is discovered that graduates who completed their theses in two semesters or three semesters frequently encounter various challenges when undertaking research. participant 6 describes her research challenges in the following excerpt: finding prior research was my first challenge because, on average, they were out-dated, particularly those published in international journals. then, doing the data analysis is also very challenging for me. participant 5 expressed the following in response to this difficulty: ah, perhaps the only issue is that...in finding the object of study. the lecturers didn't want to assist; they didn't want to teach that topic in two meetings. so, i am struggling. graduates who completed their theses in one semester did not encounter any difficulties performing the research, in contrast to other alumni who encountered problems determining the research topics or subjects, identifying prior research, data processing, and other issues. graduates who completed their theses in one semester even syarifah dahliana, saiful akmal, & rizka malda phonna englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 263 mentioned the enthusiasm to help decide which research issues to be selected. graduates who completed their theses in two or three semesters obviously lacked passion and had difficulty identifying relevant research questions. we can therefore draw the conclusion that graduates who completed their theses in a single semester are more adept at conducting research. 4.1.2.2. the ability to design a classroom through reflective practise and research the act of self-reflection after the class is over is generally referred to as the reflective approach, and its goal is to identify areas of instruction that need improvement (mesa, 2018). the participants' capacity to identify their teaching gaps using the reflective process and to fill those gaps by carrying out research or drawing on prior research findings is thus used to gauge their level of capability. according to the interview results, all graduates are capable of identifying their weaknesses in the classroom through reflection and thus, coming up with solutions based on the findings of prior studies. in this instance, participant 3 described her experience with the reflective method: when i finished teaching, learning, and the class was adjourned. i asked my pupils what they found boring or uneasy about learning english with me. i then made sure not to repeat those issues in the future to help them feel more at ease when studying english. participant 4 added by describing her experience using earlier studies as remedies in relation to this issue: there are times when i can't think of a solution right away, so i... go online. there are writings like academic journals or something, that describe how to solve problems like this, so, so, ah, i am searching to obtain a solution... to find the answer. there are no graduates who are more or less skilled at applying the reflective method and research to build classrooms, according to their responses. the reflective teaching style has been employed by all graduates, and research has also always been used as a solution. it is argued that the graduates who finished their thesis in one semester have a higher methodology-reflective component of research competency than other alumni. this is only based on their better ability to research because the other two components, such as the ability to use reflective methods and research in developing classrooms and the priorities of research in their daily lives, turned out to be equal for all alumni. in other words, there are no better or worse alumni in both components. graduates who completed their undergraduate theses in one semester have a higher methodology-reflective component of research proficiency. this is based on their greater capacity for research, as all graduates were found to have comparable levels of using weighing research competencies of department of english language education graduates … 264 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 reflective learning strategies and research to enhance classroom setting and prioritising research in their daily life. 4.1.3. operational-activity element by asking participants to use their research findings and participate in various types of research projects, this component gauges their level of research competency. 4.1.3.1. knowledge of using technology while writing a thesis according to the interviews, all graduates have used technological tools for data collecting and analysis. however, some graduates employed more technology than other graduates did when writing their bachelor theses. as for this situation, participant 9 said: i believe i use technology more than others since, for example, i make use of ebooks more frequently than conventional books, by using google, right, and i look for articles or journals related to the title of my thesis. at times, when i did the consultation, the lecturer asked to send it via email, then like youtube, i used spss because my thesis was quantitative. so, i learnt spss by watching the tutorial from youtube... in general, graduates who completed their theses in two semesters or three semesters employed technology and the internet to gather and analyse the data, including google, gmail, g-drive, ms word, ms excel, spss, and other tools. it is argued that those who completed their theses in two or three semesters tended to use more technology than those who completed their theses in one semester. this is what participant 9 said: “the literature and technology tools were evenly distributed, at 50/50”. participant 2 further added: i used to hunt for references; i searched for journals on google and websites that offered journals. for apa referencing style, i used a book guide. by the way, my thesis is about discourse, and some of my sources are from books and some others are from e-books... it is fifty-fifty, so, yeah. alumni who completed their theses in one semester, in contrast to other alumni, considered the use of both technology and non-technological equipment during the thesiswriting process to be equivalent. in other words, there is no propensity among alumni to use technology gadgets more frequently than non-technological ones. accordingly, all graduates have the experience of using technology to write their theses, according to the results of the interview. 4.1.3.2. putting their study findings to use according to the interviews, the majority of alumni have not yet put their findings into practice because they have not had an opportunity. in this situation, participant 3 said: “i haven't used the research findings in my daily life because if i become a lecturer in the future, i will apply the results of the findings”. syarifah dahliana, saiful akmal, & rizka malda phonna englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 265 since her research is geared for lecturers and she is not now a lecturer, participant 3 has not applied it, according to her response. furthermore, most graduates share the same motive as participant 3. they specifically stated that they have not had an opportunity to put it to use because their study is intended for future lecturers or teachers, but they are not currently earning the status of lecturers or teachers. however, one alumnus has already used the research's findings. in this instance, participant 1 said: “yes, i have... the research findings serve as a strong source of motivation for me, and the theory's implications have had a significant impact on my life”. participant 1 mainly did a study on the self-management of exceptional pupils at the department of english language education. the conclusion is about their method for controlling themselves to be an excellent student; therefore it can be used as inspiration in participant 1’s daily life. overall, her findings are applicable because they are intended to be used in our daily lives rather than being lectured to or taught by lecturers or teachers. 4.1.3.3. taking part in many research projects according to the interview, alumni who completed their theses in one semester are likely to participate in research projects at a higher rate than other graduates. in this instance, participant 3 stated: “if it means getting involved in other people's research, this interview marks my fourth appearance as a subject of an interview; i have participated in four interviews overall”. her response indicated that participant 3 frequently took part in research involving other people. all graduates who completed their theses in a single semester frequently took part in other people's research, either as interview subjects or survey participants. alumni who completed their theses in two or three semesters tended to be less active in research projects. some of them even skipped participating. participant 9 said: “not yet, i believe that my thesis is the only one in which i have participated. participant 6 declares: as of right now, whether as a researcher or a respondent, i am not currently taking part in any other research”. generally, we can draw the conclusion that graduates who completed their theses in one semester have stronger operational-activity components of research competency than other graduates. this is due to the fact that former students who completed their theses in a single semester frequently participate in research projects, some of whom have also applied their findings, and some of whom have used technology in the course of putting together their theses. however, they have less experience contributing to other people's study and have not had the opportunity to use their research findings. other graduates have experience using technology during thesis composing. the results demonstrated that graduates who completed their thesis in one semester have a stronger operational-activity component of research competency than other graduates. this is because they frequently participate in research projects. one of them has also used technology in the thesis-writing process and has experience applying research findings. other graduates have used technology to put together theses. however, weighing research competencies of department of english language education graduates … 266 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 they lack the opportunity to apply their study findings and have less experience participating in research. 4.1.4. emotional-volitional element the evaluation of graduates’ self-improvement through research activity and their methods for resolving an issue they encountered while doing their theses serves as the basis for the assessment of their research ability. 4.1.4.1. self-improvement determination through research activities according to the interview, all alumni are committed to improving themselves through research activity. in this instance, participant 9 stated: by conducting research, we get new knowledge or new scientific understanding. the act of conducting research and the findings that we discover can lead to the discovery of many new sciences. then, what's more... improving our capacity to explain, for instance, how we find a solution to a problem. according to her response, participant 9 underwent self-improvement through research activities, which is how she grew her research skills and increased her insight. additionally, every graduate admitted the same thing happened to them as participant 9, namely that engaging in research activities helped them acquire fresh perspectives and improved their research abilities. 4.1.4.2. approaches to problem-solving while bringing together their theses, each graduate faced a unique set of challenges, necessitating the employment of various problem-solving techniques. in essence, every graduate applied the right techniques to address their issues. in this instance, participant 7 discussed the methods she used to address her issue, which was having trouble finding the participants: so, because i have a hard time finding the participants, i immediately thought up this idea, so because my participants were working their thesis at a time, they must frequently meet their supervisors, so i had to locate them in that sort of place. her participants are primarily final-year english language education students who were preoccupied with finishing their theses, making it challenging to meet with them and conduct interviews. due to this issue, she had to track down her participants and interview them at the locations where she met them. additionally, participant 9 discussed the methods she used to address her issue with motivation for herself: the motivation was to speed up, to graduate, and to finish it because if i delayed it, to wait for other people, it would not solve the problem. i mean in the future syarifah dahliana, saiful akmal, & rizka malda phonna englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 267 we would face it too, whenever, so, just speed it up, i mean like regularly going to the campus and completing the thesis. additionally, some graduates used applicable ways to resolve their issues, including issues with tracking prior research, determining an appropriate data analysis, finding participants, issues with supervision, self-motivation, and others. in conclusion, there are no graduates who have a stronger or lower emotional-volitional component of research competency than others since the emotional-volitional component of research competency among alumni is equal. this can be characterised by the fact that all of the alumni are committed to improving themselves through research activities and that they all employ appropriate problem-solving techniques. as a result, the emotional-volitional component of research competency among alumni is equal, meaning that no alumni have a higher or lower emotional-volitional component of research competency than others. this can be defined by the fact that all alumni are committed to self-improvement through research activity and the use of appropriate problem-solving strategies. 4.2. sources of research competency among department of english language education departments graduates after speaking with the graduates, the author discovered that there are two categories of sources that may be used to categorise their research competence: primary sources and non-major sources. the primary factor that has a major impact on how well they conduct their study is their research skills. in contrast, the non-major sources of research competency have a little impact on the development of their research competency. the issues alumni encountered throughout the writing of the bachelor are listed below. first, two graduates who completed their theses in one semester and three semesters agreed that the biggest challenge they faced was a lack of motivation. second, one of the graduates who completed their thesis in one semester, two semesters, or three semesters encountered problems locating participants for the research. also, all graduates who encountered this issue, with the exception of one who completed their thesis in two semesters, viewed it as their main issue. third, several graduates who completed their theses within two semesters and one graduate who completed their theses within three semesters encountered difficulties during supervision. in addition, some graduates who completed their theses in just two semesters viewed this issue as their main concern. on the other hand, one of the graduates who completed their thesis in three semesters regarded this issue as a non-major issue. fourth, a graduate who completed their thesis in three semesters cited a lack of time and a demanding class schedule as her main issues. fifth, one of the former students who completed their thesis in two semesters claimed that obtaining already conducted research or prior relevant studies was the most difficult aspect of the process. last, for those who weighing research competencies of department of english language education graduates … 268 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 completed their thesis in two semesters, selecting the appropriate method of data analysis is only a minor issue. 4.2.1. research-related courses the goal of research courses like english language research 1 and 2, seminar and discussion, and research methodology is to develop students' research skills. additionally, graduates who completed their theses in one semester as well as other graduates who completed their theses in three semesters claimed that research courses played a greater role in enhancing their research competency than other sources of research competency. in this instance, participant 3 said: when i studied seminars and the discussion course, ah... my lecturer asked us to do some research studies, and then we looked into it and came to conclusions. that way, i obtained competence in research. during the seminar and discussion course, i learned a lot about conducting research while looking into a topic. in completing the research, participant 3 claimed that all of the theories and exercises she learned in research classes were really helpful. in addition, all graduates who completed their theses in one semester and some others who completed their theses in three semesters made the same claim, namely that research courses have a greater impact on their ability to conduct research than experience conducting research and selfstudy. participant 9 added the following information regarding this claim: “in order to grasp the procedures we will follow when researching the thesis, we must first learn english language research”. participant 9 evaluated a variety of sources, including research courses, research experience, and self-study, to determine the most effective methods for developing research competency. according to her response, research courses have a greater impact than other types of coursework because they provide us with the knowledge we need to undertake research. as a result, we can say that research courses are the main source of research competency for graduates who completed their theses in one semester and certain graduates who completed their theses in three semesters. 4.2.2. research experience according to the interview, alumni who completed their theses in two semesters and some alumni who completed their theses in three semesters claimed that conducting research plays a bigger role in building their research competency than other sources of research competency. participant 6 stated the following in this instance: i believe conducting research has a significant impact on establishing my research competency since the talent itself would not be enough if we did not syarifah dahliana, saiful akmal, & rizka malda phonna englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 269 start doing it for anything significant. we engage in self-study because we want to carry out our own research. her response suggests that research experience is more important in establishing research competency since doing research forces us to apply our research skills to address research difficulties. in other words, if we do not put the theory or insight we learn in research courses into practice, they will not become research skills, and we cannot build research competency without doing research. additionally, all of the graduates who completed their theses in just two semesters as well as several graduates who completed their theses in three semesters agreed that the main source of research competency is the experience of carrying out research. 4.2.3. self-study in this context, self-study refers to an attempt to comprehend research theories by reading prior studies, communicating with colleagues, discussing with lecturers, and attending seminars, conferences, or workshops that are designed to improve researching abilities. the interviews suggest that certain graduates who completed their theses in three semesters valued independent study as their primary source of research expertise. in this instance, participant 7 claimed that her primary source of research expertise is reading prior studies: i believe that reading prior studies has the most impact. i mean, we learn theories from research methodology courses... therefore, i believe it will have less of an impact on our research ability if we do not see examples of the application from past studies, as i always learn more from examples. according to her response, participant 7 said that without studying how the ideas were used in earlier studies, we cannot turn the theories we acquire in research courses into research skills. for instance, after we are feeling familiar with the ideas guiding the creation of appropriate research questions, we must learn from examples of appropriate research questions from earlier studies in order to develop this talent. it is also found from the interviews that several graduates who completed their theses in one or two semesters viewed independent study as a minor source of research competency. we therefore discovered that there are three sources of research competency among alumni, including research courses, research experience, and self-study. graduates who completed their theses in one semester and some who did so in three thought that research classes were the main source from which they learned how to do research. with regard to research experience, all graduates who completed their theses in two semesters or less, as well as some who did so in three semesters or less, agreed that conducting research is the best approach to become an excellent researcher. the last group of graduates, nevertheless, who completed their theses in one or two semesters thought that self-study was a non-major source of research ability. weighing research competencies of department of english language education graduates … 270 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 4.3. problem-related to the research conduct among department of english language education department graduates based on what was said in the interview, the research problems were also put into two groups: major and minor. graduates who considered the major problem to be the problem that mostly prevented them from finishing the thesis and those who believed that minor problems are the things keeping them from finishing the thesis on time. 4.3.1. insufficient self-motivation (major problem) some graduates who completed their theses in one semester and one alumnus who completed their theses in three semesters struggled with self-motivation. for example, according to the participant 1: “the only issue i had was myself; i was occasionally lazy, so there's really nothing. participant 2 further added: maybe it's a problem from you too. as we were writing the thesis...we must sometimes become so lazy and sluggish”. their responses indicate that they have little drive to complete the investigation. alumni who completed their theses in one semester claimed that their unexpected idleness was to blame for their lack of self-motivation. on the other hand, one of the alumni who completed their thesis in three semesters claimed that the reason they lacked motivation was because they conducted their study alone, without the help of their fellow classmates. moreover, one graduate who finished their thesis in three semesters and a few graduates who finished their thesis in one semester both cited a serious issue with declining motivation. 4.3.2. difficulty in finding participants (major problem) during the research phase, one of the alumni who completed their theses in one semester, two semesters, and three semesters encountered this issue. in this instance, participant 7 said: “since my participants were ppl (field teaching practicum) students, it was challenging to meet them because they were preoccupied with their theses and ppl at the time”. with regard to this, participant 3 reiterated: “thereafter, when i conducted interviews, i had challenges in doing the thesis and in gathering data because many of my participants were unavailable on the day of the interviews”. according to their responses, the reason it was difficult to find participants was that they needed to track down people who were preoccupied with other activities at the time. because of unforeseen obligations at the time, several participants even went against their word and refused to take part in the study. furthermore, with the exception of one graduate who completed their thesis in two semesters, the majority of graduates who encountered this issue viewed it as their main issue. 4.3.3. problem with supervision (major problem) during their research, this issue was encountered by some alumni who completed their theses in two semesters and one graduate who completed their theses in three semesters. in this instance, participant 4 explained the issue she encountered: “the syarifah dahliana, saiful akmal, & rizka malda phonna englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 271 misunderstanding resulted from the first supervisor and the second supervisor having different minds. we cannot compare them because they are unquestionably different. the issue is that their opinions differ”. regarding this, participant 9 said: maybe the second hurdle was ah... a revision like, on one side we wanted to finish it as soon as possible, on the other side the lecturer might be busy... so,... the revision stayed with the lecturer for a long time, maybe around two weeks, three weeks, maybe more. ah... the expectations and reality were not balanced. 4.3.4. time management (major problem) participant 6 reported that one graduate who completed her thesis in three semesters saw this issue as her main concern: i am not early in graduation because at the time i took two different studies at two different universities, so there are many campus subjects that must be taken at the same time. i have to reschedule it for next semester, so i took some more time to graduate. her response indicated that her dual enrolment in two universities was the cause of her lack of time and hectic class schedule. she had to change the order of her classes at two different universities, which required her to drop some courses and retake them in subsequent semesters. 4.3.5. difficulty in finding previous studies (minor problem) participant 6 reported that an alumna who completed her thesis in just two semesters saw this issue as her concern: “finding prior research is the first challenge i encountered because, on average, my prior research—especially those published in international journals—was out-dated”. her response indicated that she was having trouble pinpointing relevant prior research because few other researchers had ever looked into the topic of her study. 4.3.6. finding a proper data analysis approach (minor problem) along with finding prior research, participant 6 mentioned that obtaining an appropriate data analysis approach is one of her minor issues: “i had to use descriptive analysis at the time since i was having trouble deciding how to analyse the data. at first, i was completely baffled”. she indicated in her response that the process of analysing the data was initially challenging, but that it got simpler after she worked out how to do it. 5. discussion the majority of the graduates did not exhibit any characteristic of research competency, the author discovered. ivanenko et al. (2015) and celik (2011) specifically mentioned the motivational-value component and indicated that publishing research work weighing research competencies of department of english language education graduates … 272 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 is one of the components or traits of research competency. the author did learn, however, that the majority of alumni did not publish their studies or theses. ivanenko et al. (2015) and van den berg (2016) claimed that applying research results and taking part in all types of research activities are two components of research competency with regard to the operational-activity component. however, our findings also discovered that most alumni required to put their thesis results into practice and rarely took part in various types of research work. in addition, we also discovered that the two main sources of research competency among alumni are thesis research and research courses. this result is consistent with ismail and meerah's (2012) assertion that research competency may be acquired through both research courses and theses writing can help improve their research experiences. self-study, which was regarded as a primary source and a non-major source of research competency, is one of the additional sources of research competency we found in this present study. this conclusion is in accordance with those made by fuentes (2017) and ivanenko et al. (2015), who claimed that self-study could enhance research skill. additionally, the author found that alumni who finished their theses in a single semester needed more self-motivation to perform their study. this conclusion is in accordance with bocar's (2013) finding that the university's management was equally responsible for the students' inability to do research. the graduates on the other hand, who completed their theses in just two semesters, require assistance with supervision. this result is in agreement with matin and khan (2017), who discovered that one of the issues with thesis construction is the procedure of consulting with supervisors. consultation with supervisors is rated as the second-most complex problem by matin and khan (2017), who listed the challenges from the least to the most challenging. graduates who completed their theses in three semesters commonly struggle with obtaining participants for their studies, lack of motivation, time constraints, and a busy schedule. in the same light, the lack of time and class schedule is consistent with fuentes' (2017) claim that one of the challenges encountered while conducting research is a lack of time management and conflicting class schedule. the challenges in recruiting participants are also in line with akyürek and avacan (2018) findings. 6. conclusion the findings of this present study revealed that the nine department of english language education department alumni had unique research skills, sources for those skills, and challenges with regard to the thesis or research implementation. ivanenko et al. (2015) classification of research competency, which breaks it down into four parts: a motivational-value component, a methodology-reflective component, an operationalactivity component, and an emotional-volitional component. when it came to research skills, we found that past students who completed their theses in one semester had greater or better research propensities than other former students. the motivational-value, methodology-reflective, and operational-activity syarifah dahliana, saiful akmal, & rizka malda phonna englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 273 components of research competency are all greater in one-semester thesis-completed graduates compared to other graduate categories. in contrast, graduates had comparable levels of emotional-volitional research competency. in other words, there is no difference between the emotional-volitional elements of a graduate's research competency. we also learned about graduates’ potential sources of research competency. they separated the sources of research competency into major and minor sources. the most crucial source for developing their research abilities is a main source rather than a secondary one. graduates who completed their theses in one semester or three reported that research courses were the primary means through which they learnt how to conduct research in particular. the minor sources, on the other hand, are the results of self-study and investigation. the primary source of research competency, according to one graduate who completed the thesis in two semesters and one graduate who completed the thesis in three semesters, is research conduct. the graduates who completed their theses in one semester typically consider selfmotivation as their main issue when it comes to research-related issues. one of them did add, though, that her biggest challenge is recruiting research participants. graduates who completed their theses in two semesters want assistance with supervision and identifying prior research as important challenges. however, they also require assistance in finding and learning the proper way to examine their minor issues. on the other hand, graduates who finished their thesis in three semesters confront a number of significant problems. their non-major issues include difficulties with supervision sessions, whereas their significant problems are time management, finding participants, and self-motivation. references akyürek, e., & afacan, ö. 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(2019). the art of coding and thematic exploration in qualitative research. international management review, 15(1), 45-55. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/29243 englisia may 2018 vol. 5, no. 2, 82-101 ethics and values education through anthropomorphism in east nusa tenggara folktales gracia m n otta universitas nusa cendana kupang, indonesia graciaotta@gmail.com abstract this study describes anthropomorphism that contains ethics and values education within east nusa tenggara folktales in indonesia. the study explored the data on anthropomorphism based on the students’ textbooks of the local content subject, “pengetahuan lingkungan dan sosial budaya daerah nusa tenggara timur sekolah dasar kelas 2” and“cerita rakyat nusa tenggara timur sekolah dasar kelas 6”. the textbooks containing the folktales were published in 2012 by cv jala makmur – kupang. there were 20 folktales in the textbooks, but the anthropomorphisms investigated were only within four folktales, in which the animals behaving like human beings. the study was library research based, using a descriptive qualitative method. the study applied a moral approach since the value of anthropomorphism is to educate the readers. the results of this study showed that there were eight values to learn in hoga woe, three in nenek bupu repu, five in asu nok maleobibi, and five in dhone dan kaju. this study concludes that folktales can be one of the teaching and learning materials for introducing morals, attitudes, and good judgments to the young students in ethics and values education. in addition, folktales can be developed into plays, from which the students can play the characters in order to easily absorb moral education in a fun and interesting way. keywords: anthropomorphism; folktales; local content; ethics and values education introduction the concept of literature literature, unlike mathematics and physics, is not a field of exact sciences. while in mathematics two multiplies by two equals to four, literature does not work in that way. this is the main reason why when it comes to the question of what gracia m n otta englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 83 literature is there is no exact definition. literature affects its readers as literature uses language which portrays the five senses to gently move the readers into vivid and heartfelt feelings. literature is marked by its unique capability of using language to paint a world within people’s imagination and to stir emotions that people do not know have existed. there are many functions of literature from many points of views. bressler (1994) in his book gave a comment on the two opposing sides of critics, tracing their arguments to plato, many contend that literature’s primary function is moral, its chief value being its usefulness for hidden or undisclosed purposes. but others, like aristotle, hold that a work of art can be analyzed and broken down into its various parts, with each part contributing to the overall enjoyment of the work itself. for critics, the value of a text is found within it or inseparably linked to the work itself (p. 12). tarigan (2011) as cited in otta (2017) states that children’s literature has six main functions. first. literature exists to give pleasure and happiness to children. second, literature helps children to consider and think about the universe, experiences, and ideas in many ways. third, literature gives a strange experience where children live in their fictional world. fourth, literature can affect children in presenting good behaviorism. fifth, literature helps children to develop their imaginary world. the last function, literature can be told from one generation to the next generation. in children’s literature, talking animals are common to appear. it has become a usual phenomenon in the literary works in which animals act like human beings. talking animals generally fall into the category of "animal fantasy," referring to a genre where animals are given human characteristics (galda et al., 2010 & lynchbrown et al., 2011 as cited in dunn, 2011). the characteristics of animals even display some good moral values to be taught for the children. animals can be fully anthropomorphic or simply have the ability to talk or reason like any human. they can inhabit their own human less world or they can coexist with humans and even speaking to them. as part of literature, beers and probst (2003, pp. 625-626) describe that: ethics and values education through anthropomorphism in east nusa tenggara folktales 84 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 “folktales are stories passed on by word of mouth, often over many centuries. it is changed a bit because no two people tell a story exactly the same way. some of these folktales travel; that is as they are told they move out of their original environments into other places. handed down from generation to generation, told over again, these ‘tells’ become familiar stories as ‘they say people could fly...’; ‘once upon a time...’ they have become tales of the folks.” in relation to that, cigay (2009) points that folktales, myths, and legends need to be preserved in this digital age to avoid extinction as an impact of globalization and commercial entertainment. the necessity of folktale preservation does not only pertain to the sustenance of culture and heritage but it goes beyond. folktale teaches moral, attitudes, transformation, instill self-fortitude, good judgments, and depict distinctiveness of cultures and also impart with kindness which leads to stimulation of a country with unsurpassed cultural standards (babalola & onanuga, 2012; kirmani & frieman, 1997). anthropomorphism in literature in general, the concept of anthropomorphism can be seen from the descriptions stated by epley, waytz & cacioppo (2007) as cited in kollias (2015, p. 99) that: “anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics, like emotions and speech, to non-human beings, for example a god, an animal, a plant, a sound, or a natural phenomenon as it is derived from greek word anthropos (meaning ‘human’) and morphe (meaning ‘shape’ or ‘form’). anthropomorphism involves more than simply attributing life to non-living.” further, according to magee (1969) as cited in markowsky (1975), anthropomorphism is the ascribing of human attributes to non-human things. animals have always had a place in literature. primitive story-tellers used animals as antagonists. animals were also used in didactic stories such as the fables of aesop and had roles in medieval literature as questing beasts and dreamland dragons. in the context of modern life, carolyn burke and joby copenhaver (2004) in their paper entitled “animals as people in children’s literature” remark that: “many of us share our homes and our hearts with our pets. certainly our local environments, whether we live in a city, a suburb, or the country, are filled with a vast variety of animals both large and small. so, it would seem gracia m n otta englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 85 rather intuitive that these same creatures would find a place in the stories that we tell. and they do. but when these animals begin to talk and scheme and learn to read, we have gone past their intuitive inclusion in a replication of reality and have put them to use in a purposeful distortion of reality…” (p. 206). to add, kay milton (2005, as cited in jardim, 2013) also mentions that: “… [social scientists] use [anthropomorphism] to describe the way some animals are represented in myths, fables, stories, cartoons, television commercials, and so on. thus the characters in beatrix potter‘s stories, in kenneth grahame‘s the wind in the willows, and in george orwell‘s animal farm are anthropomorphic, as are snoopy, tom and jerry, mickey mouse, sooty and sweep. such characters invariably think human-like thoughts, wear clothes and use spoken language” (p. 256). in the case of children’s literature, what purpose do the animals play in the stories? there are some reasons behind the choosing of talking animals in children stories. first, it is to enable young readers to identify with the animals. second, it is used for the flight of fantasy itself. animals that can talk let people imagine another world which they may not be able to see. third, it is used for variety. an author can develop a great variety of characters in a short story with few words if an animal is used to express attributes commonly assumed to represent the creature (markowsky, 1975). animal stories can be divided into three broad categories based on the degree of anthropomorphism including: (1) those in which animals behave like human beings, (2) those in which animals behave like animals except that they talk and may wear clothes, (3) those in which they behave entirely like animals (sutherland & arbuthnot, 1977, p. 341). in terms of the values within the stories, there are two main contributions that can be derived: personal values and educational values. personal values contain emotional development, intellectual development, imaginary development, social development, and ethics and religious development. meanwhile, educational values consist of exploration and discovery, language development, aesthetic development, multicultural development, and reading habits (nurgiyantoro, 2005, p. 41). in ethics and values education through anthropomorphism in east nusa tenggara folktales 86 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 regard with anthropomorphism, ethics and religious values need to be applied to children in early age. as such, the animal stories told to the children will enable them to discover the values indirectly. in relation to anthropomorphism in children’s literature, the term “ethics and values education” (eve) may also have similar purposes. in regard with the children, eve has several main purposes including: to stimulate ethical reflection, awareness, responsibility, and compassion in children, provide children with insight into important ethical principles and values, equip them with intellectual capacities (critical thinking and evaluation, reflection, discovery, understanding, decision-making, noncognitive abilities like compassion) for responsible moral judgment (ćurko et al., 2015, p. 6). in the context of this study, the children’s literature in east nusa tenggara is written in bahasa indonesia although the stories were originally from the local people of east nusa tenggara, a province in indonesia. there are three types of literature in east nusa tenggara: (1) literary works about east nusa tenggara, (2) literary works which were produced by east nusa tenggara people, and (3) literary works in indonesian (sehandi, 2012, p. 12). for the purpose of the study, the folktales in the children’s literature were the focus of investigation, to which the study tried to look at the ethics and education values through anthropomorphism in the textbooks of the local content subject. previous study a research concerning education and moral values which explored the children’s literature in indonesia was also conducted by husni rahim and maila dinia husni rahiem (2012) in their article entitled “the use of stories as moral education for young children” they found that moral education has been considered a complementary topic in kindergarten in indonesia. however, teachers played a crucial role in helping the children better understand the stories and capture the messages in the stories. the teachers also needed to explore the content of the stories and helped the children connect their own experiences and lives to the stories. more importantly, the ways the teachers viewed morality affect the way they conveyed moral values to the children. gracia m n otta englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 87 research method the study applied the descriptive qualitative method. the study was a type of library research considering that the data compiled were taken from the school textbooks titled“pengetahuan lingkungan dan sosial budaya daerah nusa tenggara timur sekolah dasar kelas 2” (environmental and socio-cultural knowledge of east nusa tenggara region fo elementary school grade 2) and “cerita rakyat nusa tenggara timur sekolah dasar kelas 6” (folktales of east nusa tenggara for elementary school grade 6). the data collected consisted of 20 folktales in the textbooks as listed in the following: 1. fatu atoni (south central timor regency). 2. ndiwal dan obak (east manggarai regency). 3. hoga woe (ngada regency). 4. kera dan centadu (east flores regency). 5. mane ikun (belu regency). 6. ratu jie dan ratu ree (ende regency). 7. teka iku (sikka regency). 8. mone mola (sabu regency). 9. balo ndaomanu dan deta balo (rote ndao regency). 10. putri si ujung kapuk (indonesian folktale). 11. mone he’baka (sabu regency). 12. adu ledo dan ndu bula (rote ndao regency). 13. nenek bupu repu (flores folktale). 14. kera dan sapi (indonesian folktale). 15. bei seuk (rote ndao regency). 16. langit menjauh dari bumi (manggarai regency). 17. asu nok maleobibi (timor folktale). 18. dhone dan kaju (east nusa tenggara folktale). 19. malia lehi (alor regency). 20. umbu nai keba (east sumba regency). data analysis the study employed the content analysis, paying attention to the moral approach of anthropomorphism in the folktales. the steps for analyzing the data are summarized below: a) reading carefully and critically all 20 stories within the two textbooks, b) investigating the ethics and values education through anthropomorphism in all stories based on the classification by ethics and values education through anthropomorphism in east nusa tenggara folktales 88 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 sutherland and arbuthnot (1977, p. 341) : (1) those in which animals behave like human beings, (2) those in which animals behave like animals except that they talk and may wear clothes, and (3) those in which they behave entirely like animals. c) selecting the ethics and values education through anthropomorphism only in the stories in which animals behave like human beings (category no. 1 of sutherland and arbuthnot, 1977). findings & discussion the study found that anthropomorphism was also present in the folktales of east nusa tenggara. there were the cultural and religious values in east nusa tenggara that were portrayed in the stories. the four folktales analyzed beforehand which depicted the animals behaving like humas included “hoga woe”, “nenek bupu repu”, “asu nok maleobibi”, and “dhone dan kaju”. the summary of the animal characters’ actions which had the ethics and values education is described in the following table. table 2. moral values in east nusa tenggara folktales story anthropomorphisms values hoga woe (a relationship of good friends) setiap hari pak tani mencari nafkah dan keempatnya makan bersama. (the farmer and his pets had a meal together every day)  page 8, paragraph 4, line 4. togetherness si kucing sering membantu mencari lauk-pauk dengan menangkap ikan di sungai. (the cat helped to hunt for side dishes by collecting fish in the river)  page 8, paragraph 4, line 5 sharing responsibility si tikus lebih banyak menjadi penjaga rumah dan mengawal lumbung makanan itik. (the mouse stayed at home more to guard the ducks’ rice barn)  page 9, paragraph 4, line 9-10 sharing responsibility gracia m n otta englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 89 ...mereka sering bergurau sambil beristirahat sebelum tidur. (...they [the farmer and the pets] would often joke before going to bed)  page 9, paragraph 4, line 10-11. harmonious life ...turut merasakan derita sahabat mereka. (...[the pets] felt the pain of their friends)  page 9, paragraph 4, line 13. empathy to others kemudian ketiga sahabat itu berunding. lalu keputusan diambil. (they discussed and made a decision.)  page 9, paragraph 7, line 3. ...anjing siap terjun dan berenang... si kucing duduk di punggung si anjing, dan si tikus duduk di leher si kucing. (...the dog jumped and swam while the cat sat on the dog’s back and the mouse sat on the cat’s neck.)  page 9, paragraph 7, line 4-5 ...si tikus mengajak kedua sahabatnya untuk berunding lagi. (...the mouse asked its friends to discuss for one more time)  page 10, paragraph 8, line 9-10 ...si kucing meneruskannya pada si anjing yang sedang menunggu di bawah. (...the cat passed the things in that basket to the waiting dog)  page 11, paragraph 9, line 10-11 ...timbul pertengkaran yang hebat antara ketiga sahabat... (there was a big fighting among the pets)  page 11, paragraph 10, line 2-3 anjing menepuk dada dan berkata “akulah yang paling berjasa!” (the dog arrogantly said, “i was the one who made it!”)  page 11, paragraph 11, line 1 mutual deliberation: principle of democracy cooperation mutual deliberation cooperation arguing: a bad attitude showing off/ being proud of oneself: a bad attitude ...kucing dengan galak berteriak “akulah yang paling berjasa!” (the cat shouted angrily, “i was the one who made it!”)  page 11, paragraph 11, line 3. ...si tikus mencibir lalu berkata “akulah yang paling berjasa!” (the mouse sneered and said, “i was the one who made it!”) showing off/ being proud of oneself: a bad attitude showing off/ being proud of oneself: a bad attitude ethics and values education through anthropomorphism in east nusa tenggara folktales 90 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018  page 11, paragraph 11, line 5-6. ...lalu setiap sahabat mulai memuji diri... (...each of the farmer’s pets started to praise themselves)  page 11, paragraph 12, line 4. showing off/ being proud of oneself: a bad attitude nenek bupu repu (an old woman called bupu repu) ...mereka harus melaporkannya kepada nenek bupu secara jujur (...the bugs should honestly report what they have done to nenek bupu repu)  page 17, paragraph 3, line 2-3 namun pada suatu waktu, ada seekor kumbang nakal secara diam-diam merayap keluar dari perut gunung tanpa izin dari nenek bupu repu (however, one day, there was a naughty bug quietly walked out of the mountain without a permission of her)  page 17, paragraph 4, line 1-3. honesty disobedience: a bad attitude diam-diam semua kumbang berjanji dalam hati untuk tidak nakal seperti teman mereka yang bernasib naas itu (in silent, all bugs committed not to be naughty like their pitiful friend)  page 19, paragraph 14, line 3-5. obedience asu nok maleobibi (a dog and a crane) pada zaman dahulu, ada seekor anjing yang dalam bahasa timor dawan disebut asu dan seekor burung bangau atau dalam bahasa timor dawan disebut maleobibi bersahabat karib karena selalu bermain dan berpergian bersama-sama. (once upon a time, there was a friendship between a dog which is in timor dawan dialect called as asu and a crane which is in timor dawan dialect called maleobibi, that used to play and travel together)  page 31, paragraph 1, line 1-4. friendship pada suatu hari anjing mengundang bangau untuk makan siang bersama di rumahnya (one day, the dog invited the crane to have lunch together in its house)  page 31, paragraph 2, line 1-2. si bangau menyambut baik undangan itu... (the crane accepted it happily...)  page 31, paragraph 2, line 2. ...dan ia datang tepat pada waktunya (...and [the crane] came on time.)  page 31, togetherness respecting one’s invitation punctuality gracia m n otta englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 91 paragraph 2, line 3. si bangau berhasil membalas dendam kepada anjing sahabatnya (the crane finally took a revenge to his friend)  page 32, paragraph 5, line 1. taking a revenge: a bad attitude dhone dan kaju (dhone and kaju) kera-kera di hutan itu selalu mencuri dan merusak jagung di lading suami istri itu (the monkeys in the forest often stole and destroyed the corn of the couple in their field)  page 33, paragraph 1, line 3-4. stealing, and destroying things: bad behaviors kera-kera itu beramai-ramai menganiaya si dhone... (then the monkeys persecuted dhone...)  page 34, paragraph 4, line 1-2 mereka minum sampai mabuk (they got drunk)  page 34, paragraph 7, line 5. persecution: a bad behavior drinking alcohol: a bad behavior ...tetapi kera itu memohon ampun... (...the little monkey begged for forgiveness...)  page 35, paragraph 9, line 4. apologizing for mistakes the first story, hoga woe, which means a relationship of good friends is a folktale from ngada regency in east nusa tenggara. here, as seen in table 1, there are eight values that can be learned by the children. the first value is togetherness: “setiap hari pak tani mencari nafkah dan keempatnya makan bersama”. (the farmer and his pets had a meal together every day).  page 8, par 4, line 4 this action tells the readers that having a meal together suggests there was a value of togetherness among the animals and the farmer in the story. the story allowed the children to learn to build a good relationship with their family members and their surroundings. the second value is sharing responsibility: ethics and values education through anthropomorphism in east nusa tenggara folktales 92 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 “si kucing sering membantu mencari lauk-pauk dengan menangkap ikan di sungai”. (the cat helped to hunt for side dishes by collecting fish in the river).  page 8, par 4, line 5 “si tikus lebih banyak menjadi penjaga rumah dan mengawal lumbung makanan itik”. (the mouse stayed at home more to guard the ducks’ rice barn).  page 9, par 4, line 9-10 here, the story mentioned that the members of the farmer’s family also took responsibility in order to share the burden of the head of the family. for example, the cat had a duty to look for side dishes while the mouse took care of the ducks’ rice barn. such actions told the children to complete their tasks assigned to them and to learn about sharing responsibility in their houses or in school. the third value is a harmonious life: “...mereka sering bergurau sambil beristirahat sebelum tidur”. (...they [the farmer and the pets] would often joke before going to bed).  page 9, par 4, line 10-11 hoga woe also reflected that the family in this story, consisting of the farmer and his pets, shared a harmonious life as can be seen from the portrayal of their fun interaction prior to going to bed. the story hoped that the children and their parents could also have a fun and exciting sharing moment at home in order to build a good relationship among family members. the fourth value is empathy to others: “...turut merasakan derita sahabat mereka”. (...[the pets] felt the pain of their friends).  page 9, par 4, line 13 here, the story stated that the animals could also feel the pain of their friends. this suggests that the story hoped that the children could build empathy for others. having empathy is important as it allows the children to share others’ experiences and emotions and thus, they can understand each other better. gracia m n otta englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 93 the fifth value is mutual deliberation: “kemudian ketiga sahabat itu berunding. lalu keputusan diambil”. (they discussed and made a decision.)  page 9, par 7, line 3 ...si tikus mengajak kedua sahabatnya untuk berunding lagi. (...the mouse asked its friends to discuss for one more time)  page 10, par 8, line 9-10 the story indicated that the children should also prioritize others’ opinions before making a decision for everyone. therefore, the story showed the animals having two times discussions in order to reach a final conclusion. it is necessary to have mutual deliberation as the children live in a social life and interact with others, and also reflect the principle of democracy. the sixth value is cooperation, which is found in several actions as shown below: “... anjing siap terjun dan berenang, ... si kucing duduk di punggung si anjing, dan si tikus duduk di leher si kucing”. (... the dog jumped and swam while the cat sat on the dog’s back and the mouse sat on the cat’s neck.)  page 9, par 7, line 4-5. ...si kucing meneruskannya pada si anjing yang sedang menunggu di bawah. (...the cat passed the things in that basket to the waiting dog)  page 11, par 9, line 10-11 the story here suggested that the children should be able to cooperate with the others and cooperation is a value that can help them become better and useful for the society. however, the following values show the bad attitudes/behaviors that should not be followed by the children. the story mentioned two negative attitudes that were detrimental to friendship and led to disputes. the seventh value is arguing: “...timbul pertengkaran yang hebat antara ketiga sahabat...” (there was a big fighting among the pets)  page 11, par 10, line 2-3 ethics and values education through anthropomorphism in east nusa tenggara folktales 94 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 in this action, after accomplishing a mission, the pets began to argue with one another. they did not want to admit that the mission was possible because there was a good team work. however, arguing is a bad value which the children should not follow. instead of showing their ability, it is better for the children to recognize the meaning of cooperating in a team and admit the others’ help. the eighth value is showing off/ being proud of oneself, which appeared several times and below is one example taken from the story. “...lalu setiap sahabat mulai memuji diri...” (... each of the farmer’s pets started to praise themselves)  page 11, par 12, line 4 this action was related to the previous one, in which the pets started arguing and then each wanted to show its ability in the mission. however, showing off is one problematic attitude that the children should not develop in themselves. being proud of oneself will undermine the others’ contribution in a team work and annoy the others as well. in this story, the moral is to be able to cooperate with friends and to value others’ help in cooperation. the second folktale, nenek bupu repu (an old woman called bupu repu) was originated from flores in east nusa tenggara. there were three values within this story which are explained in the following. the first value is honesty: setelah kumbang itu mengelilingi bumi, mereka harus melaporkannya kepada nenek bupu repu secara jujur. (after going around the earth, the bugs should honestly report what they have done to grandma bupu repu)  page 17, par 3, line 2-3 the story suggested that the children should talk honestly and not try to lie for everything they have done for the parents, the elders, or anyone else. honesty is one positive attitude the children should develop. the second value is disobedience, which is a negative attitude: “namun pada suatu waktu, ada seekor kumbang nakal secara diam-diam merayap keluar dari perut gunung tanpa gracia m n otta englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 95 izin dari nenek bupu repu”. (however, one day, there was a naughty bug quietly walked out of the mountain without her permission) page 17, par, line 1-3 this story implied that in everyday life, it is expected that the children will firstly ask for a permission to their elders/parents/teachers before doing something. however, here the story told an example of bad attitudes, which was disobedience of a bug. therefore, the bug’s action was not to be a model for the children as it meant the bug was naughty and disobeying the rules. children are taught to obey the rules made for their own good. the third value is obedience: “diam-diam semua kumbang berjanji dalam hati untuk tidak nakal seperti teman mereka yang bernasib naas itu”. (in silent, all bugs committed not to be naughty like their pitiful friend)  page 19, par 14, line 3-5 the value of obedience in this action was related to the case of a naughty bug in the previous action. the bug was actually into some sort of calamity as it tried to disobeyed the rule. then, the story implied that any disobedience would result in bad consequences. therefore, the children might learn to obey the parents/elders/teachers and not to do something wrong in order to avoid calamities as the consequences. the third story is asu nok maleobibi (a dog and a crane) which was a folktale from timor island in east nusa tenggara. the story had five values to learn, as shown in table 1. the first value is friendship: “pada zaman dahulu, ada seekor anjing ...disebut asu dan seekor burung bangau ...disebut maloebibi bersahabat karib karena selalu bermain dan berpergian bersama-sama”. (once upon a time, there was a friendship between a dog ...called asu and a crane ...called maleobibi, that used to play and travel together).  page 31, par 1, line 1-4. ethics and values education through anthropomorphism in east nusa tenggara folktales 96 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 the story told the children to build a good relationship in social life with their other people regardless the social status or races just as the dog befriended the crane in the story. the second value is togetherness: “pada suatu hari anjing mengundang bangau untuk makan siang bersama di rumahnya (one day, the dog invited the crane to have lunch together in its house)  page 31, par 2, line 1-2 here, the story suggested that friends could get together by having a meal. the children are expected to build such togetherness by inviting one another so that friendship can last longer. the third value is respecting one’s invitation: si bangau menyambut baik undangan itu... (the crane accepted it happily.)  page 31, par 2, line 2 this action is related to the previous one, in which the dog invited the crane to have lunch in the dog’s house. here, the story indicated that being good friends, it is expected that the children can also appreciate the invitation by agreeing to come. the forth value is punctuality: ...dan ia datang tepat pada waktunya. (...and [the crane] came on time.)  page 31, par 2, line 3 as in the third value, the story also indicated that being able to come on time to the agreed meeting was a good attitude that the children should have. this also meant that the guests respected the host’s invitation by being punctual. the fifth value is taking revenge, which is a very negative attitude: “si bangau berhasil membalas dendam kepada anjing sahabatnya.” (the crane finally took a revenge to his friend)  page 32, paragraph 5, line 1. gracia m n otta englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 97 the story told that the two best friends, the dog and the crane had an issue during their get together in the dog’s house. angered with the dog, the crane then arranged a similar get together in its house and invited the dog to come. afterwards, the crane did the same thing as what the dog did resulting to the dog getting angry, too. seeing the dog being angry, the crane felt satisfied since its revenge had been successful. however, this type of taking revenge should not become an example and this story implied that the children should be able to see that revenge as well as treating a friend badly can break a good friendship. the last folktale is dhone dan kaju or “dhone and kaju”, a folktale of east nusa tenggara. there are five values present in this story that the children can take a moral lesson, as explained in the following. the first four values reflected bad attitudes/behaviors that should not be followed by the children. the first and second values are stealing and destroying things: “kera-kera di hutan itu selalu mencuri dan merusak jagung di ladang suami istri itu.” (the monkeys in the forest often stole and destroyed the corn of the couple in their field)  page 33, par 1, line 3-4 the story mentioned about the monkeys’ habits of stealing and destroying corns. in the culture of east nusa tenggara, planting corn is one of the popular agricultural activities. therefore, the story highlighted the bad behaviors of the monkeys to show that these two bad values were not supposed to be done by the children. from the religious and ethical aspects, stealing and destroying things are also morally wrong since these deprive the people’s belongings without their consent and cause a damage to the society. the third value is persecution: kera-kera itu beramai-ramai menganiaya si dhone... (then, the monkeys persecuted dhone...)  page 34, par 4, line 1-2 here, the story wanted to tell the children that persecuting or physically harassing other people was not a good behavior. the story expressed that the monkeys were depicting one very negative act which showed that they were not good characters. ethics and values education through anthropomorphism in east nusa tenggara folktales 98 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 the forth value is drinking alcohol: “mereka minum sampai mabuk.” (they got drunk.)  page 34, par 7, line 5 in this story, it is told that before getting drunk, the monkeys held a feast in which they consumed so much alcoholic drink. however, in relation to the monkeys’ bad behaviors, the story implied that drinking alcohol was also not a good example. therefore, the children should avoid drinking alcohol as the children are not supposed to imitate this. the fifth value is apologizing for mistakes, which is a good attitude: “... tetapi kera itu memohon ampun…” (…but, the monkeys begged for forgiveness)  page 35, par 9, line 4 apologizing is one positive moral value that the children should understand. in this story, after conducting many wrongdoings, the monkeys then admitted that they indeed guilty, so they sought for an apology for what they had done before. the story implied that the children should also apologize if they commit any mistake as this reflects humility and acknowledgment one’s weakness. from the findings of these four stories, the anthromorphisms here portrayed a total of 21 values. the children who read the stories can have an indirect ethics and values education (eve) that their teachers hope to teach. oswalt (2010) as cited in ćurko et al (2015, p. 10) remarks that as children grow, they will learn more knowledge and then, they also become aware of morality. this means that they will be able to tell which one is “right” or “wrong” and with that understanding, the children can make a decisions. therefore, learning through literature containing moral values will help eve to reach its purposes, such as developing a compassionate child, among others. in similar words, weaver (1994, pp. 33-34) states that “literary characters have almost the same potential for influencing the reader as the real people with whom a reader might share a reading experience”. this can be said that characters are also able to help teach children about moral/character education. morality of characters may cover a wide range of values including “compassion, courage, gracia m n otta englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 99 courtesy, dependability, diligence, fairness, fortitude, friendship, generosity, honesty, integrity, kindness, loyalty, moderation, optimism, patience, respect, responsibility, trustworthiness, and truthfulness” (nurgiyantoro, 2005, p. 324). as such, while enjoying the stories, children can also understand that the good earn rewards and the bad get punishments. then, children can further “discover their own role, identity and responsibility” (bettelheim, 1976 as cited in nhung, 2016, p. 24) within the society. conclusions there are four stories which presented anthropomorphisms with ethics and moral values. the folktales and the actions of animals as human beings have shown both good behaviors, such as cooperation, togetherness, and politeness, and also bad behaviors including arguing and being proud. children who read the storied are hoped to learn about these ethics and moral values and can differentiate between the good attitudes from the bad ones in daily life. as folktales are the products of culture and since the folktales of east nusa tenggara have also described good moral values in the local content subject in schools, it is hoped that folktales can be considered as one of the teaching and learning materials/medias for introducing morals, attitudes, and good judgments in eve. anthropomorphisms in folktales of east nusa tenggara have appeared in many stories. the animals have also presented different types of human being characteristics in order to elaborate their characteristics into moral education. furthermore, the folktales can be developed into plays, from which the students can play the characters and absorb moral education easily in an entertaining way. however, there is a need for further research in these folktales such as exploring the second and third category mentioned by sutherland and arbuthnot (1977) as in the animals behaving like animals, except that they talk and may wear clothes, and in which they behave entirely like animals. ethics and values education through anthropomorphism in east nusa tenggara folktales 100 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 references babalola, e. t. & onanuga, p. a. (2012). antrophization of minority languages: indigenous folktales to the rescue. international journal of linguistics, 4(1), 158-173. bressler, c. e. (1994). literary criticism: an introduction to theory and practice. new jersey: prentice hall. burke, c. & copenhaver, j. (2004). animals as people in children‘s literature. language arts, 81(3), 205 – 213. cigay, d. t. (2009). preserving our folktales, myths, and legends in the digital era. storytelling, self, society, 6(1), 19-38. ćurko, b., feiner, f., gerjolj, s., juhant, j., kreβ, k., mazzoni, v., mortari, l., pokorny, s., schlenk, e., and strahovnik, v. (2015). ethics and values education-manual for teachers and educators. european commission. dunn, e. a. (2011). talking animals: a literature review of anthropomorphism in children’s book. [master’s thesis]. north carolina probst, r.e & beers, k. (2003). elements of literature: first course. austin,tx: holt/mcdougal. jardim, t.j. (2013). animals as character: anthropomorphism as personality in animation. [master’s thesis], university of the witwatersrand, johannesburg. kirmani, m. h. & frieman, b. b. (1997). diversity in classroom: teaching kindness through folktales. international journal of early childhood, retrieved on march 15, 2018 from https://doi.org/10.1007/bf03174485 kollias, o. (2015). anthropomorphism, aesop’s fables, and their use in lifelong learning and vocational training by awakening participants’ memes. journal of higher education theory and practice, 15(2), 96-103. markowsky, j. k. (1975). why anthropomorphism in children’s literature? elementary english, 52(4), 460-466. nhung, pham thi hong. (2016). folktales as a valuable rich cultural and linguistic resource to teach a foreign language to young learners. international journal of education, culture and society, 1(1), 23-28. doi: 10.11648/j.ijecs.20160101.15. nurgiyantoro, b. (2005). sastra anak, pengantar pemahaman dunia anak [children’s literature, an introduction to children’s understanding]. yogyakarta: gadjah mada university press. otta, g. m.n. (2014). bahan ajar mata kuliah prose [prose course’s modul]. kupang: universitas nusa cendana. rahim, h. & rahiem, m. d. h. (2012). the use of stories as moral education for young children. international journal of social science and humanity, 2(6), 454-458. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf03174485 gracia m n otta englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 101 sehandi, y. (2012). mengenal sastra dan sastrawan ntt [recognizing the literature and the litterateurs of east nusa tenggara]. yogyakarta: universitas sanata dharma. sutherland, z & arbuthnot, m. h. (1977). children and books (5th ed.). glenview, illinois: scott, foresman and co. weaver, c. (1994). reading process and practices: from sociopsycholinguistics to whole language. portsmouth: heinemann. textbooks pengetahuan lingkungan dan sosial budaya daerah nusa tenggara timur sekolah dasar kelas 2 [environmental and socio-cultural knowledge of east nusa tenggara region fo elementary school grade 2]. (2012). kupang: cv jala makmur. cerita rakyat nusa tenggara timur sekolah dasar kelas 6 [folktales of east nusa tenggara for elementary school grade 6]. (2012). kupang: cv jala makmur. englisia may 2014 vol. 1 no.2, 245-255 skopos theory: a practical approach  in the translation process  ika kana trisnawati universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh abstract numerous criticisms have been addressed toward the application of skopos theory within translation studies. issues such as vague concepts of translation, ‘dethroning’ the source text, oversimplification and inapplicability to achieve equivalence for literary and religious texts are some of many critiques for skopos theory. in addition, from a student’s perspective, it is argued that there is no specific guideline to carry out the theory. however, here, i would like to present my perspective as a student practicing translation as well as a brief overview of skopos theory, its criticisms as well as its usefulness in actual implementation. keywords: skopos theory, translation practice introduction the emergence of skopos theory the late 1970s marks the beginning of a translation theory, skopos theory (skopostheorie), proposed by hans j. vermeer (nord, 2012, p. 26). first introduced in 1978 by vermeer in a german journal lebende sprachen, this theory is claimed to be a “framework for a general theory of translation" (nord, 2012, p. 27). vermeer’s view on this general approach is highly motivated by his attempt to seek for another way to translate without depending on linguistics level only, as portrayed in his statement quoted in nord (1997): “linguistics alone won’t help us; first, because translating is not merely and not even primarily a linguistic process. secondly, beskopos theory: a practical approach in the translation process 246 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 cause linguistics has not yet formulated the right questions to tackle our problems. so let’s look somewhere else” (nord, 1997, as cited in stajszczak, 2011, p. 11). this new approach has also drawn a shift in the translation paradigm from linguistically oriented concepts to a functionally and socio culturally oriented framework (prunc, 2003 in de leon, 2008, p. 1; schaffner, 1998, p. 235). skopos theory, though it is not a new concept in the functionalist approach, has then integrated with previous functionalist approach (katharina reiss’ text-types and language function) in a collaborative work between reiss and vermeer in 1984 (nord, 2012, p. 27) and developed itself to be more functional and target-reader oriented (stajszczak, 2011, p. 12). hence, skopos theory has then signaled for the paradigm shift, from linguistics to functionalism, due to its focus of translation that lies between extra-linguistic factors (i.e. culture and client) and textual factors (i.e. the ‘purpose’ of a text) (nord, 2012, p. 34; sunwoo, 2007, p. 2). theoretical review skopos theory and the translation brief borrowing a greek word, vermeer uses ‘skopos’, which literally means ‘a purpose’, as a distinct technical term and states that any translation is an action and goal-oriented, thus any translating action needs to have a purpose, or a skopos (de leon, 2008, p. 1) that plays a role as “the prime principle determining any translation process” (nord, 1997 in masduki, 2011, p. 167). the requirement to have a skopos or a purpose has led to one important consideration in the skopos theory; a high need of practical experiences for a translator in understanding what is intended to be achieved in the target text (green, 2012, p. 109). still, skopos theory tries to keep the equivalence between the source and the target text; however, skopos theory only regards a source text as an ‘offer of information’ to which it will eventually be simulated, as a whole or partially, into an offer of information in a target text by taking into account the target language and culture (reiss & vermeer 1991 in sunwoo, 2007, p. 2; munday, 2008). ika kana trisnawati englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 247 from the skopos theory’s standpoint, a translation product (translatum) needs not to have a similar functional equivalence to a source text. in this case, vermeer argues that a translator defines the function of the translation product through a translation brief, or a translation commission, since the brief is an “intercultural operative” (green, 2012, p. 109); thus, within the framework of skopos theory, the cultural aspects of both source and target language are deeply regarded although the theory focuses more toward the target culture. by definition, vermeer describes that a translation brief is an “instruction, given by oneself or by someone else, to carry out a given action, in this connection: “to translate” (vermeer, 2000 in jensen, 2009, p. 11). a translation brief, however, may or may not be explicitly stated (by a request) (nord, 2006, p. 142) and can be in writing or speaking form (jensen, 2009, p. 11). nevertheless, a translation brief is deemed necessary in the skopos theory which serves as a guide for translators (nord, 2006, p. 142; green, 2012, p. 109). only by having a translation brief can a translator establish the skopos (nord, 2006, p. 142; jensen, 2009, p. 11) and decide what method or strategy s/he should implement during the translation process of a text in accordance with the intended skopos (nord, 2006, p. 142; chesterman, 2007 in jensen, 2009, p. 5). criticisms over skopos theory the skopos theory has received heavy critiques by the proponents of linguistic and equivalence based theories. the critiques mainly focus on the definition of translation and the attitude of the skopos theory toward the source text, or in other words, the ‘dethronement’ of the source text (schaffner, 1998, p. 237). the skopos theory is seen to go beyond the translation proper’s limits and consequently make "the contours of translation, as the object of study ... steadily vaguer and more difficult to survey" (koller, 1995 in nord, 2012, p. 27) which may bring a translation product closer to an ‘adaptation’ rather than a ‘translation’ (nord, 1997 in green, 2012, p. 111; schaffner, 1998, p. 237). further, skopos theory should put the source text (rather than the target text) as the starting point regardless of the purposes of the texts produced during the translation process (koller, 1990 in schaffner, 1998, p. 237). another critique by newmark (1991) underlines oversimplification which inskopos theory: a practical approach in the translation process 248 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 herently exists in functionalism, emphasis on the message instead of the richness of meaning and also detriment of the source-language text (in schaffner, 1998, p. 237). a rather specific critique pinpoints that the skopos theory is inapplicable to literary texts (also religious texts) since these texts involve highly stylistic and expressive language; therefore equivalence may not be achieved (nord, 1997 in green, 2012, p. 111). another particular criticism mentions unclear guideline for the implementation of skopos theory during the translation practice from a student’s point of view, i.e. what are step by step procedures that have to be done during the translation process (sunwoo, 207, p. 2). discussions the applicability of skopos theory from a student’s perspective despite a number of objections made by the proponents of nonfunctionalism, i consider the skopos theory to be a rather useful approach to be applied in the translation practice. the skopos theory offers a new horizon on how a translator should handle a given task. to my view, the fact that a translator is provided with a translation brief is indeed the answer for every critiques addressed toward this theory. nord (1997), a proponent of the theory, has made a clearly stated motion to tackle these issues that any “form of equivalence required for an adequate translation” can be obtained through “the skopos of the translation” (in green, 2012, p. 112). naturally, to have the skopos, we need to have the translation brief. the availability of translation brief can also help to determine the translation strategies and methods when translating. however, it should be kept in mind that the decision for the translation choices depends on each translator. further, vermeer also states that the skopos theory does not put any restrictions on the choice of translation strategies; in other words, it allows for a freedom in translator’s actions that also comes with a certain responsibility (vermeer, 1998, pp. 45-54). what may still be unsolved due to limited empirical studies on the translation brief is the question on what exact procedure that needs to be carried out for the ika kana trisnawati englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 249 skopos theory to be clearly understood for students or translators in training. since the theory only handles the translation approach from a major level and pays little attention to the minor levels of language, it nevertheless requires a careful and detail work during translating. in spite of its general conception, skopos theory in fact allows students to be rather practical and creative. since there are no restrictions for the translation strategies, we are left with choices to make, for example, domestication or foreignization, or anything in between. this kind of practice also offers an analysis for both source and target texts before starting to translate. in my situation, i will use an example of the translation brief taken from a course i took in the translation studies, modl5103 translation in the media. if we are to follow vermeer’s and nord’s explanation of the theory, it is obvious that this translation brief is a crucial factor during the translation process. below is the example: table 1. translation brief of the “unsw at a glance” text translation brief: please translate the following passage into your lote. the client is the university of nsw; the translations are to be published on the unsw website as information for prospective international students and their parents. [1]unsw at a glance [2]the university of new south wales is one of australia’s leading research and teaching universities. [3]established in 1949, [4] it is ranked among the top 60 universities in the world, [5] renowned for the quality of its graduates and its world class research. here is the breakdown of the translation brief of the “unsw at a glance” text: target language: indonesian client: the university of new south wales medium: the unsw website text purpose: information for prospective international students and their parents skopos theory: a practical approach in the translation process 250 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 target reader: indonesian then, after establishing the skopos of the unsw text to be “to translate the english text into indonesian in an informative manner”, the translator, in this case it is myself, will be able to determine which translation strategy to apply. taking into account the culture and other aspects of indonesian readers, per skopos theory requirement, i tried to translate the unsw text in such a way that indonesian readers will feel as if the unsw text was originally written in indonesian. to achieve this quality, it is expected that some shifts were to be present during the translation process. for example, since structurally there are many differences between english and indonesian, the shifts in grammar are unavoidable. yet, i also considered the aspect of culturally equivalent translated texts which the skopos has identified beforehand. one notable shift, in this example, was when translating the title of the text. the “[1]unsw at a glance” was literally translated as “unsw dalam sekilas pandang”. this translation is acceptable in indonesian; however, if i chose to put the translation in the unsw website, the translated text would carry on a sense of literary text for indonesians. thus, indonesian readers would somehow feel ‘weird’ toward a supposedly informative text about a university. having considered this element, i decided to translate it as “[1]sekilas tentang unsw = a glimpse of unsw” which carried along a sense of information and usually appeared in typical indonesian’s descriptive and informative media texts. below is the full translation of the text as well as the respective back-translation. ika kana trisnawati englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 251 table 2. indonesian’s translation and back-translation of the “unsw at a glance” text translation [1] sekilas tentang unsw [a glimpse of unsw] [2]university of new south wales (unsw) merupakan salah satu universitas terkemuka dalam riset dan pengajaran di australia. [the university of new south wales (unsw) is one of the leading universities in research and teaching in australia.] [3]didirikan pada tahun 1949, [4]unsw berada di antara 60 universitas terbaik di dunia, [5]yang dikenal akan kualitas para alumninya serta risetnya yang berkelas dunia. [established in 1949, unsw is among (the) 60 best universities in the world, known for the quality of its alumni and world-class research] the next line of the text: [2]the university of new south wales is one of australia’s leading research and teaching universities was finally translated as [2]university of new south wales (unsw) merupakan salah satu universitas terkemuka dalam riset dan pengajaran di australia. in this case, for the name of the university, unsw, i decided to keep the name as it is. i did not translate the university of new south wales into universitas wales selatan baru, rather i use the english name of it. following the skopos, the text is intended to be read by prospective students and their parents; therefore, by keeping the original, it means that i keep the brand as the name unsw carries the idea of not only a mere university’s name but also a brand. another shift i made was related to the description of the university: one of australia’s leading research and teaching universities. in indonesian, the position of an adjective is after the noun, whereas in english it is the other way around, adjective + noun, respectively (sayogie, 2009, p. 71). as it can be seen here, the phrase australia’s leading research and teaching stands before the noun universities. thus, to make it readable and understandable as in indonesian grammatical rules, the skopos theory: a practical approach in the translation process 252 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 translation would be universitas-universitas terkemuka dalam riset dan pengajaran di australia. however, once again, following the skopos, the text is to be read by indonesians; therefore, i decided to omit the double plural form and only use one word ‘universitas’ to be the equivalent form of ‘universities.’ this decision is because mostly indonesians tend to use a singular form of anything plural (sayogie, 2009, p. 71) to prevent a longer sentence structure. hence, the final translation became “salah satu universitas terkemuka dalam riset dan pengajaran di australia.” further, a shift also appeared in the sentence “[4] it is...” it is common in english to use inanimate nouns to act as a subject of a sentence; however, it is very seldom in indonesian. it is not common to say ‘ia/itu/ini’ to be the pronoun and acts as the subject. therefore, a shift was made, and the unsw was recalled in the text. thus, the translation becomes “[4] unsw....” the choice of shifts was, in fact, influenced by the skopos. no matter what changes i made in my translation, the final product was intended to meet the purpose of the skopos itself. however, i understand that the translation process indeed is laborious in the skopos theory because it truly integrates every aspect of a language as well as the socio cultural aspect of the target readers. by doing so, in my opinion, the skopos theory aims at providing a qualified and communicative translation product; thus, this theory is more inclined to target-reader oriented approach. yet, at the same time, i find that the nature of the theory has eased the students and translators in training to seek for better equivalence in their translations. conclusions skopos theory has earned a name for itself in the eyes of its proponents as well as to those who oppose of its major level concept. none the less, the skopos theory has made a significant contribution to the world of translation trainings. where other theorists are based on linguistics and equivalences at micro level, vermeer breaks the dominance through the introduction of a general framework for translation with the strong emphasis on the skopos or purpose; thus, this theory can come in handy into practices until today. another advantage of the skopos theory is ika kana trisnawati englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 253 that it does not limit the translators to choose what translation methods to analyze and apply for a specified translation task. from my perspective, the skopos theory brings an insightful notion in that it allows for a student’s creativity when learning to translate a given task. however, further studies on translation briefs and data on the skopos theory are undoubtedly necessary to provide more evidence on its usefulness toward students’ translation practices. hence, they may develop a well explained procedure in translating on the basis of the skopos theory which will contribute even greater to students’ or translators’ practical situations. skopos theory: a practical approach in the translation process 254 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 references de leon, c. m. (2008), skopos and beyond: a critical study of functionalism, target, 20(1), pp. 1–28 green, b. s. (2012). a skopos-based analysis of breytenbach’s titus andronicus. doctoral dissertation, stellenbosch: stellenbosch university jensen, m. n. (2009). professional translators’ establishment of skopos a ‘brief’ study. unpublished master’s thesis, aarhus school of business, aarhus university, denmark masduki, (2011). konsep skopos dan aspek fungsionalnya dalam penerjemahan (skopos theory and its functional aspect in translation), bahasa dan seni, 39(2), pp. 166-174 munday, j. (2008). introducing translation studies: theories and applications. new york: routledge nord, c. (2006). translating as a purposeful activity: a prospective approach, teflin journal, 17(2), pp. 131-143 nord, c. (2012). quo vadis, functional translatology?, target, 24(1), pp. 26-42 sayogie, f. (2009). teori dan praktek penerjemahan bahasa inggris ke dalam bahasa indonesia. tangerang: pustaka anak negeri schaffner. c. (1998). skopos theory. in m. baker (ed.) routledge encyclopedia of translation studies. london: routledge , pp. 235-238 sunwoo, m. (2007). operationalizing the translation purpose (skopos). in eu-highlevel scientific conference series, proceedings of mutra. stajszczak, t. (2011). skopos theory as an aid in resolving culture-related difficulties in the translation of functional texts. master’s thesis, university of warsaw, warsaw, poland. vermeer, h. j. (1998). starting to unask what translatology is about, target, 10(1), pp. 41-68 englisia may 2019 vol. 6, no. 2, 146-161 english as a medium of instruction in indonesian primary and secondary education: theory and reality imam khasbani university of bristol, united kingdom ik17509@my.bristol.ac.uk manuscript received february 26, 2019, revised june 17, 2019, first published june 19, 2019, and available online june 19, 2019. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.22373/ej.v6i2.4506 abstract the globalization phenomenon marked by the flow of people movements, the advancement of informational technology, and the shrinking price of transportation has brought people around the world into one global community. comprised by people from diverse linguistic backgrounds, this community sees the need to use a common language to bridge the communication gap. with a long-established economic and political power, english comes to the forefront as a global lingua franca. with its growing and pervasive influence, the need to learn english has never become more apparent. this need is often translated by government into languagein-education policy. this paper, to start with, will observe how language policy and globalization build a causal relationship. in the section that follows, language-ineducation policy in indonesian context will be presented. the following part will move on to discuss the use of emi in sekolah berstandar internasional (sbi)international standard school in indonesia. in the end, a reflection and conclusion of emi in indonesia context will be discussed. in doing so, this paper employs literature study approach to explore the emi practice in indonesian schools. all relevant information was collected from several sources such as books and journal articles. the information was then utilised to build on discussions on existing theoretical framings, language policy and globalization, and on language-ineducation policy and practice in indonesia. keywords: english as medium of instruction; sekolah berstandar internasional; language policy; language-in-education policy; globalization http://dx.doi.org/10.22373/ej.v6i2.4506 imam khasbani englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 147 introduction language policy is most conceptually defined as any organized interposition of language’s use conceptualized by an authority of a community and defended by law (spolsky, 2004). language policy plays an inherent role in political activities of a nation by reflecting the sovereignty of government (wright, 2004) while at the same time also mirroring ideologies about language hold by the policy maker (ricento, 2006). this concept offers an explicit reference that language policy plays such a powerful force in a socio-political context that can manipulate a specific group of people to do particular actions. due to its support usually coming from the highest authority, language policy is oftentimes used by a government as a tool to exert ideological beliefs to broader societal contexts. and more often and not, it is pedagogical settings through language-in-education policy that become common breeding grounds in which those ideological motivations are translated and put into practice. language-in-education policy is commonly described as a set of education system principles that works as a basic framework in choosing a language approach used in classrooms. in its practice, this policy acts a rule of thumb in settling on what language to teach in the classroom, how teaching and learning of the chosen language take place and which assessment methods employed to gauge learners’ language attainments. in the domain of english as a foreign language (efl) learning, one of the examples of language-in-education policy products is english as a medium of instruction (emi). as put forward by dearden (2014), emi is “the use of the english language to teach academic subjects in countries or jurisdictions where the first language (l1) of the majority of the population is not english” (p.4). dearden further argued that the employment of emi in the sphere of education in efl countries has faced a growing trend in last recent years, with more education systems in these countries witnessed to lean strong support towards the implementation of emi in their institutions. the fact that english that gains more important status and pervasive power in the current global situation, where almost all people are now expected to have “the ability to express [themselves] clearly and appropriately” (al-mahrooqi, 2012, p.125) by using the language and the fact that the number of people speaking english as a medium of instruction in indonesian primary and secondary education: theory and reality 148 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 english as l2 (second/foreign language) has exceeded the number of native speakers in the inner circle countries (e.g., the uk and usa) put together (llurda, 2004; kachru, 2005) has made emi become one of the most-administered approaches in efl countries. besides that, the fast development of technology and digital communication as an out-turn of globalization also become aspects that can be taken into account of why emi is now becoming such a global trend in english education arenas. with a somewhat effortless access to internet, english interactions involving anyone from all over the world can now take place in a matter of seconds. and what it means with english education is that the demand of a teaching approach that is capable to make english learners communicate effectively has never been higher. then, it could be taken as read that language policy and the emerge of emi have always been intimately connected to the globalization phenomena. globalization and language policy: how they are interconnected the notion of globalization, most commonly thought as transactional situation allowing people coming from different background varieties to exchange interests within economic, political, and bureaucratic interaction (collins, slembrouck, & baynham, 2009), has started to roar since the last few decades. the salient privilege of enjoying the interdependences across regions and continents, also an open chance of exercising authority (held, mcgrew, goldblatt, & perraton, 1999) has led more and more countries to take part in the celebration of what kenichi ohmae (as cited in guillén, 2001) conceptualized as borderless world. then, how is language policy related to this concept? tollefson (2013) states in his work that “the process of globalization, therefore, has direct and immediate consequences for language policies in education” (p.19). however, one can argue that it is political and economic interests as well as advancement of telecommunications that bring people from different cultural backgrounds together to engage in a communication (singh, zhang, & besmel, 2012) that initiate language policies in many countries. the significant advancement of transportation and technology has helped create the concept of borderless interaction to step on another level of reality into what mcluhan (1994) proposed as global village-a imam khasbani englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 149 community consisting of different people connected by telecommunicationsand the age of informationthe change of medium of communication (e.g., from radio to telephone). these ideas later underpinned the concept of culture-ideology of consumerism by glasgow-born sociologist leslie sklair (as cited in guillén, 2001). sklair argued that the notion of culture-ideology of consumerism, mainly related to the symbols of lifestyle and self-image, has brought far-reaching consequences such as standardization of desire and taste. besides that, culture also plays a vital role in changing people's mind as well as their lifestyle through its hegemony. culture, through its potentially strong value and power, could invade another weaker culture that will later result in the absorption of strong culture values (xue & zuo, 2013). as for english language, the development of the language in postcolonial countries and the fact that english is the language of the united states, the centre of economy, politics, military power and mainstream culture (phillipson, 1992) give rather an adequate explanation on how english, then, becomes the most-desired language many people wished to master. the prevalent influence of english in the global contexts had affected how most people perceive the language by getting them to believe that english plays such a vital role in their lives by acting as “a gateway to education, employment, and economic and social practices.” (guo & beckett, 2007, p.119). by mastering the language, it is believed that one can get a better opportunity and access to education and employement while at the same time raise their competitivenes in the global markets. this, as a consequence, leads many governments in efl countries to acknowledge the needs to equip their people with the knowledge and ability of the language. many scholars and professional in efl areas have since then been busy creating and finding ‘the best and suitable’ teaching approach to implement in the language classrooms (bowers, 1995). these occurances, according to sklair’s work (1994), can be assumed a proof that english has become “the institutionalization of consumerism through the commodification of culture” and that its mastery will give “the promise that a more direct integration of local with global capitalism will lead to a better life for everyone” (p.178). this also at the same time becomes a clear evidence that english has successfully achieved its hegemonic status that drives many english as a medium of instruction in indonesian primary and secondary education: theory and reality 150 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 governments into setting up language-in-education policy to the forefront of the national agendas to facilitate the countries’ demands of the language. language-in-education policy in indonesia english and indonesia share no common history in the way that english does with some other countries like malaysia and singapore. as the postcolonial nations, malaysia and singapore have a long history with british empire and its language. english in these countries has been long disseminated and built a strong causal relationship in the wide range of governmental, societal, and educational sectors (higgins, 2003). meanwhile as the former dutch empire colony, indonesia shares a somewhat much less amount of historical relationship with both great britain and english language in the past. thus, not much has happened between the nation and the language since the first introduction of the language until its status in the present-time indonesia. english has been maintaining its influence in the country in these recent decades thanks to the globalization process. however, unlike the reaction in some developed asian nations that initially showed a defensive attitude toward english language, japan for example, which discouraged the use and teaching of english in the national curriculum mainly due to a heightened diplomatic relationship with the usa (seargeant, 2011) and the emerge of nihonjinron-japanese nationalism movement (sullivan & schatz, 2009), english has received a reasonably enthusiastic welcome in indonesia. this phenomenon is arguably caused by the fact that indonesia perceives the language as a language of intelligence and high social status (tanner, 1967). the importance of learning this global lingua franca has also been narrated on language-ineducation policies issued by the country. language policies in indonesia have changed over time. in the 1950s, few years after dutch set their feet off indonesia, the country’s government appeared to acknowledge the need to build international relationships with other countries especially the united states, which has since then put substantial political, economic and financial influence, through usaid for example (lowenberg, 1994). this situation, at the same time, brought english into play on indonesia education system. the importance of english emerged as it started to be recognized as a medium of imam khasbani englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 151 international communication. english has, then, become one of the compulsory subjects to teach at indonesian schools. however, as stated by lauder (2008) the inclination of teaching english at that time did not focus on furnishing students with the communicative competence-the ability of a language learner to engage in a conversation effectively and meaningfully in a society where the language they learn is primarily spoken (hymes, 1977). according to the national language policy, the goal of teaching english was to make the neoteric advancement of science and technology, frequently written in english, more accessible for students (lowenberg, 1994). the goal set by indonesian government at that time might resonate the idea of greenwood (as cited in phillipson, 2009) that speculates “science cannot be advanced without the english language and textbooks and students will make better progress in the science by taking the english textbooks and learning the english” (p.65). nevertheless, as the globalization idea started to span around the world, its effects have driven indonesia to gain more intensive relations with other countries. the country’s decision to take part on the declaration of millennium development goal, establish a working relationship with the organisation for economic cooperation and development (oecd), and initiate the formation of the association of southeast asian nations (asean) that will later prompt the emerge of asean economic community (aec) become an apparent example of the case. these national commitments make interactions and business environments more international. the communication among people coming from different culture becomes unavoidable. in this situation, different people will bring a different set of belief when they are interacting and often without a careful observation, a clash in a communication flow happens. as a consequence, the need of having an intercultural interaction competence becomes more apparent. spencer-oatey and franklin (2009) assert that such expertise is important "not only to communicate (verbally and non-verbally) and behave effectively and appropriately with people from other cultural groups but also to handle the psychological demands and dynamic outcomes that result from such interchanges" (p.51). these events have led to the inevitable change in the focus of the national language-in-education policy. given the shift phenomenon in language policies in indonesia, one can assume what english as a medium of instruction in indonesian primary and secondary education: theory and reality 152 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 spolsky (2004) speculates on the nature of language policy is correct. language policy is about choice, he states, be it the choice of a specific sound, dialect, variety, or skill of the language. it might be implicit or explicit, based on the ideology of an individual, group of individuals, or authority body. emi in indonesia: theory, reality, and revision as one of the most-implemented products of a language policy, emi has gained its popularity in the last few decades. emi has been observed in many educational institutions including, but not limited to, higher education level. depending on a specific circumstance, the use of emi is possible to be extended on a primary and secondary level (british council, 2004). emi in indonesia does not enjoy the same euphoria as it does in other asian countries (e.g., singapore, malaysia, china, or south korea) where the implementation of this recent language teaching approach trend gains unprecedented popularities especially in the higher education level. however, an effort had been made by indonesia authority through a new education program called sekolah berstandar internasional (international standard school) to put emi theory into practice in its primary and secondary education in the hope that students would benefit the most from the process. the final goals of sekolah berstandar internasional (sbi) implementation as mention in the ministry of education’s (2009) document are aimed at endorsing english language use in the classroom that would in the end: attain national education excellence with the same quality as those in oecd country members, enable students to acquire global competencies, produce qualified vocational school leavers that are ready to compete in the global market, and enhance students’ ability to communicate in english proved by high school students’ achievement on toefl score that is higher than 7.5 or toeic score that is higher than 450 for vocational school students. whereas some of the stated goals seem good and attainable, others appear hard if not impossible to achieve, given the educational situation and economic imam khasbani englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 153 status of the country at the time the policy was implemented. one of those seemingly unachievable goals is where the government tries to reap the same academic excellence as those of oecd countries’ such as finlandia by adopting some aspect of the countries’ curriculum. albeit not explicitly stated in the policy document what values of those curriculums indonesian government intended to emulate, one can argue that it is english as the language of instruction, as ministry of education (2009) commands on article five and six that teaching activities in sbi are conducted through english and that teachers should be able to use the language in the classroom. although english is not a mandatory language of instruction for all subjects in sbi where subjects such as civic, religion, bahasa indonesia, and history must be delivered using the national language, a definitive insight can be gained that the popularity of emi that many regards as the most recent solution in english learning has convinced the authority of educational sector in indonesia to administer the approach in schools. the fact that the country was still struggling with the issues around universal enrolment on primary education level, the equitable distribution of facilities in school, and the small number of qualified teachers (the world bank, 2007) did not hinder the government to bring their somewhat premature ambition into existence. this fact provides the feasibility of this global phenomenon in indonesia context enough rooms for a critique. as one might be able to predict, the unprepared implementation of emi in indonesia has brought no fulfilling results. since its first application in 2006, sbi in indonesia has not escaped criticism. hendarman (2011) argues that in a broader social context, many critiques have been focused on the issue of inequality, school tuition, and the program funding. the problem of inequality in education system highlights the protests of parents from lower economic status claiming the regular schools where they sent their children to have worse education quality. better facilities that the government provides to sbi has created an issue among parents that there is disproportion contribution of instrumental supports among schools. the skyrocketing school tuition becomes the next problem. the increasing price in sbi schools despite the funding they received from regional government budget has created a significant gap in society. while equality becomes one of indonesia education principals, this phenomenon has lead to a situation where children from english as a medium of instruction in indonesian primary and secondary education: theory and reality 154 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 wealthy families crowd in on sbi school. the non-less prominent issue is the obscurity of the sbi funding. as indonesia government has provided a regional autonomy since 1999, each province in indonesia should regulate the funding of sbi in their area. many critics have been addressed since many local authorities failed to provide a clear statement about the school funding to the public. on a pedagogical context, critiques can be addressed to the issues of students’ english competency, teachers’ qualification, and language ideology. the use of english as a medium of instruction assumes that students have adequate skills to demonstrate their understanding of written and spoken english. the fact that english is treated as a foreign language in indonesia would automatically mean that students do not speak the language as their first language nor do they have enough spaces to bring it into practice. the low ability of most, if not all, students to tackle with english will hinder them not only in the teaching-learning process but also in the general interactions in the class. this phenomenon is also encountered not only in indonesian context, in many english as a foreign language (efl) countries like korea or even in a country where english is treated as a second language like ghana and uganda, some research have reported that the use of emi has resulted on a lower understanding of students toward subject being taught. in korea, some students argue that the use of korean language to teach subjects' concept will give them a deeper understanding (byun et al., 2011; kyeyune, 2003). while in uganda, the study reports that students are still struggling in the classroom as they often encounter unfamiliar terms that impede their understanding (owu-ewie & eshun, 2015). a revision that can be offered toward this issue is that an investigation of a context where a language-in-education policy is going to be implemented should be done exhaustively and thoroughly. it is essential to bear in mind that there is an interconnectedness between a language teaching process and the pedagogical context. one cannot focus on one aspect while ignoring the other. often than not in language policy-making process, the authority will adopt a policy’s product for the reason that it gains a successful story in other countries without having a thoughtful examination on the product suitability to theirs. the indonesian government should have put the general ability of indonesian students in english into consideration imam khasbani englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 155 before bringing this fancy approach into practice. they also should have been more aware that students' language will play a crucial role in this program, just like what tiffen (1967) states a long time ago, “students should have thorough command of the english language if he is to be educated in the modern sense of the word” (p.7). the mastery of an instruction language is the basic requirement for students before they learn other subjects in the classroom. besides that, the use of english as the language in the classroom appears to function as an exposure for students with the target language so they can acquire the language without consciously learning it. this principle reflects the idea of a model of second language learning proposed by bialystok (1978). it argues that an immersion class-the class providing an intensive exposure of a target language to students such as those in sbi-will enrich students’ implicit linguistic knowledge (any knowledge stored in a person's brain that can be called anytime subconsciously in a target language interaction). but it is important for us to now that it is impossible for any part of a language becomes implicit knowledge without having passed the process of explicit language knowledge (knowledge of a language that is acquired consciously). it is highly doubtful for students, particularly those living in a country like indonesia where there are very few exposures of english outside the classroom, to know that a sentence is written in passive without having learned the rule initially. therefore, exposing students with explicit linguistic knowledge before and along the process of sbi program implementation should have been placed at the centre of government’s attention. the next issue revolves around the teachers’ capability to use the approach. it has been a huge issue around the implementation of the language policy’s product that a lot of teachers are not qualified enough to ensure teaching-learning activities through english medium takes place effectively in the classroom. british council’s (2004) research project reports that as many as 46 out of 55 countries joining the study, indonesia is one of the participants, responded that they do not have qualified teachers to teach using emi. although the report does not explicitly state the list of the country from which the response came, we can assume from the study done by ma'arif (2011) that many teachers in indonesia at the primary and secondary level still lack english skills. ma’arif states that in some cases the english skill of the students is higher than those of the subject teachers. although the ministry of english as a medium of instruction in indonesian primary and secondary education: theory and reality 156 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 education decree mandates the teachers use english along the teaching-learning process, the majority only use english at the beginning of the class. whenever the things become more complex, a shift of english to students’ native language (l1) in these circumstances seems unavoidable. not only in indonesia, in another context where english becomes a foreign language for the majority of the people like in china, a research like that of he & chiang (2016) also found that the inability of subject teachers to communicate in english has made the teachers frequently switch to the student first language. it apparently contributed to students’ confusion, frustration, and inability to absorb the materials and engage in a meaningful communication. what these appearances inform is that another common problem may arise from the implementation of language-in-education policy is “a difference between the policy as stated (the official, de jure or overt policy) and the policy as it actually works at the practical level (the covert, de facto or grass-roots policy)” (schiffman, 1996, p.2). it is worth remembering that the problem is possible to be minimized by better preparing teachers. as emi is not primarily designed to teach english subject, the government should be mindful of the teachers of other subjects’ ability in the language they do not speak. the fact that there are no higher education institutions in indonesia that offer programs to prepare teachers to teach subjects using international curriculum or through english should have become an alert for them before setting the program out to the public. although hiring expatriate teachers sounds to be practical, it can also be tricky and difficult at times. foreign teachers at public school might benefit the students with more exposure to an authentic communication, but at the same time, they can also pose challenges. their lack of an understanding of local educational system and values increase the chance of an unsuccessful communication in the class (walkinshaw & oanh, 2014). moreover, we should not ignore the fact that there is inequality issue on public school teachers’ pay in indonesia and employing teacher from other countries will only biggen the existing gap. therefore, in-service teacher training seems to be the only practical solution in indonesia context. it is essential for teachers to be familiar with the curriculum use in sbi as it poses different activities, material, or testing system. not imam khasbani englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 157 only on the curriculum familiarity, communication skills should also be focused on in-service teacher training. conflicting ideologies is another potential concern. in 1994, agar (as cited in brown & lee, 2015) states in his work that “culture is in language, and language isloaded with culture” (p.28). his assertion is later known as languaculture. this notionindicates that language and culture is build up upon an indivisible relationship, and thatteaching language is not a value-free process. there have always been beliefs, values,and ideologies embedded in a language or in its teaching approach. this issue has also been a concern on ricento’s (2000) publication as he stated that language ideology that is often connected with other ideologies would pose a challenge to the favourable outcome of its application. one of the ideologies brought by emi, in this case, is the requirement of students’ active participations in the classroom activities. alas, this ideology is often viewed as incompatible in indonesia educational context. the traditional teacher-centred techniques that still dominates most of indonesian school perceive active participations in the classroom as inappropriate because it is too noisy. this could be another significant reason why the implementation does not live up to the authority’s expectation. while teaching subjects through english as a medium of instruction in indonesian schools are aimed to equip students with subjects' knowledge as well as familiarize them with english, teaching activities in the class seems not to facilitate students to reach the final destinations. the teacher-centered view also sees the notion of freedom given to students to choose what they want to learn in the classroom as invalid. while permitting students to make choices about what and how they want to learn in the classroom will encourage them to participate and invest in both learning the subjects and using the language (brown & lee, 2015), the traditional view often neglects this striking aspect of a learning process. as a result, classroom activities tend to be monotonous and fail to motivate students to study. the conflicting ideology may also come from the use of english in school activities. while indonesia adopts the ideology of one nation one national language that was marked by the declaration of the youth pledge in 1928 (hannigan, 2015), the use of english as a replacement of bahasa indonesia in the public schools has raised a storm of controversy. the protest from the indonesian people shows their english as a medium of instruction in indonesian primary and secondary education: theory and reality 158 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 concerns about the possibility of the cultural change in indonesian children. the problem can be prevented from happening if all aspects from education system are joined up together in the policy decision-making process. as the policy will influence not only teacher and students but potentially broader context, there is a need for the authority not to put their ideas in isolation from others. joining-up together might contribute to a better outcome of the product such as the harmony of the approach and the testing system. we can see that the harmony is not reflected in the ministry of education decree. while the focus of sbi is on students’ communicative competence, the fact that the government use toefl as an indicator of the goal achievement is highly questionable. a decade of emi: reflection and conclusion although sbi program ended in 2013 as it received considerable critical responses, the spirit of emi still exists in the school system in indonesia, mainly from non-governmental institutions. higher demands of english learning come from parents that are now becoming more aware of the need for english for their children. parents’ views of the language are pertinent to what pennycook (1994) noted about english. he contends that english is perceived as a powerful tool that can determine one’s status in the social, educational, and occupational settings. he later states that english is “a gatekeeper to a position of prestige in society" (p.14). many private schools see this opportunity, and with highly renowned international curriculums (international baccalaureate®, cambridge igcse, and montessori) these schools try to persuade many wealthy parents to send their children to their institutions. it does not take a long time for these schools to enjoy its popularity. international baccalaureate® (2017) reports that there have been 31 schools offering ib programme at primary years and another 17 and 38 schools at middle years and diploma respectively. but do these schools with their english-as-amedium-of-instruction feature successfully turn students into capable individual not only in term of using english but also acquiring the subject knowledge? careful and intensive studies might be needed to answer such questions. but reflecting all those stated limitations gives us thought on the sense that ministry of education has not made enough efforts to translate the concept of english as a medium of instruction imam khasbani englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 159 as it is stated in their policy into feasible and attainable practices in the public-school 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(2013). english dominance and its influence on international communication. theory and practice in language study, 3(12), 2262-2266. englisia november 2019 vol. 7, no. 1, 53-68 the writing and supervision of bright english textbook development for primary school teachers in indonesian context nina inayati universitas muhammadiyah malang, indonesia ninainayati@gmail.com erlyna abidasari universitas muhammadiyah malang, indonesia erlynaabidasari@gmail.com kharisma naidi w.s universitas muhammadiyah malang, indonesia kharisma.naidi@gmail.com manuscript received september 11, 2019, revised november 3, 2019, first published november 30, 2019, and available online january 20, 2020. doi: 10.22373/ej.v7i1.5592 abstract although english language subject is no longer compulsory for primary school level in indonesia based on the current curriculum 2013, some regions still consider it essential for their area development and thus making it a compulsory local content subject—batu municipality is one of them. therefore, more efforts are needed to assist english teachers as resources for teaching english is limited due to the lack of support from the national policy level, thus the reasoning for the current project. this paper aims to describe the process of writing and supervising of bright english textbook, which is a specifically targeted english textbook for primary schools in batu, east java, indonesia. qualitative descriptive method was used in this study, involving four primary school teachers as the subjects in the collaborative textbook writing project. the finding presents the step-by-step process from the description during the training process, the actual writing process, until the illustration and layouting process. besides, it also describes the supervision process as well as the problems and solutions related to it. some highlights and implications of the study are also discussed, with suggestions offered in the form of combined online and face-to-face supervision process and sufficient writing and publication ethics training the writing and supervision of bright english textbook development for primary school teachers in indonesian context 54 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 provided before the writing process begins. it is expected that this study could benefit other teachers and researchers who want to embark on a collaborative textbook writing process to improve their project effectiveness. keywords: textbook development; 2013 curriculum; primary school introduction the idea of writing a complementary book for primary schools in indonesia has been instilled from the fact that english learning solely relies on one learning resource or textbook provided by the government. based on the initial report from primary school teachers, this book provides minimum support for the exploration of regional potentials as the government book is made for the whole nation, not for city per city (tahir, 2011). in addition, this government textbook display less representative topics following the topics presented in the 2013 curriculum. therefore, batu, one of the main cities in east java province, indonesia, with its abundant natural and tourism potential, requires at least one other source of english language learning that can introduce its natural and cultural wealth, which is adjusted to the topic exposed in the 2013 primary school curriculum. this planned complementary book is projected to meet the needs of the pioneer city of indonesia, batu municipality more specifically, by not only providing material or content related to language skills such as reading, writing, and speaking, but also cultural knowledge, vocabulary, and love for nature and animals around students. furthermore, this book also contains expressions of loyalty for the nation through a typical competition, event or celebration of independence, along with forms of local promotion of snacks and/or handicraft products. also, students will be encouraged to practice communicating more effectively within the school environment, the community, and globally, to support the development of functional tourism in indonesia in general. each unit in this complementary book is divided into two subtopics, with each sub-topic having exercises on reading, writing, and speaking. the two sub-topics are arranged interrelated to support the main topics adjusted to the 2013 government curriculum. the vocabulary items and exercise used in this book supports the nina inayati, erlyna abidasari, & kharisma naidi w.s englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 55 formation of expressions that are easy and practically used in everyday life. by having multiple and extra exercises on the practical use of english, students are expected to spend more time learning independently by practicing the skills as instructed in the book. they can be more aware of cultural aspects to be promoted to others as the main potential of the particular city. english teachers or some practice teachers conducting teaching internship projects in most of the indonesian primary schools can supervise independent learning outside of school hours. teachers complained of having a less trustworthy resource in teaching english. they could compile the materials from the internet; however, they were afraid of making a rough judgment of whether their materials were suitable to the students’ level and whether it supported the goal achievement of the national curriculum (tahir, 2011). overlooking this fact in real teaching, it is urgent to develop a complementary textbook for primary school teachers, bright english. it now becomes prominent to seek answers on how to conduct the writing and supervision of bright english textbook development for primary school teachers. literature review this section discusses the review of related literature concerning the english language teaching in indonesian contexts and the current theories and research related to textbook development. english language teaching in indonesia as one of the official languages of the united nations, english is formally taught in many countries around the world, including in indonesia. english has a very important status in the indonesian national curriculum in the last few decades (poedjiastutie, akhyar, hidayati, & gasmi, 2018; sofiana, mubarok, & yuliastri, 2019), for even though it is considered as a foreign language, it is one of the highly prioritized one (rifa’i, 2017). the teaching of the language proves this in the national curriculum since the 1950s (madya, 2013; mustafa, 2018). although the indonesian national curriculum has undergone various changes, english language has been a permanent item to be taught at schools (purwaningsing, 2013). the the writing and supervision of bright english textbook development for primary school teachers in indonesian context 56 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 importance of teaching english at primary school level was first enhanced through the decree of the education and culture ministry in 1993 which recommended the teaching of english language subjects at primary school level from grade 4 as one of the local content subjects (sudrajat, 2015). this proves the importance of english for indonesia to encourage its people to actively participate in the global community. currently, the indonesian national curriculum is under the 2013 curriculum putting a strong focus on building and strengthening local characters (kosasih, 2014; putra, 2018). one of the implications of this policy is the teaching of the english language is only compulsory starting from the secondary level. in other words, english is not mandated by the curriculum to be taught at the primary school level (dewi, 2016; maili, 2018). this policy certainly has some positive and negative sides; one of the positive ones is that it is deemed to allow the strengthening of students’ bahasa indonesia skills better as one of the national identities or characters, though this is a policy that is still questioned by some language teaching experts such as maili (2018). as for the negative sides, the most notable one is that the teaching of english, albeit considered important, has to commence at a late start since, at the secondary level, students have generally passed their golden age of language acquisition. as has been generally accepted, the teaching and learning of foreign languages are suggested to commence early (hidayati, 2018; maili, 2018; sudrajat, 2015,). many language acquisition theories encourage early start in learning a language. one of the theories is the critical age hypothesis (krashen, 1988) suggests that before puberty, the brain has a higher elasticity which allows children to learn any language like native speakers, thus known as children’s ‘golden age’. in addition, an older and prevalent theory also suggests that every man is born with a so-called ‘language acquisition device’ in his brain (chomsky, 1965). this allows people to learn languages as early as possible. therefore, the 2013 curriculum omitting the compulsory english language subject at the primary school level poses a great challenge for english language teachers to help students to master the language well. nina inayati, erlyna abidasari, & kharisma naidi w.s englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 57 in addition to those language acquisition theories, the teaching of english in primary school level has several benefits that must not be overlooked. according to dewi (2016), the teaching of english in primary school level allows students to recognize and be more familiar and open to global cultures, a trait essential for our future generation in this day and age. she further elaborates that there are also other benefits such as to encourage awareness and skills to actively participate in the global communication and to support students’ better language metacognition development by learning a language other than their first one. considering the importance of english skills for its people, some regions in indonesia still requires english to be taught in primary school level (sudrajat, 2015), one of which is in the municipality of batu, east java. such an attempt can be done in two ways; first, by placing english as one of the local content subjects, and second, by setting english as one of the compulsory extra-curricular activities in school. considering the tourism potential of the region, batu municipality considers english language skills as essential for its people. the international tourists visiting batu was recorded to reach 4.7 million in 2018 alone (“radar malang”, 2018). this becomes the main consideration for putting english as one of the local content subjects compulsory to be taught in the primary school level. however, new challenges arose as the omission of english language as a compulsory subject in the national curriculum means that the support from the office of national education for the teaching of english at primary school level is very limited. as suggested by sudrajat, (2015) which discusses the implementation of english subjects taught as primary school local content subject in tenggarong, east kalimantan, and such policy resulted in the very limited resources and support that are at teacher disposal. such support usually only came from the local government that obligates the teaching of english in primary schools in their region. a preliminary study in batu municipality primary schools corroborated such findings since the support in terms of resources was found only in the form of one type of textbook developed by the local government there. therefore, to fill the gap, this project serves as one of the solutions to the problem, offering the development of the writing and supervision of bright english textbook development for primary school teachers in indonesian context 58 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 supplementary material that english teachers and students in batu could use to better achieve their english learning goals. textbook development in designing a textbook for elementary schools in indonesia, especially in the tourism city of batu, the framework should represent cultural symbols of knowledge and competence of the people (ivic, 1998). textbook becomes a major cultural reference that promotes operational and intellectual thinking, adoption of socially constructed ideas in the community and intellectual functioning as well as behavior (ivic, 1998; wertsch, 2011). the textbook also acts as a socio-cultural activity source, which mostly serves as an exclusive source of information, not only for students but also for teachers who very much rely on textbooks while organizing and carrying out the teaching process. three construction characteristics should be taken as distinctive cultural tools in designing a textbook: first, communicable content that includes culture recognition, influence, and representation; second, internalized values that support higher mental functions of prospective readers; and third, community developmental mission which presents activities that may induce self-reproduction and reflection of the culture. plut (2013) and siegler (2013) propose the theory of quality culture based textbook development. a textbook should postulate relevant objectives and implications covering psychological, pedagogical and discourse contexts. also, the design mentions the list of local principles, values, or morals that are going to be achieved upon book reading completion. further, the textbook should project concrete structured elements to realize the expected principles, values, or morals. the concrete structured elements are then transferred into the textbook functional writing framework that will be practiced in the process of writing and supervision. a contextual description of the culturally constructed textbook requires a socio-cultural approach to list and select relevant represented topics (plut, 2013). codes, visual representation of local culture, procedures, values, norms and rules, models, categories, and word meaning communicate the demands of the textbook topic selection (gallimore & tharp, 1991). to contextualize the general topics by the government, local plants and animal naming, local events and competitions nina inayati, erlyna abidasari, & kharisma naidi w.s englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 59 presentation, local figure storytelling, as well as real-life conversation with foreigner tourists are included in the book writing (mcshine, 2011). by including these sociocultural elements relevant to the implemented 2013 curriculum, the book is projected effective in answering the demands of batu city elementary school graduates. method this study mainly employs a qualitative descriptive research approach, in which such the approach was considered appropriate since the targeted data is more open in nature in the form of rich description of the writing and supervision process of the bright english book, from the planning, writing, finishing and publishing stages (magilvy & thomas, 2009). this research involves four primary school english teachers of batu municipality in the process of material development and book writing. those teachers were from two different primary schools in batu and they were considered as the representative of english teachers from the region to be included in the book writing process. in addition to the teachers, the current study also used some documents in the form of the teachers' drafts as the object to be studied. such documents provided a rich description of the results of teachers' works and their progress during the writing of the book. the data collection generally used observation, reflection and document analysis (magilvy & thomas, 2009). the observation was used to gather rich qualitative data about the book training and supervision processes. then, trainers’ and supervisors’ reflection notes were also used to collect qualitative data about the writing, supervision, book finishing, as well as the publishing processes. finally, the document analysis was used to obtain more data about the writing process as reflected in the teachers’ works. as for the data analysis, thematic content analysis was employed to understand better about the rich qualitative data obtained (magilvy & thomas, 2009). the data was first reduced to map the relevant information to the target of the current study, and then thematically coded to arrive at a more exhaustive and comprehensive description of the writing and supervision process of bright english book writing. the results of the data analysis are then presented in the result section below. the writing and supervision of bright english textbook development for primary school teachers in indonesian context 60 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 findings and discussion writing process the textbook writing idea was introduced to four primary school english teachers of batu municipality through an initial visit to the two primary schools in batu. these schools were seen as representatives of the schools in the region that implemented the 2013 curriculum and general english textbook from the government. the four teachers were selected as they provided positive attitudes in the textbook development plan proposed to primary schools in the target area by fast responding the invitation, ease of communication, committed act and passion to start writing and developing english learning materials as described by ivic (1998) in figure 1. figure 1. positive attitudes in text development the four participants were then invited to attend a book-writing workshop held by the researchers. three trainers were allowed to share textbook development theory and practice, as well as the construction framework of the aforementioned complementary textbook that would be collaboratively designed. the workshop consisted of three phases; the first presentation phase was on a learning support textbook theory and resources that was delivered by the first presenter. the presentation was done for one hour. the second presentation part was on book writing formatting and sample writing, which lasted for one hour. the last phase of the agenda was the brainstorming and writing workshop. during the workshop phases, four primary school english teachers from batu municipality were enthusiastic and actively participative. they asked questions, joined the discussions, shared ideas and experiences during their teaching and using the general textbook form the government, as well as comparing the teaching documents such as previously used lesson plan to the proposed complementary design. they were able nina inayati, erlyna abidasari, & kharisma naidi w.s englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 61 to generate ideas on how to write a more relevant textbook to their own learning context. in the last stage of the workshop, teachers were given two examples of unit 1 and unit 2 that have been designed and written by the community service team; those were save the planets and animals around us units. in the units, local wisdom and activities were introduced in three skills, namely reading, writing and speaking skills. each skill was divided into three to four tasks to improve students' eloquent flow of english learning based on their already acquired knowledge of the local culture. the other topics, such as unity in diversity, going global, public health care, our beloved earth, and school organizations were offered to the teachers to be selected and developed into complete units. figure 2 displays the stages of textbook writing. figure 2. the stages of the textbook writing ten units were planned to be compiled, two have been completed by the team, and the other eight were written by the four teachers, hence each teacher was responsible for writing two units. each unit consisted of ten to twelve pages; the writing format was determined earlier in the second phase workshop. the book writing time allocation was from may to june 2019. however, due to individual constraints, it was prolonged until august 2019. the challenges from the primary school teachers majorly came from time management problems, exercise variations, and english language structure and grammar problems. in order to help the teachers to complete their unit writing, the team conducted online supervision by using two applications: google-classroom and whatsapp group discussion. the st ag e 1 • a leaning support textbook theory and resources st ag e 2 • book writing formatting and sample writing st ag e 3 • writing workshop: unit brainstorming the writing and supervision of bright english textbook development for primary school teachers in indonesian context 62 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 team always encouraged the teachers during the writing process by providing ample time, exercise practices, structure and grammar correction, as well as idea generation for activities variations in the unit. the next step was illustrating the book units. the illustration was taken seriously by hiring one professional illustrator from the informatics engineering department to keep the originality of all pictures and displays to avoid plagiarism. the illustration process ran from august until november 2019. the illustrator was sent the units by the team and the illustration results were sent back to the team and being checked. the illustration process was also done to check the consistency of the characters' role in all units. the apps used were coreldraw and photoshop. the final illustrated units were compiled and kept by the team coordinator, which then socialized and returned for the further check to all the book writers. the publication and printing stages occurred when the experts in primary school book writing did the review process. the suggestions from the book reviewers were allocated from october until november 2019, and the last the compiled unit was printed in december 2019. supervision process supervision was described as a process of assisting the writing progress of the teachers. in this stage, three supervisors were provided. each supervisor handled two book units from one writer. the written units from the writers or the teachers were sent via email or google classroom or whatsapp application to the supervisor for writing check. the supervisor then examined the format, the language structure, the content suitability with students’ age, the task variations, and the vocabulary practice. furthermore, uniformity of the text, as well as the local contents embedded in the text unit and tasks, were thoroughly reviewed so that it reflected factual and reliable information to the readers. during the supervision time, several challenges were present. most of the teacher-writers needed time extension for completing their writing quotas. they also needed more ideas and variations in terms of tasks and activities. furthermore, they had limited time to check the grammar and sentence structure allowing more possible errors to occur. a minimum exposure and practice in writing english textbooks were considered one of the challenges as well. nina inayati, erlyna abidasari, & kharisma naidi w.s englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 63 to solve those problems, supervisors gave extra time allocation for writing to be extended for one more month. the extended time was the result of supervisorswriters negotiation and was approved by both parties. the supervisors also gave alternative ideas, texts, tasks, and vocabulary items relevant to the local content and culture to be used in the book units. besides, the writing mechanics were checked thoroughly by the help of grammarly.com and extra manual revision by the supervisor. each supervisor then sent their revised manuscript to the other supervisors to double and cross-checked the works, and then sent the manuscript back to the writer in case of content discrepancy. then, the finished manuscript was sent to the lay-outer for a printing layout design. from the whole writing and supervision processes, the team obtained the observation notes and reflections on the workshop and brainstorming activities. the teacher presented their curriculum and syllabus to be well adjusted and suited to the complementary textbook design. the team also reflected the whole process from writing, editing, illustrating, layout, and printing in the progress reports. the writing drafts from the teachers were kept to analyze the progress as well. discussion generally, teachers are seen as a passive doer in the process of curriculum and textbook development (even and olsher, 2014). however, the current study has shown that given the right stimulus and treatment, teachers can also be an active part in creating and developing textbooks, as per the suggestion made by even and olsher’s (2014) study to involve teachers as textbook developers as part of their professional development process. in this process, some hindsight related to the process of writing and supervision of textbook development can be highlighted, and they are presented as follows. first, the teachers’ willingness to participate in the textbook writing project need to be appreciated as it shows their high motivation to improve and develop professionally. as suggested by ivic (1998), passion, willingness, response and communication are essential elements that shows teachers’ positive attitude in textbook development, all of which were found in the teachers involved in the current project. teachers’ professional development is something inevitable. as suggested the writing and supervision of bright english textbook development for primary school teachers in indonesian context 64 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 by oecd (2009), teachers are expected to undergo continuous professional development process following their initial training in order to keep their skills and expertise up-to-date and to improve their teaching effectiveness. the teachers involved in this program were volunteer-based, and they were committed to spend some time among their busy schedule to write a textbook and be supervised during the process, thus showing a considerable amount of spirit for voluntary professional development attempts that are worth praising. the second point related to the highlight of the writing and supervision process was in terms of the weak match between the plan and the actual writing process. working with busy teachers requires a relatively high flexibility especially in terms of time management. regular reminders were expected during the writing and supervising process to ensure the tasks were done as per the agreed due dates, or to make sure that the delays occurred would not be dragging. teacher busy schedule has been a rampant issue that frequently becomes a challenge in their professional development efforts (santos & miguel, 2016). according to hennessy, haßler, & hofmann, (2015), some solutions to the problem could be in the form of professional development programs that allows collaboration between teachers, and integrates technology. the current project follows both suggestions in its application as the use of technology allows for online supervision with flexible time. however, it is proven to be two-edged knife which positive side was to allow more flexible supervision time management, but with the negative side of less pressure on the deadlines compared to face-to-face supervision meetings. for that problem, the school teacher coordinator had been a source of great assistance to the program, providing a useful direct encouragement toward the other teachers to work better on the agreed due dates. another salient finding during the writing and supervision process was the fact that as practitionby makiers, the teachers were at advantage at understanding the target students’ level of proficiency. thus, they were considered to be more aware about the texts’ level of difficulty that are more appropriate for their students. as suggested by mukundan, hajimohammadi, & nimehchisalem (2011) ‘suitability to learners’ become one of the most important criteria for textbook evaluation, nina inayati, erlyna abidasari, & kharisma naidi w.s englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 65 meaning that during the development process, this aspect should be taken well into account. however, the findings show that the contents and exercises made by the teachers tend to be monotonous and thus need improving. in addition, some problems such as some forms of unintended plagiarism and grammar and mechanic errors were also quite rampant. this serve as the main activity conducted during the supervision phase. based on these findings and discussion, some lessons learned can be inferred, among others are as follows. first, combined online and face-to-face meetings during the writing and supervision process seem to be expected as the benefits of each can complement the weaknesses. for example, the time flexibility of online writing and supervision process has been proven to allow teachers to drag the due dates of the projects, while face-to-face meeting would provide greater pressure for teachers to finish the targets before the meeting takes place. in that case, some online and some face-to-face meetings could be the middle way to cater for the teachers’ busy schedule and the demand for the project. second, improving teachers’ quality especially related to teaching material development and its publication is a practical problem that needs urgent addressing. the demand for publishing which requires stricter and more systematic filter to ensure plagiarism avoidance should be the main focus to prepare teachers before embarking on a writing project for textbook publishing. this is especially true with regards to the more subtle forms of plagiarism such as unintended plagiarisms practices. in other words, sufficient training for publication ethics, especially those related to plagiarism avoidance need to be conducted before the writing process begins. conclusion and suggestions the writing process of bright english textbook for primary school level was conducted through several stages; the workshop, the initial sample display, the writing process, the editing, the illustration, and layout process, as well as the printing. whereas the supervision stages comprised giving motivation and timeline for unit writing, collecting the writing units from the teachers, providing content, tasks, and structure feedbacks, and units re-collection after revision from the writers. the writing and supervision of bright english textbook development for primary school teachers in indonesian context 66 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 bright english was a prototype of a culturally based textbook that reflects the implementation of 2013 curriculum topics relevant to the life skills needed by the batu municipality. further research should address the exploration of more contextual topics of batu and with the involvement of more primary school teachers to support the goal of the local government that is to provide practical english skills for batu's tourism. bright english is expected to inspire other schools surrounding batu municipality, such as primary schools in malang, kediri, blitar, or surabaya to design similar contextual books for more target-oriented learning results. besides, for more diverse use of local context and wisdom in bright english, further researchers may involve a more robust collaboration with the foreign researcher or party to implement the support material in a wider international context. education-tourism might act as one way to realize this mutual study. the education-tourism field might use bright english as one source to introduce the local potentials to foreign visitors. students of primary schools can play the role of guides to foreign visitors 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(2016). foreign language teachers' professional development through peer observation programme. english language teaching, 9(10), 39-46. siegler, r.s. (2013). information processing approaches to development: a manual of child psychology. new york, ny: wiley. sofiana, n., mubarok, h., & yuliasri, i. (2019). english language teaching in secondary schools: an analysis of the implementation of indonesian elt 2013 curriculum. international journal of instruction, 12(1), 1533-1544. sudrajat, d. (2015). studi tentang pelaksanaan pengajaran bahasa inggris di sd kota tenggarong. cendekia: journal of education and teaching, 9(1), 1324. tahir, s.z. (2011). a stepping towards mastering english. jakarta, indonesia: qalam media pustaka wertsch, j. (2011), voices of the mind: a sociocultural approach to mediate action. cambridge, ma: harvard university press englisia november 2017 vol. 5, no. 1, 29-40 identifying the concept of bilingualism and bilinguals through seven baker’s dimensions of bilingualism mulyani stkip bina bangsa getsempena banda aceh, indonesia ummathary@gmail.com abstract the study is mainly aimed at investigating and analyzing the concept of bilingualism and bilinguals based on seven baker’s (2011) dimensions of bilingualism: ability, culture, context, age, use, elective bilingualism, and balance of two languages. all of the dimensions were discussed specifically and comparatively based on baker’s bilingualism dimensions related to the experience of learning second language (l2) of both participants. however, another dimension, development, is not discussed in this study since there was insufficient information and no correlation to the participants’ experience in learning l2. there were two participants involved in this study: two australians coming from different backgrounds and experiences of learning l2. the data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews using both closed-question and open-question methods. the findings indicated that it was arduous to specify to what extent the concept of bilingualism and bilinguals were. keywords: bilingualism; bilinguals; second language; baker’s dimensions introduction the concept of bilingualism seems easy to define at first glance. however, there are many definitions of bilingualism specified by many language experts. in merriam-webster online dictionary (2012) bilingualism is defined as “the ability to speak two languages or the frequent use (as by a community) of two languages”. similarly, grosjean argues (as cited in baker, 2011) that individuals or people who identifying the concept of bilingualism and bilinguals through seven baker’s dimensions of bilingualism 30 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 are able to use two or more than one language or dialect in their daily lives basis are considered as bilingual persons; yet, is not clear enough since there is no specific information whether those people are able to master both of the language fluently or not. grosjean’s definition seems unclear whether someone must be able to master all language skills perfectly to be judged as bilinguals or not. in contrast, what edwards (2004) means about bilingualism is that everyone is counted as bilingual if s/he has more or less two words or utterances used in another language which is found flexible, easy, and simple to specify. moreover, there are conditions influencing someone being a bilingual person, such as close proximity, as indicated by myers-scotton (2006, p. 47) whereby relationship built with other people closely like marrying another person from different country, living in bilingual nations, living in borders areas, living in multi-ethnic urban areas, engaging in an occupation involving many contacts with other member groups, or having family outside one’s ethnic group. meanwhile, there are other factors, according to baker (2011), promoting someone or people to become bilinguals or multilinguals such as political, economic, employment, immigration, mixed marriage or geographical cases which then will be related to any correlated dimensions of bilingualism set down by baker (2011). furthermore, sometimes there are obstacles appeared during the process of bilinguals in learning second language (l2). the obstacles are probably dealing with less exposure to the target language and code switching as well between native language and l2 or additional languages, for example l2 learners usually have difficulty when they want to process the idea from one language to be translated into other languages i.e., certain utterances which are not frequently used or listened to by them before. methods the method applied in this study was a qualitative method which also used theoretical approach as the basis of study. the researcher thought it useful to investigate bilingual participants through interviews in order to make clear to what extent the concept of bilingualism were and the cases related to bilingualism and mulyani englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 | 31 bilinguals, or as questioned by wei (2000, p. 5) “should bilingualism be measured by how fluent people are in two languages? or should bilinguals be only those people who have equal competence in both languages?”. this interview was taken face-to-face in australia in 2012 using both closed-question and open-question method in which any responses from the participants were combination of short, and not limited and controlled respectively. the questions consisted of more or less 20. for the purpose of keeping the participant’s secret identity, the pseudonym names are used; “dominique” and “jessica”. this study argues that in determining or investigating the extent of bilingualism and bilinguals’ concept, it should be considered based on the dimensions of bilingualism set out by baker (2011) including ability, culture, context, age, use, elective bilingualism, and balance of two languages. participants of the study two participants mentioned before as the subjects of this study came from different backgrounds and had different experiences of learning l2. the first participant, dominique, was a-fifty six-year-old australian female officer at an educational institution in australia and had been in indonesia for 8 years for professional and personal reasons. she was able to speak two languages quite equally, english as the mother tongue and indonesian as the second language. she experienced her l2 through learning both from the formal institution provided by her workplace and from the environment in which she stayed. she was married to an indonesian man and had family with two children in indonesia for a couple years before she and her family moved back to australia. admittedly, her husband and her husband’s parents were quite frequent to assist her in learning l2. in order to maintain her l2, dominique usually attends the australian indonesian association (aia) held once a month in different places of the members in australia. on the other hand, the second participant, jessica, was a-twenty-year-old afghani student at one of australian universities, coming to australia as a refugee due to war and conflict in afghanistan. she was able to use three languages: farsi, english, and urdu (l1, l2, and l3) equally. jessica experienced learning an l2 identifying the concept of bilingualism and bilinguals through seven baker’s dimensions of bilingualism 32 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 through educational process in the australian school settings when she was about 12 or 13 years old. she learned l2 through listening to any australian programs in television, reading english books, having intense interaction with her australian classmates whereby they understood and helped her very much in learning that language. her family provided her a great deal support to learn l2 such as enrolling her to a public secondary school and english courses until she was in undergraduate level in australia. in order to maintain her l1, jessica usually uses the language frequently with her core family members when she is at home. discussion and analysis on baker’s dimensions this study discusses the result of interviews conducted based on seven dimensions of bilingualism established by baker (2011): ability, culture, context, age, use, elective bilingualism, and balance of two languages. all of the dimensions are discussed specifically and comparatively based on baker’s bilingualism dimensions related to the experiences of learning l2 of both the interviewees. there is one dimension which is not discussed here, development, since it is not correlated to both participants’ experiences of learning their l2. it is expected that by analyzing the transcript interview of the two participants based on the dimensions mentioned by baker, the understanding of to what extent the concept of bilingualism and bilinguals will be clear at the end of this study. culture in the dimension of culture, both participants showed similar responses but in different cases. baker (2011) argues that bicultural or multicultural can be occurred to bilinguals. he adds that there is a possibility that someone is able to have high proficiency in mastering two languages but s/he tends to be monocultural. dominique stated that by learning l2, she also learned its culture, for example, she pointed out in terms of attitudes that “using the left hand to take food or pay for something is offensive in indonesia”. similarly, jessica indicated that it was enjoyable to learn the culture alongside l2 itself. nevertheless, as an immigrant person, she may have had a process of acculturation of culture in which she lives in and learns the majority language, english. the acculturation of culture likely can happen when mulyani englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 | 33 bilinguals have contact with a different culture then it becomes emerging such as life style in the way of dressing, having food, etc. what can be revealed from both participants is that they are able to adjust themselves either feelings or attitudes towards the other cultures of their l2. so, they have cross-cultural awareness and empathy in biculturalism or multiculturalism even though they tend to be monocultural in some aspects such as religion, food, clothing, tradition and custom, gender, and ethnicity. in the case of language and culture that connects with each other or not, brown and eisterhold (2004) have a different point of view, namely it is not essential that language and culture have a connection since they consider that sometimes people use the language but they do not participate in or take into account with the culture or vice versa. somehow, in one side that viewpoint is true but in another side it is not really logical as it is well known that by learning the language people will also automatically learn the culture itself. context both participants revealed different responses to the dimension of context. baker (2011) maintains that there are endogenous and exogenous communities existing, whereby bilinguals and multilinguals can live in both those communities. endogenous community is defined as the context of group where more than one language are used by bilinguals and multilinguals on their daily basis. meanwhile, exogenous community is defined as the context of group where there is no an l2 community existed (baker, 2011). dominique asserted that she has lived and worked currently in the multilingual endogenous community, australia, as her originated country. yet, for her first learning l2, she lived in indonesia for quite a long time about 8 years where multilingual and multicultural conditions occurred even with the local languages but she could not find the exogenous community. she can be categorized into additive context where she learned an l2 without losing her first language (l1). additive context refers to when bilinguals add one or more languages at no influence to l1 while there is also subtractive context which is defined as a condition whereby l2 or majority language may replace l1 (e.g. indonesian identifying the concept of bilingualism and bilinguals through seven baker’s dimensions of bilingualism 34 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 language as l1 being replaced by english in australia) (baker, 2011). on the other hand, jessica described that she has lived in a multilingual country but there was the rareness of her l1 community. so, based on baker’s (2011) viewpoint, jessica can be involved in the subtractive context and as the bilingual who lives in endogenous community, australia. use bilingual participants have dissimilar domains of where l1 and l2 are used. baker (2011) asserts that there are various domains where an l2 is practiced, such as home, street, school, email, and phone, and that language used in different purposes and places such as l1 is used at home while an l2 is used at school. both participants had different domains in using their l2. dominique pointed that she used her l2 because of her occupation and mixed marriage in indonesia. in this country, she usually used the language and had intense contact with people in the street such as neighbors and friends, in the market such as sellers, at home such as nucleus family members, and in the workplace such as work colleagues. related to dominique’s case, myers-scotton (2006) argues that when there is motivation of bilinguals for learning a language for getting a job, her motivation is connected to the economic advancement case. on the other side, jessica stated that she used an l2 based on the place where she lived and studied in her l2 country, australia. in this point, it is correlated to the social case. nevertheless, she also used l2 because of the political case since she and her family came to australia in order to survive from the war in their home country, afghanistan. myers-scotton (2006, p.54) asserts that “other migrants have moved from one country to the next because they are simply looking for a better life whereby some of them are political refugees”. such cases reflect the identity in different domains. in regard to identity issues, speakers are sometimes able to specify themselves as bilinguals, or other people may judge whether those speakers are bilinguals or not (myers-scotton, 2006, p. 39). in another case, there are also those who are able to communicate in two languages but they do not admit that they are bilingual persons. the problems are likely due to their reluctance to admit their l2 as mulyani englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 | 35 the language but rather as the dialect. these kind of people may believe that the utterances, styles and accents they use are more linked to dialect not to language. in terms of the difference between language and dialect, brown and eisterhold (2004) argue that language and dialect is dissimilar that language is generally correlated with social and political cases in which it has a long history, while dialect based on accent, word choice, and grammar. in aceh, indonesia, for example, the local languages used and spoken are various in terms of dialect. each of the areas in aceh has its own dialect, accent and word choice. for example, the words and accent used and spoken in north aceh is different with the words and accent used and spoken in great aceh even though it is the same language, acehnese language. ability both participants exposed different responses towards skill ability of l2 they learned. baker (2011) argues that there are active bilinguals who actively produce the language either in speaking or in writing skills, called productive competence, and passive bilinguals who rarely or passively use the language both in reading and listening skills. dominique stated that when she dealt with her occupation and stayed in indonesia for quite a long time, she demonstrated listening and speaking skills faster than writing and reading since there was no time for her to focus much on writing and reading skills. meanwhile, jessica pointed that she was able to demonstrate all the four skills well of her l2 since she dealt with the language all the time either in her studies or her part-time workplace. so, jessica can be potentially regarded as a proficient speaker who is able to master both competences: productive and receptive. what indicated by dominique is in line with what valdes et al. argue (cited in baker, 2011) that individual’s ability is varied with other speakers in their dominance and development in learning an l2. meanwhile, wei (2000) asserts that not all bilinguals have an equal mastery of all four skills (listening, reading, speaking, and writing) in both languages they use. he adds that in order to know to what extent bilinguals’ ability is, it is important to do testing towards their four skills in both languages separately. similarly, romaine (1995) also suggests that identifying the concept of bilingualism and bilinguals through seven baker’s dimensions of bilingualism 36 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 in order to find the degree of bilinguals’ skills in both languages, it is required to assess their proficiency in four skills and levels (grammatical, lexical, semantic, etc.). in fact, there is a real condition that is widely known that only english language providing language tests such as ielts, toefl, toiec, etc. to identify bilinguals’ ability on the four skills while it is so rare found in non-english-languages providing specific test for all the four skills, and even it can be said almost none. age related to the dimension of age, both of the participants provided different responses from the question dealing with younger and older age learners. jessica described that she experienced learning her l2 at the teenage year when she was 12 or 13 years old in secondary school in one of australian public schools. on the other hand, dominique, based on her knowledge, argued that to be completely bilinguals, children should learn l2 before the age of 10, while learning after that children tend to translate through l1. in fact, dominique admitted that she and her husband tried to lead and ask their children to learn her l2 when they were children but it was not so successful because of their lack of internal motivation. what was stated by the dominique about children age of learning l2 is correlated to what reviewed by marinova-todd et al., singleton, singleton and ryan, and cenoz (cited in baker, 2011, p. 124) that children or younger learners have high opportunity to master an l2 in their childhood age proficiently and effectively because of their length of exposure to the language than the older learners. however, what was experienced by jessica in learning an l2 appears true on the other side since she learned the language directly or being exposed to that language in which it was used widely even though she was not a child anymore. discussing about age, it is relevant to the second language acquisition field. according to baker (2011), bilinguals children or adults, who acquire their l1, l2, and the next other languages not in the same time but in the stages, whether acquired in the formal or informal settings, are involved in sequential acquisition of bilingualism. what is proposed by baker is correlated to what experienced by both mulyani englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 | 37 the participants even if it is realized that not all bilinguals who learn another language sequentially are successful and proficient in their l2. elective bilingualism most experts have categorized bilinguals into two categories, elective and circumstantial bilinguals. valdes et al. (2006) assert that elective bilinguals are referred to additive bilinguals and circumstantial bilinguals are referred to subtractive bilinguals. they indicate that elective bilinguals are defined as individuals who elect to learn another language, for example, in the workplaces or in the school settings. it is implied that the bilinguals only elect to learn another language or foreign language for the purpose of not intending to live and work permanently in the foreign language country, so it is not required to use foreign or additional language in order to be survived (valdes et al., 2006). they add, on the other hand, circumstantial bilinguals are specified as individuals who learn another language or additional languages because of the condition or circumstance in order to be able to survive in the majority language where they live (e.g. immigrants live in australia or united states). dominique is the individual who came from majority language group and chose to learn indonesian language as her l2 when she was in her workplace in indonesia. in this point, she can be regarded as an additive bilingual in the circle of elective bilingualism in which she added and elected to learn l2 without losing her l1 since she lives in her l1 or majority language country (australia) in the current time. meanwhile, jessica showed a different standpoint. she is from the minority language group, afghanistan, coming to australia as the immigrant for surviving life from the war and conflict in her originated country and for surviving life to live in the majority language country like australia as well. according to valdes et al. (2006), jessica can be categorized as a circumstantial bilingual referred to subtractive bilingualism as she learned another language because her l1 was insufficient to meet her educational and employment requirements and the communicative needs in the community where she lived in. in this case, her l1 is in danger of being subtractive language. however, she argued that she has been able to maintain her identifying the concept of bilingualism and bilinguals through seven baker’s dimensions of bilingualism 38 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 l1 by using it at home with the members of her family. in the point of danger of being subtractive language, somehow it seems true that when someone goes to another region outside of his/her country s/he will subconsciously be influenced and interfered by the language in that region, for example, english language in englishspeaking country, automatically his/her l1 will be threatened to be subtractive language unless s/he has its big community which uses that language intensely. balance of two languages in terms of the dimension of balance of two languages, both interviewees revealed highly different responses to the question dealing with dominant and balanced bilinguals. dominique can be potentially pointed as a bilingual who uses one language dominantly namely her l1-english while her l2 is not frequently used. then, why is it dominant? the reason is as argued by baker (2011) that it is rare either bilingual or multilingual persons use or have equivalent ability to use their two or more languages. another reason is since she lives and works in her l1 country currently, her l1 evolves dominantly while her l2 is not optimally used in her daily basis since the opportunity to use that language is not sufficiently provided. jessica, on the other hand, can be regarded as a bilingual who equally uses her both languages, mother tongue and l2 as she maximally use her mother tongue at home with her parents and other nucleus families and her l2 at the educational and social contexts. therefore, she can be categorized as a balanced bilingual person. based on the analysis and discussion of the interview results from both bilingual participants, it is shown that, in reality, the concept of bilingualism can be defined in many ways by the people depending on how the person interprets it and the context of the language in which it is used as well. thus, it can be concluded that a bilingual person is an individual who uses two languages and able to perform the four language skills approximately the same. however, both of the participants in this study are in line with what grosjean (cited in baker, 2011) said about the bilingual person definition. dominique considered herself as a bilingual person because that she was able to function comfortably in both languages, mother tongue and indonesian. likewise, jessica also judged herself as a bilingual person mulyani englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 | 39 as she admitted that she had good command of using three languages almost equally: farsi, english, and urdu. meanwhile, jessica did not inform much about her l3 (urdu); it can be seen through the world map that afghanistan is located in the north and west of pakistan which uses urdu as the official language. hence, there is a possibility in which the language of neighbor country influences or spreads through the border. conclusion in summary, from the investigation and analysis conducted, it is found that it is not very easy to specify to what extent the concept of bilingualism and bilinguals is. however, through this study, both participants are bilinguals living in bilingualism contexts and it is very worthy to define and to know more deeply about both of them when the writer took the consideration in terms of seven dimensions of bilingualism established by baker (2011): age, ability, use, culture, context, balance of two languages, and elective bilingualism. unfortunately, there is one dimension which was not discussed in this study, development, since there was insufficient information and no correlation to the participants’ experiences in learning their l2. it is recommended that in order to have effective and appropriate results for the next or another study on this area, further studies may include all the eight dimensions where it is related and needed. references baker, c. (2011). foundation of bilingual education and bilingualism 5th edition. bristol: multilingual matters. brown, s., & eisterhold, j. (2004). topics in language and culture for teachers. ann arbor: the university of michigan press. edwards, j. (2004). foundations of bilingualism. in t. k. bhatia & w. c. ritchie (eds.). the handbook of bilingualism (pp. 7–31). maldon, ma: blackwell publishing. merriam-webster. (2012), “bilingualism”, retrieved 27 may 2012 from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bilingualism identifying the concept of bilingualism and bilinguals through seven baker’s dimensions of bilingualism 40 | englisia vol. 5, no. 1, november 2017 myers-scotton, c. (2006). an introduction into bilingualism: multiple voices. malden, ma: blackwell publishing. romaine, s. (1995). bilingualism (2nd ed.). oxford: blackwell publishing. valdes, g., fishman, j.a., chavez, r., & perez w. (2006). developing minority language resources: the case of spanish in california. clevedon: multilingual matters. wei, l. (2000). the bilingualism reader. london: routledge. englisia may 2015 vol. 2, no. 2, 119-136 applying team teacing to improve  students’ ability in understanding  english narrative texts  saiful akmal goethe university of frankfurt, germany saiful.akmal@gmail.com the title of this study is applying team teaching to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative texts. the purposes of this study are to identify the advantages and to find out the strategies of applying team teaching to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative texts. the population of this study is the first year students of sman 4 banda aceh, and the sample are an experimental class (x ia 2) and a control class (x ia 6). the total numbers of the samples are 66 students. according to data analysis, team teaching gave more advantages to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative texts. some advantages of team teaching to the first year students of sman 4 banda aceh; (1) team teaching directed the students to focus on material, the method was not tedious and learning motivation had been increased by using it, so that their ability in understanding english narrative text had been increased. (2) the students who studied by using team teaching obtained higher score than the students who studied without using team teaching. it means the students who studied by using team teaching could improve their abilities in understanding english narrative text. (3) the students should focus on the study because the teachers observed what they do in the class comprehensively. the student also could receive knowledge not only from the main teacher, but also from the co-teacher and they could ask both teachers if they found some problems. some advantages of team teaching to the teachers of sman 4 banda aceh are; team teaching could be effective while teaching and learning process was underway because the teachers could remind each other and they also could plan good materials. in applying team teaching to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative texts, the teachers used many strategies. one of the general strategies to apply team teaching in sman 4 banda aceh was by excercising the so called semi team teaching. the special strategies that conducted by teachers were; (1) presenting an interesting and understandable topic in every meeting for students. (2) making group discussion, reading the legend and translatabstract applying team teacing to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative texts 120 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 ing it, giving regularly the test and games. (3) asking the students to comprehend the generic structure of the text before coming to the class. keywords: team teaching; narrative text; high school students introduction nowadays, english, as the world most used language is taught comprehensively by putting four basic language skills which are listening, speaking, reading and writing from theory into practice. to teach those skills, there are many methodologies used by english teachers. one of the methodologies is team teaching. team teaching is the method involving two or more teachers in teaching-learning process. (soewalni, 2007) the teachers share their duty proportionately. through the method, teachers are expected to be able to work collaboratively in teachinglearning process, and every problem arise can be solved together. one important skill in english is reading. typically, in reading every students will find several kind of texts, such as narrative, poetic, dramatic, response, explanation, report, discussion, exposition, recount, description, procedure, and many more as suggested by anderson (1998, p. 2). texts are pieces of spoken or written language created for particular purpose. the purpose might be to persuade or inform or a combination of both. the context is influenced by our culture (beliefs, attitudes, values) and situation (what happening, who is involved and whether we are speaking or writing). there are two main categories of text: literary and non literary. literary text, such as movie script, plays, novels, song lyrics and soap operas appeal to our imagination and emotions. on the other hand, non literary texts, such as advertisements, announcements, recipes, reports and internet web sites, present information and ideas in order to show, tell or persuade the readers. in the present day, because there are many types of texts, it is very likely that students feel confused in comprehending the texts. to be more specific, the researchers want to merely discuss narrative text. through this research, it is aimed at exploring the effectiveness of applying team teaching to improve students’ ability, what the problems that still encountered in understanding english narrative text and what are the applicable methods that can be used by the teacher to overcome stusaiful akmal englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 121 dents’ problems. in addition, it also can be a reference for lecturer and students who will teach and study reading subject, particularly english narrative text. team teaching research had been done by many researchers. one of it could be found in schwarz, kahn, and smart (2000). the research aimed to find out the teachers and students activities, and factors that influence students’ output in writing class by using team teaching method. the research was conducted at the university of texas at austin. the principle difference between this research and the previous research were the object of implementing team teaching. the previous research revealed application of team teaching to the entire skills of writing but this research focus very much on english narrative texts by using team teaching. types of text of language learning english learning text types is presented as the main subject in english lesson for high school students. most of the time, during their high school, students focus their attention to text types with each generic structure and what language types used to construct the texts varying to each other (paltridge, 1996). these generic structure and language features which are commonly found different from one text to another is used based on the purpose of each genre. based on generic structure and language feature dominantly used, texts are divided into several types such as narrative, recount, descriptive, report, analytical exposition, explanation, discussion, hortatory exposition, and anecdote. narrative the purpose of narrative text is to amuse and entertain the readers and to tell a story. the generic structures of this kind of text are orientation, complication, resolution and reorientation. the dominant language features of these kinds of text are using past tense, action verb and chronologically arranged. recount the purpose of recount text is to retell something that happened in the past and to tell a series of past event of generic structure such as in orientation, event(s), applying team teacing to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative texts 122 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 and reorientation. the dominant language features there are using past tense, action verb and adjectives. narrative and recount in some ways are similar. both are telling something in the past and usually apply in past tense; whether simple past tense, simple past continuous tense or past perfect tense. the ways narrative and recount told are in chronological order using time or place. commonly narrative text is found in story book like myth, fable, and folklore, while recount text is often found in biography. the thing that makes narrative and recount different is the structure in which they are constructed. narrative uses conflicts among the participants whether natural conflict, social conflict or psychological conflict. in some ways narrative text combines all these conflicts. on the contrary, these conflicts can not be found inside recount text. recount applies series of event as the basic structure. descriptive the purpose of descriptive text is to describe a particular person, place or thing in detail. the dominant generic structures of this kind of text are identification and description. language features of this kind text are very likely using simple present tense, action verb, adverb and special technical terms. report the purpose of report text is to present information about something, and generic structure of this kind of text is general classification and description. the dominant language features of this kind text are introducing group or general aspect, using conditional logical connection and using simple present tense. explanation the purpose of explanation text is to explain the processes involved in the formation or working of natural or socio-cultural phenomena. the generic structures of this text are general statement, explanation and closing. the dominant language features of this text are using simple present tense, action verbs, passive voice, noun phrase, adverbial phrase, technical terms, general and abstract noun and conjunction of time and cause-effect. saiful akmal englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 123 analytical exposition the purpose of analytical exposition text is to reveal the readers that something is important. the generic structures of this kind text are more likely to use lots of thesis, arguments and reiteration and conclusion. the dominant language features of text are using modals, action verbs, thinking verbs, adverbs, adjective, technical terms, general and abstract noun and connectives or transition. hortatory exposition the purpose of hortatory exposition is to persuade the readers that something should not be the case or be done. the generic structures of this kind text are more likely to use lots of thesis and arguments. the dominant language features of this kind of text are using simple present tense, modals, action verbs, thinking verbs, adverbs, adjective, technical terms, general and abstract noun and connectives or transition. then what is the basic difference between analytical and hortatory exposition. in simple word, analytical is the answer of "how is or will" while hortatory is the answer of ‘how should’. analytical exposition will be best to describe "how will student do for his examination? the point is the important thing to do. but for the question ‘how should student do for his exam?’ will be good to be answered with hortatory. it is to convince that the thing should be done. discussion the purpose of discussion text is to present information and opinions about issues in more one side of an issue (‘for/pros’ and ‘against/cons’). the generic structures of this kind of text are issue, arguments for and against and conclusion in a chronological order. the dominant language features of this kind of text are using simple present tense, relating verb/to be, thinking verb, general and abstract noun, conjunction/transition, modality and adverb of manner. anecdote the purpose of anecdote text is to share with others an account of an unusual or amusing incident. the generic structure of this kind of text is abstract, orientation, crisis, and reaction. the dominant language features of these kinds of text are using applying team teacing to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative texts 124 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 exclamations, rhetorical question or intensifiers, material process and temporal conjunctions. in addition to the above categories, there are several text types that are widely recognized for the high school here. text types in the three main genres which must be studied in high school specially designed for graduate competences standard (skl) are: 1. narration: this narrative genre includes narrative, recount, and news item. all these text types in narrative genres composed to tell and inform. 2. description: the texts which include in descriptive genres are report, descriptive, and explanation. these text genres are written to describe. they tend to use words with describing sense and not telling. 3. argumentation: argumentative genres will cover analytical exposition, hortatory exposition and discussion. these text types explore reason to answer the question "why" and "how. english narrative text in teaching (english) reading people need to know how narrative texts work and how to read them because stories are used for many important purposes of life. advertisers and politicians use stories to persuade and win the votes. writers of novels and memoirs weave often complicated stories through which they examine ideas and events. narrative texts, which include both non-fiction (e.g., memoirs) and fiction (e.g., novels), also help people to understand how other texts work by contrasting the different types through the study of different texts and how they work and are made. finally, narrative fiction often provides the only encounter with the imagination during the course of the school day; in this one respect, teaching such texts is vital. purpose is central to the study of narrative texts, the writer’s, the reader’s, the teacher’s, and the characters’, because it directs how the text should be read and taught. people use texts to create a conversation between ourselves and others, including the authors of the texts we read. teachers and readers focus more on design since he believes that ‘’form or structure’’ or what is called ’narrative design’ is of first and final importance to any work of fiction. that character drives stories besaiful akmal englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 125 cause stories are about what people want most and are willing to do to get it. this idea challenges the more traditional approach described above. it creates openings for discussions and allows students to make connections between themselves and the characters that do not always seem ‘real’ to some readers who resist fiction. when you begin by looking at what a character wants most you find a powerful shared experience that can be very real for students. other approaches are useful, even important. narrative texts, for example, demand a sequence and can be described as a pattern, though not always an obvious one. using graphic organizers or other strategies described here to help students see these sequences, patterns, or relationships will help them read more effectively. sketching out the sequence makes this structure more visible to them and even helps them understand why an author would want to use such a device. benefits and shortcomings of using english narrative text narrative is a text focusing on specific participants. its social function is to tell stories or past events and entertain the readers. narrative text is a text that tells a story and, in doing so, entertains the audience. the essential purpose of narrative is to tell a story, but the detailed purpose may vary according to genre. for example, the purpose of a myth is often to explain a natural phenomenon and a legend is often intended to pass on cultural traditions or beliefs (anderson, 1998, p. 3). narrative is claimed to be a text to entertain, to gain and hold a readers' interest. however narratives can also be written to teach or inform, to change attitudes and social opinions e.g. soap operas and television dramas that are used to raise topical issues (rotter & bendl, 1978, pp. 91-102). a narrative text will also consist of the following structure: orientation: introducing the participants and informing the time and the place, complication: describing the rising crises which the participants have to do with, evaluation: reaction by characters to the complication, resolution: showing the way of participant to solve the crises, better or worse included in the five main focuses of the english achievement objectives in the new zealand curriculum (2006) are: language features that enhance texts and the structure and organisation of texts. these refer to the characteristics or features of applying team teacing to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative texts 126 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 texts, and how those characteristics or features are arranged. the ability to visualise the features of a text type, and how those features are arranged, is vital to the construction of meaning when reading. when a student is able to visualise in this way, they understand texts at a much deeper level, and so they will have real control over them. this control comes about because a student who can visualise a text type understands how writers construct meaning through the features they choose to use and the way they arrange those features. it is this understanding that is fundamental to reading comprehension. crucially, when a student has this understanding, language is perceived not as a set of rules but as a set of options available for constructing a variety of meanings. consequently, through learning about various types of text, students learn not about discrete and isolated forms of writing but instead about the construction of written texts in general: it is through the analysis of particular forms that students begin to learn about the writing system as a whole. students who understand writing at the system-level are not deterred when they meet texts with typical features and or organization. instead, they thrive – confidently exploring how the writer has made use of conventional and less conventional writing techniques in order to express ideas. students who understand the features and organisation of narrative texts will know that they have a main idea or theme, and will comprise a beginning section introducing the main characters, a middle section where some sort of connection and conflict arises between characters, developing to a crisis point, and an ending section where the connection comes to some kind of resolution. they will also know that the story will be set in a particular place(s), cover a period of time, and will probably contain dialogue. as they gain expertise, students, argued by vellution f.r (2003, p. 30) will learn that writers of narratives make use of tools such as material processes (action verbs), mental processes (sensing verbs), verbal processes (saying verbs), metaphors, similes, allegory, and symbols. however, it is very often that narrative texts might cause a sense of psychological resistance. to some degree, particularly when the text is long, boring, inforsaiful akmal englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 127 mational and too sophisticated, except for some ‘book worm students’ type’. in this case, graesser et al. (1994) claimed that it has failed to make perspective specific inferences and meaning representations that are constructed during encoding process. this constructionist perspective, according to them, is believed no longer updated with the issues of familiarity and real life materials which might help the readers and or students to retrieve their memory storage due to its far, distances and sophisticated themes selection. the so called traditionalists – constructionist is not able to account for the generation if inferences when a reader constructs a situation model of what a text is about. team teaching application nowdays, along with modern progressively system of education and demand which expand, very little school still use the conventional study strategy in executing its study process. in course of study with the conventional strategy, process of study done by soliter, which means that study process started from planning, execution, until the evaluation of student study conducted by one teacher. though in fact, this time education's curriculum in indonesia have more to expand. a lot of demand have been addressed to teachers. in this time, teacher was claimed to be more inovative and creative in determining method of study that perhaps have to be adapted for a lesson items to be offered to student. in this era, teacher also was claimed to be more recognized each of student. seeing some problems in education, in this case the school and teachers were claimed their creativity in chosing correct strategy so that all demand addressed to teacher specially can be fullfiled maximally. and it seems the strategy of team teaching represent this way of precisely, for method of study of team teaching is a teaching method where its educator more than one who is each having duty (martiningsih, 2007) team teaching is an instruction executed by some people. a team of instructors present the same instruction substance and the same target. all teachers are drawing up, executing, and evaluating result of study together. execution, as applying team teacing to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative texts 128 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 pointed out by ahmadi and prasetya (2005, p.6) can be done by delivering method or together with discussion method. in line with this, there are the types of team teaching according to soewalni (2007) 1. semi team teaching here, he divided this into three sub categories as follows:  type 1= a number of teacher teach the same subject in different class. planning of items and method agreed on with.  type 2a= one subject presented by a number of teacher by turns with the duty division of items, evaluated by each teacher.  type 2b= one subject presented by a number of teacher by designed student with team. 2. full team teaching soewalni refer this type as the type 3 where one team consisted of two people or more, class time is equal, subject study and certain items. planning, execution, and evaluating agreed collectively. in full team teaching there will be some variations. the first is execution that one teacher as a presenter or explained the information, and the other one conducted the discussion group or individual exercise. in the second variation members of team presented the subject and materials by turns where discussion was conducted by both of them and the teachers complement one another. the last variation one teacher (the senior one) presented steps of exercise, observation, practice and information to whatever extent necessary. the class divided into groups, each group was conducted by a teacher at the end of teaching each group presented the report (oral or written) and was concluded together. advantages and disadvantages of team teaching advantages students do not learn at the same rate. periods of equal length are not appropriate for all learning situations. educators are no longer dealing primarily with top-down transmission of the tried and true by the mature and experienced teacher saiful akmal englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 129 to the young, immature, and inexperienced pupil in the single-subject classroom. schools are moving toward the inclusion of another whole dimension of learning, the lateral transmission to every sentient member of society of what has just been discovered, invented, created, manufactured, or marketed. for this, team members with different areas of expertise are invaluable. of course, team teaching is not the only answer to all problems plaguing teachers, students, and administrators. it requires planning, skilled management, willingness to risk change and even failure, humility, open-mindedness, imagination, and creativity. but the results are worth it. buckley (1998, p.8) believes that teamwork improves the quality of teaching as various experts approach the same topic from different angles: theory and practice, past and present, different genders or ethnic backgrounds. he also asserted that teacher strengths are combined and weaknesses are remedied in teamwork teaching. poor teachers can be observed, critiqued, and improved by the other team members in a non-threatening and supportive context. the evaluation done by a team of teachers will be more insightful and balanced than the introspection and self-evaluation of an individual teacher. working in teams spreads responsibility, encourages creativity, deepens friendships, and builds community among teachers. teachers complement one another. they share insights, propose new approaches, and challenge assumptions. they learn new perspectives and insights, techniques and values from watching one another. students enter into conversations between them as they debate, disagree with premises or conclusions, raise new questions, and point out consequences. contrasting viewpoints encourage more active class participation and independent thinking from students, especially if there is team balance for gender, race, culture, and age. team teaching is particularly effective with older and under prepared students when it moves beyond communicating facts to tap into their life experience. the team cuts teaching burdens and boosts morale. the presence of another teacher reduces student-teacher personality problems. in an emergency one team member can attend to the problem while the class goes on. sharing in decisionmaking bolsters self-confidence. as teachers see the quality of teaching and learning improve, their self-esteem and happiness grow. applying team teacing to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative texts 130 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 disadvantages however as also criticized by buckley (1998, p. 9), team teaching is not always successful. some teachers are rigid personality types or may be wedded to a single method. some simply dislike the other teachers on the team. some do not want to risk humiliation and discouragement at possible failures. some fear they will be expected to do more work for the same salary. others are unwilling to share the spotlight or their pet ideas or to lose total control. team teaching makes more demands on time and energy. members must arrange mutually agreeable times for planning and evaluation. discussions can be draining and group decisions take longer. rethinking the courses to accommodate the team-teaching method is often inconvenient. opposition may also come from students, parents, and administrators who may resist change of any sort. some students flourish in a highly structured environment that favors repetition. some are confused by conflicting opinions. too much variety may hinder habit formation. research method the data collection was using field research and library research. the first method was useful in explaining the data and information of applying team teaching to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative texts. all data would be collected from the first year students of sman 4 banda aceh. to carry out the field research, five considerable technique were used, they are; observation, experimental teaching, test, questionnaire and interview. concerning the research work of this thesis, two classes as were selected as the sample of this study, namely ; x ia 2 and x ia 6. x ia 2 served as an experimental class and x ia 6 served as a control class. as mentioned earlier, observation was used to obtain information about condition when team teaching was exploited by teachers and experimental teaching was administered to know the improvement of students’s ability in understanding english narrative text by using team teaching. if students’ test scores in experimental class are better than in control class, it means that team teaching was advantageous for students. there are overall six meetings conducted in this study. saiful akmal englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 131 the test is intended to measure the students’ ability in understanding english narrative text. both classes were given the test. in control class, the writer gave test to 32 students without applying team teaching. on the contrary, the writer gave test to 34 students and at the same time implementing team teaching application in the experimental class. the test consist of 10 questions, each question has four possible answers (a, b, c and d) about english narrative text. the students should answer the tests in one and half hours. each question worth 10 points, so if they could answer all the question correctly, they would achieve 100 points. to support this research, the use of questionnaire to obtain the answer of research question is crucial. questionnaire was given to the students to know the advantages and the strategies of applying team teaching to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative texts. there are 10 prepared questions handed out to the students in experimental class with 34 students. questionnaire was distributed to the students in the sixth meeting, after the test was accomplished. interview was used to know the advantages of applying team teaching and the teacher’s strategies to make team teaching become effective to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative text . the writer interviewed two english teachers. the questions were about the advantages of team teaching, especially in understanding english narrative texts, and about the strategies that was applied by teachers to make team teaching become more effective to improve students’ ability, especially in understanding english narrative texts. the interview took place at the end of teaching and learning process (after the sixth meeting). research limitation the focus of study in this study were to identify the advantages and to find out the strategies of applying team teaching to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative texts for the first year students of sman 4 banda aceh. since then, only two classes are taken as samples that are to say, experimental and control class. it means, this study couldn’t be generalized for the second and the third year students of sman 4 banda aceh. applying team teacing to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative texts 132 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 the research was conducted for six meetings because of the time that was given by the headmaster could not exceed more than six meetings. normally, applying team teaching would take at least between 12-16 meetings. nevertheless, this study could be used for the readers, especially the teachers in improving teaching method by using team teaching. based on the test, questionnaire, and interview analysis, it could be argued that the first hypothesis is accepted. the first hypothesis are: ‘there are some advantages of applying team teaching to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative texts’. this could be seen based on the mean of test. the mean score in experimental class was 70, 5 and 57,5 in control class. it could be summed up that test score in experimental class was higher than that of control class. it means that students’ ability in understanding english narrative text have increased after using team teaching. in addition, the result of questionnaire showed that the students were interested in studying english because english as an international language is one main subject for students in indonesian schools. then, the students said that studying english narrative text is important. it happened because english narrative text was a compulsory item in senior high school’s curriculum of english in sman 4 banda aceh. the students also said that they were interested in studying english narrative text because the greater part of english workbooks discussed about english narrative text. those english workbooks consisted of interesting story such as legend, horror, myth, and the likes. the students added that their motivation to improve their abilities in understanding english narrative text is to obtain knowledge from the book that written in english language. as mentioned above, english narrative text was a compulsory item in senior high school’s curriculum of english. therefore, the students need to study more on english narrative text in order to be expert in english subject. all this time, the students had difficulties in understanding english narrative text because insufficiency of teacher’s explanation and improper level of material. most students were interested in studying english narrative texts by using team teaching because it was a good method and appropriate for them. team teaching also could improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative text. some advantages of saiful akmal englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 133 team teaching based on questionnaire were team teaching directed the students to focus on material, the method was not dull and their learning motivation had been increased by using it, and thus, their ability in understanding english narrative text could be increased as well. the result of interview also showed that team teaching gave advantages for teachers and students. for teachers, it could be effective while teaching and learning process was taking place because the teachers could remind each other. then, the teachers could plan good materials to make students understand about english narrative text. besides, the advantages for students were the students could focus on the study because the teachers observed what they did in the class comprehensively. then, the students could receive knowledge not only from the main teacher, but also from the co-teacher. they also could ask both teachers if they found some problems. it is assumed that the aim of applying team teaching in sman 4 banda aceh is not fully to apply team teaching programmed. in fact, as has been widely and publicly disclosed, it was focusing more on teachers’ certification. this is a shortcoming of applying team teaching in sman 4 banda aceh, although it did help students in teaching and learning process. in short, from the test, questionnaire, and interview analysis that showed above, it could be said that the first hypothesis of this thesis was accepted. based on observation, questionnaire and interview analysis, the writer could prove the truth of second hypothesis: there are many strategies of applying team teaching to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative texts. during observation, the writer found that in sman 4 banda aceh applied semi team teaching. it is one of the general strategies to apply team teaching. then, it is also found that there are other strategies exercised by teachers in applying team teaching to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative text. there were; presenting an interesting and understandable topic in every meeting for students. in addition, the result of questionnaire showed that the students said that the teachers often used particular strategies in teaching english narrative text, like making group discussion, reading the legend and translating it, giving regularly the test and games. the students also said that reading english narrative text is a relatively applying team teacing to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative texts 134 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 simple strategy to understand the generic structure of it. the result of interview has also revealed that there are some special strategies done by teachers in applying team teaching, such as asking the students to form groups’ discussion or little circle and requesting the students to comprehend the generic structure of the text before coming to the class. in short, from observation, questionnaire and interview analysis analyzed above, it can be said that the second hypothesis of this thesis was accepted. conclusions as already mentioned in the first part of this paper, the aim of this study was to identify the advantages and to find out the strategies of applying team teaching to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative texts. this study had shown the result that applying team teaching gave more advantages to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative texts. some advantages of team teaching to the first year students of sman 4 banda aceh; (1) team teaching directed the students to focus on the material, the method quite interesting and learning motivation had been increased by using it, so that their ability in understanding english narrative text had also been improved. (2) the students who studied by using team teaching obtained higher score than the students who studied without using team teaching. it means that the students who studied by using team teaching have improved their abilities in understanding english narrative text. (3) the students should focus on the study because the teachers observed what they do in the class comprehensively. (4)the student also received knowledge not only from the main teacher, but also from the co-teacher and they could ask both teachers if there are some problems. also central in this research, that some advantages of team teaching to the teachers of sman 4 banda aceh have also been revealed. one of them is that team teaching could be effective while teaching and learning process was in progress because the teachers could remind each other and they also could provide, plan and prepare good materials for the class. the study also had shown fascinating fact saiful akmal englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 135 that the teacher used many strategies in applying team teaching to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative texts. one of the general team teaching models applied in sman 4 banda aceh applied is the semi team teaching. the special and more specific strategies that had been conducted by the teachers in applying team teaching to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative text were; (1) presenting an interesting and understandable, familiar and real life topics in every meeting for students. (2) creating group discussion and providing regularly test and games. (3) and last but not least, asking the students to comprehend the generic structure of the text before coming to the class. references ahmadi, a., & prasetya. (2005). strategi belajar mengajar. bandung: cv pustaka setia. anderson, m & kathy, a. (1998). text types in english 3, macmillan education australia, 1998 beggs, david w, singer., iii. (1964). team teaching: bold new venture. bloomington: indiana university press. buckley, francis j. (1998). team teaching: what, why, and how? thousand oaks, ca: sage. carter v. good. (1959) dictionary of education, new york: mc. graw hill. graesser et al. (1994). ‘constructing inferences during narrative text comprehension’, psychological review, 101(3). 371-395 maeroff, gene i. (1993). team building for school change. new york: teachers college press. martin h. manser. (1991) oxford learners’ pocket dictionary. oxford: oxford university press ministry of education (2006). the new zealand curriculum: draft for consultation 2006. wellington: learning media limited. paltridge, b. (1996). ‘genre, text type and the language learning classroom’, elt journal, 50(3). 237-243. applying team teacing to improve students’ ability in understanding english narrative texts 136 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 soewalni, s. (2007). team teaching. the paper of applied approach training program 2007 in education development center unas. retrieved from the internet (link unknown). w. rotter., h. bendl. (1978) your companion to english texts: comprehension analysis appreciation production (kollegstufe/abitur/universität), münchen: manz. weimer, maryellen. (1993). improving your classroom teaching. thousand oaks, ca: sage, vellutino, f.r. (2003). individual differences as sources of variability in reading comprehension in elementary school children. in sweet, a. p. & snow, c. e. (eds.). rethinking reading comprehension. london: the guilford press. englisia may 2014 vol. 1 no.2, 270-280 an analysis of students’ free writing  rahmi fhonna universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh abstract writing contains a compound process to be expressed that entails the writer to pay more attention on linking appropriate words together. most linguists agree that a writer should attain high level of understanding to pursue the lifelong learning of academic writing pedagogy. this study aimed to analyze the students’ free writing by identifying the category of mistakes that often appear on their writing assignment. 28 free writings were collected, as the main data, from 28 students as the samples for this study. they were then analyzed by using the guidelines of correction symbols from hogue (1996) and oshima & hogue (1999). the results revealed that 11 categories of grammar that often applied incorrectly on the students’ free writing. the misused of verb-agreement (v/a) was the most frequent category occurred, followed by word form (wf) and spelling (sp). the least category of errors identified on the students’ free writing was conjunction (conj) and wrong word (ww) categories. overall, 175 errors from different grammatical conventions were repeated in the students’ free writing. keywords: free writing, grammatical errors, writing implication introduction writing pedagogy is an essential practice to be taught at any level of education. it represents the students’ ability in collaborating words to make meaning of the language used. with the insight that there is more necessary to understand the process of the writing itself than its product, most students often face some problems regarding this skill. nunan (1999, p. 272) writes that the aspect of writing are the tension between process and product approaches to the teaching of writing, where rahmi fhonna englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 271 product-oriented approaches focus on the final product, the coherent, and error-free text, whereas process approaches stress on steps involved in drafting and redrafting a piece of work. to enhance the students’ attitude and understanding toward the writing approach, therefore, the role of lecturer is very important. to meet the need of succeeding teaching learning process, both variables such as students and lecturer, has to support each other in order to develop a constructive teaching learning circumstance. this is relevant to what le and tam (2007, p. 14) state that teaching encourages students to develop the deep approach to learning which has the following characteristics i) supports independent learning; ii) organizes appropriate learning activities; iii) encourages interaction with others; and iv) uses appropriate assessment practices that reward deep learning and informs students in advance of the required criteria and standards. what is more, the students’ writing in the tertiary context emphasises the way of conceptualising language as well as literacy which inscribed knowledge construction, the nature of generic academic, disciplinary specific and writing practices (lilis, 2003, p.195). it is clear that students should acquire high level of understanding to pursue the lifelong learning of academic writing pedagogy. shields (2010, p. 6) simply describes writing is one of a means of communication displayed in higher education, it must therefore conform to some shared standard and expectations, since the university codes and conventions for behaviour are to determine what is expected in academic writing. this study, consequently, is an attempt to analyze the students’ free writing by identifying the category of mistakes that often appear on their writing assignment. there is one question only to be answered in this study, which is what kind of the category of mistakes appears more often in the students’ free writing? the objective of this study is to identify the category of mistakes that often appear on the students’ free writing. the participants of this study were 28 students in unit 2 of department of english eduation at faculty of tarbiyah and education studies of universitas islam negeri ar-raniry. both the researcher and the participants are familiar with each other since the researcher is the lecturer at this university. this was the reason for selecting them as the samples for this study. another consideration for this was that about the convenience aspect while doing the research. an analysis of students’ free writing 272 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 review of literature many linguists have developed variant of approaches in relation to writing from decades to decades. this is because it requires an appropriate linguistic knowledge in resulting a qualified writing. crinon and marin (2010, p. 111) illustrate that writing includes a particular subject matter to convey the information, which is related to the vocabulary used, and how to organize it, as well as the familiarity with the appropriate genre and strategic understanding. similarly, oshima and hogue (1999, p. 3) claim that writing is not an easy skill, yet it entails study and practice to increase this ability. they also note that writing is a process not a product, which means that a piece of writing is never complete; it is always possible to review and revise, and review and revise again. in fact, writing is not only putting a piece of word down together on a paper (kadesch, dolba, & crowell, 1991, p. 8), but also it requires a deeper understanding in relation to the language used. according to them, the writing process is usually divided into three steps: prewriting, drafting, and revising. harmer (2007, p. 326), similarly, also claims that writing has a complex process containing a range of stages, such as drafting, reviewing, re-drafting and writing. these phases absolutely should be pertained well to acquire a qualified writing. in accordance with this point, hedge (2000, p. 302) states that writing involves several activities, like setting goals, generating ideas, organizing information, selecting appropriate language, making a draft, reading and reviewing, revising and editing. these steps surely not easy for most second language writers. however, practice could make everything easier. another process of writing is also described by leonhard (2002, p. 40) who declares that there are 5 steps in the process of writing; brainstorming, organizing, writing, revising, proofreading and editing. all these processes should be organized well in order to produce a competent writing. the difficulties of producing free writing as one of the type of writings, free writing seems easier to be practiced. indeed, it consists of a number of steps to be concerned to produce ideas that is very beneficial for writing. one of the hardest tasks in writing is getting started (hedge, 2000, p. 308). what make the writing skill, in general, becomes more difficult to be rahmi fhonna englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 273 applied is that its components that should be seriously alert by the writer. brown (2004, p. 218) believes that writing is a unique skill with its own features and conventions, and it is difficult to write ‘well’ in any languages, even in the writers’ first language. this is also pertinent to what nunan (1999, p. 272) asserts that the writer should be able to decide how to package information within a sentence and what grammatical forms to use, regarding tenses and clauses. in order to produce a qualified free writing, the students should set the writing activity accurately. planning and organizing ideas are the essential stages to be concerned on the topics preparatory. the students, then, are expected to engage the whole steps of writing by classifying the ideas based on the need of the writing itself. the teacher, as a consequence, has to assist the students to select the information required to fulfill the tasks as well as helping the students to get their ideas (hedge, 2000, p. 308). at the end, the students are able to produce competent writing without hesitate after practicing more about the context of writing. research methodology this research focused on identifying the mistakes that commonly appear on students’ free writing. the sample of this study was 28 students in their 2nd year study (fourth semester) of english language department at faculty of education and pedagogy of islamic state university ar-raniry. the researcher, moreover, collected the students’ free writings which have been marked as the data required for this study. they were then calculated by using the certain formula. the framework used in this research was adopted from a guideline of correction symbols from hogue (1996) and oshima & hogue (1999). they categorize the mistakes by using certain figusre, which is much related to the grammatical errors, for instance spelling, verb/tense, and many others. the percentage of the whole mistakes found based on each category is then calculated. this is to identify the overall possible mistakes that may occur in the students’ writings and also to rate which category of grammatical conventions that are often misused. accordingly, this study also followed these procedures of analysis. an analysis of students’ free writing 274 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 data collection and analysis the researcher collected students’ free writing assignments with the lecturers’ comments on them, which was documented in both soft and hard copies. the mistakes made were recognized to find out the category of errors that appeared frequently. each student’s free writing contained at least 100 words. in analyzing the students’ writing, the researcher used a guideline of correction symbols, which is developed by hogue (1996) and oshima & hogue (1999) that has been mentioned in section 3.1.2. the study focuses on finding the mistakes that commonly occur in the students’ free writing. there were several different symbols and abbreviations in order to represent the mistakes occur on the students’ free writing, for instance: cap = capitalization vt = verb tense agr = agreement sp = spelling pl = plural uw = unnecessary words wf = word form ww = wrong words prep = preposition conj = conjunction art = article however, the researcher added and combined some abbreviations in this study to avoid the bias of the scoring system, such as pro = pronoun, vt and agr were joined together to be v/a = verb agreement. collocation was also added into category prep (preposition) for the scoring effectiveness. the collected data, then, will be calculated by using the following formula as described by anas (2008, p.43): p = %100x n f description: p = percentage f = frequency n = the number of sample 100% = constant value rahmi fhonna englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 275 discussion this section describes the findings in relation to the mistakes identified in the students’ free writing. 28 sheets of freewriting from different students were analyzed deeply by using the certain symbols and abbreviation, based on hogue (1996) and oshima & hogue (1999) guidelines. the results are shown as in the following table: table 1: number of errors in each category in each sample student no. number of errors in each category total errors v/a pl pro wf art sp prep/c oll conj ww cap uw 1 1 1 2 2 1 1 1 2 5 3 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 8 4 1 1 2 4 5 2 2 4 2 10 6 6 1 7 7 3 3 2 8 8 3 1 1 5 9 1 1 10 6 1 1 2 3 13 11 1 1 2 12 2 1 3 13 1 2 3 1 7 14 1 1 1 1 4 15 1 2 3 16 1 1 1 4 7 17 3 1 1 1 1 1 8 18 3 1 1 1 1 2 2 11 19 5 1 4 10 20 2 1 3 21 2 2 1 5 22 1 2 1 1 5 23 2 1 3 24 4 1 4 2 2 13 25 3 1 1 1 6 26 1 1 3 1 4 10 27 2 1 3 28 4 2 1 1 1 9 totals (%) 51 (29, 1%) 20 (11, 4%) 3 (1, 7%) 24 (13, 7%) 8 (4, 6%) 23 (13, 1%) 13 (7, 4%) 2 (1, 1%) 2 (1, 1%) 10 (5, 7%) 19 (10, 8%) 175 according to the above table, the most common mistakes were identified in the free writing of student no. 10 and 24 (s10 and s 24), which were about 13 errors in different categories. s18 formed 11 mistakes on her writing assignment while s5, s19 and s26 created 10 errors. however, the least mistake was found in s9 free writing, which was 1 error only. the rest of students also experienced the difficulties an analysis of students’ free writing 276 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 in applying the grammatical conventions on their free writing, but the number of errors appeared less than 10. in terms of the category of mistakes that frequently emerged on the students’ free writing, verb-agreement (v/a) was the most common one with the total of 51 (29,1%). wf and sp were the other categories that were mostly used wrongly by the students with the total of 24 and 23 consecutively. pl and uw occurred 20 and 19 times each in the total of the students’ free writing. nevertheless, conj and ww categories were the least mistakes appeared on the students’ free writing with the total of 2 each. pronoun (pro) was another type of errors that was found less than others with the total of 3. prep/coll category occurred 13 times of the total in the students’ free writing. the misused of capitalization (cap) and articles (art) were also detected with the total of 10 and 8 each. from the table, it can be seen that the misused of v/a can be found mostly on s10 free writing with the total of 6 times, which was followed by s15 and s28 with the total of 5 and 4 each. pl was found mostly on s24 writing assignment with a total of 4 errors. pro was the category that was misused by 3 students; s2, s3 and s4, with the total of 1 mistake each. s6 had a difficulty in utilizing wf category on her free writing since the mistake appeared 6 times repeatedly. compared to the other students’ writing, s3 made the most mistakes regarding the use of article on her free writing with the total of 3 errors. s19 and s24 applied sp category carelessly that the errors found 4 times each on their assignments. the number of misused of prep/coll, additionally, was almost the same among students, where there was 1 or 2 errors found regarding this category on their writing. these mistakes can be seen on s2, s3, s10, s16, s18, s22, s24, s26, and s28 free writing. surprisingly, the category of conj and ww were the least mistakes discovered on the students’ writing. s3 and s8 had 1 error each for conj, meanwhile s1 and s8 also made 1 mistake each for ww. on the other hand, the most common mistake indicated in s16 writing was cap, with the total of 4 errors. the last category, which was uw, was appeared frequently on s26 free writing assignment with the total of 4 errors as well. rahmi fhonna englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 277 the results it is clear that this study aims to identify the category of mistakes that often appear on the students’ free writing. the results show that the students experienced some difficulties in applying various rules of grammatical conventions. it is assumed that these difficulties were resulted from their familiarity with the writing activity. it is believed that the more they practiced the more they experienced. this is relevant to what hedge (2000, p. 167) states that practice can contribute to implicit grammatical knowledge and it allows learners to be familiar with the rules involved as well as developing the learners’ ability to use a rule accurately and automatically in production. what is more, the results also demonstrated that there were 11 categories of mistakes that occurred frequently on the students’ free writing. v/a was the category that often misused by the students, followed by wf and sp. these categories, essentially, are the vital aspect in writing since they characterize the language used and symbolize the writers’ ability in mastering the writing skill. the students, therefore, should pay more attention in applying these categories into writing in order to avoid misunderstanding. pl and uw were other categories that regularly appeared on students’ free writing. this indicates that the students’ first language influence their writing immensely. it cannot be denied that the students face serious problems to produce a qualified writing in their first language, and it is worsen when they have to write in the second even in the third language, as writing is a process which requires specific knowledge for specific field of study (schleppegrell, 2004, as cited in ravelli & ellis, 2004, p.173; gilmore, 2009, p. 363). the students, thus, should be aware of using this category of grammar. in addition, the writing will be more advantageous when the students can insert the other categories of grammar perfectly, such as the use of capitalization, preposition/collocation, pronoun, conjunction and articles. although these categories seem easy, they are tricky and trapped. likewise, the choice of words is also important to construct a good writing. even though this category (ww) of mistake was one of the an analysis of students’ free writing 278 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 least common emerged on the students’ writing, it signified the students’ vocabulary mastery. conclusion based on the investigation, it can be concluded that the students experienced various problems in using the grammar conventions on their writing. numerous categories were used improperly, for instance v/a (verb-agreement), spelling, plurals, articles, capitalization, conjunction, preposition/collocation, and pronoun. with respect to vocabulary used, some students also find it difficult to select the appropriate words, which resulted in producing poor writing. the category of v/a was the most common mistakes found on the students’ writing, followed by wf and sp. conj and ww, nevertheless, were the least category of errors identified on the students’ free writing. as this study is limited, it is expected that future studies should investigate deeper analysis of students’ writing. the research should involve a wider number of participants and scope to gain better understanding on the students’ writing problem. it is also suggested to link the research about writing with the lecturers’ feedback in order to acquire two ways analysis of the writing activity. rahmi fhonna englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 279 references anas, s. (2008). pengantar statistika pendidikan. jakarta: raja grafindo persada. brown, h. d. (2004). language assessment: principles and classroom practices. new york: longman. crinon, j., & marin, b. (2010). the role of peer feedback in learning to write explanatory texts: why the tutors learn the most. language awareness, 19 (2): 111-128. gilmore, a. (2009). using online corpora to develop students’ writing skills. elt journal, 63 (4): 363-370. harmer, j. (2007). the practice of english language teaching (4th eds). harlow: pearson education limited. hedge, t. (2000). teaching and learning in the language classroom. oxford: oxford university press. hogue, a. (1996). first steps in academic writing. new york: longman. kadesch, m. c., kolba, e. d., & crowell, s. c. (1991). insights into academic writing: strategies for advanced students. new york: longman. le, k. n., & tam, v. w. y. (2001). a survey on effective assessment methods to enhance student learning. australasian journal of engineering education, 13 (2): 13-20. leonhard, b. h. (2002). discoveries in academic writing. singapore: heinle & heinle. lilis, t. (2003). student writing as ‘academic literacies’: drawing on bakhtin to move from critique to design. language and education, 17 (3): 192-207. nunan, d. (1999). second language teaching and learning. florence, ky: heinle & heinle publishers. oshima, a., & hogue, n. (1999). writing academic english (3rd eds). new york: longman. schleppegrell, m. j. (2004). technical writing in a second language: the role of grammatical metaphor. in ravelli, l. j., & ellis, r. a. (eds). analyzing academic writing: contextualized framework. 172-189. london: continuum. shields, m. (2010). essay writing: a student’s guide. london: sage publications. englisia may 2014 vol. 1 no.2, 297-307 the influence of language use and  language attitude on the  maintenance of community  languages spoken by migrant  students  leni amelia suek universitas nusa cendana kupang, ntt abstract the maintenance of community languages of migrant students is heavily determined by language use and language attitudes. the superiority of a dominant language over a community language contributes to attitudes of migrant students toward their native languages. when they perceive their native languages as unimportant language, they will reduce the frequency of using that language even though at home domain. solutions provided for a problem of maintaining community languages should be related to language use and attitudes of community languages, which are developed mostly in two important domains, school and family. hence, the valorization of community language should be promoted not only in family but also school domains. several programs such as community language school and community language program can be used for migrant students to practice and use their native languages. since educational resources such as class session, teachers and government support are limited; family plays significant roles to stimulate positive attitudes toward community language and also to develop the use of native languages. keywords: language use, language attitude, community language, language maintenance migrant students. introduction due to the demand of globalization where communication across nations and cultures are significantly increasing, the use of english as a medium of worldthe influence of language use and language attitude on the maintenance of community languages spoken by migrant students 298 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 wide communication is also getting higher. one of the implications of globalization is migration of people from one country to another. the migration does not just have significant impacts on economics and politics but also to language and cultural issues. being immigrants means being bilinguals or multilinguals; and those who speak two languages or more have certain attitudes to languages that they speak. when they speak the languages, they also carry either positive or negative attitudes toward their native languages, first languages, or second languages. language use and attitude have certain impacts on the maintenance of their native languages or community languages. it was estimated that there are around 6000 languages spoken worldwide; unfortunately, half of them are in a state of loss (krauss, 1992; mackey, 1991; moseley & asher, 1994; wurm, 1996). this language loss is caused by less preservation of the languages. the process of language loss is getting rapid when the owners of the languages are reluctant to use the languages. in order to inhibit this process, certain actions should be taken. in this paper, community languages refer to native languages or first languages of migrants who live and study in english speaking countries. the aim of this paper is to discuss the influence of language use and language attitudes on the maintenance of community languages. in addition, recommendation and solution on how to promote maintenance of community languages will be elaborated. those solutions will be supported by theories and research presented in literature review section. some research on language use, language attitudes, and maintenance of community languages will be included as theoretical foundations. contexts of the problems it is argued that social psychological factors influence language behavior (lawson, 2004). those who are bilinguals or multilinguals have to make a certain decision on what language they should speak when they attend a conversation. this leni amelia suek englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 299 decision is made by referring to social factors such as topics of conversation and interlocutors, and also psychological factors such as their perceived identity and attitude to the language. other factors such as their language competence and degree of contact with people who speak the languages also influence the decision-making. research in english speaking countries shows that migrant students have a propensity to speak in english than their mother tongues because of language competence, language use, domain of conversation, perceived identity, degree of contact (lawson, 2004). in addition, it is commonly a case that second language is more dominant than first language of students who are coming from minority language background (riagain, 2008). society perception on community languages contributes to the formation of attitudes of the speakers of those languages. if the society has positive attitudes on community languages, the native speakers of those languages feel accepted in the society; consequently, they feel allowed to speak the languages. it is asserted that, intrinsically, there is noting in a language that makes it superior or inferior (hamers & blanc, 2005) because language attitude depends on social judgment (riagain, 2008; tse, 2000). when community languages are not valued, one of the disadvantages of being bilingual or multilingual is the minimal use of and also negative attitudes toward their native languages, which contributes to language loss. the maintenance of the languages is a challenging task because this requires government, education and family support. the problem is that how to maintain community languages in relation to language use and language attitudes. literature review several studies have been conducted to provide empirical evidences that language use, language attitudes, and language maintenance have sound relation. school and families are mentioned as two key domains to promote the maintenance of community languages. lawson conducted two series of study to find out the influence of social psychological factors on the multlingual behavior of second-generation adolescents of sylheti-bangladeshi origin living in london (2004). the first study was conducted to the influence of language use and language attitude on the maintenance of community languages spoken by migrant students 300 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 reveal the pattern of language use of those sylheti-bangladeshi students. the results show that english was used at most in all domains except family or home with all interlocutors except older relatives. bengali was moderately used and unfortunately sylheti, which is their native language, was rarely used. it was also reported that code mixing happened in all domains except with older relatives. the second study provides a rationale why english was used in most of the domains. the result reveals that because of their competence in english is higher than bengali and sylheti, they preferred to speak english in most of the occasions. in addition, the observation indicated that contact with english speakers is higher than speakers of bengali and sylheti, language vitality of english is greater than bengali and sylheti, and english and bengali were more important to their group identity than sylheti. sociolinguistic aspects such setting, topic, interlocutor; and social psychological variables such language competence, degree of contact, perceived identity, language vitality, influences language behavior. in relation to maintenance of community languages, this study provides an evidence that language use of their community language is lesser than english as a dominant language. this is because they only use the language at home particularly when they speak to elderly. in terms of language attitude, they do not perceive their mother tongue, sylheti, as unimportant language to their group identity. another study on language use revealed that the pattern of language use is frequently determined by dominant language group, because it is required for social and economic development (riagain, 2008). in addition, it is asserted that schooling affects the use of community languages. since english was the only language in the classroom, their proficiency of community languages is gradually decreasing (taumoefolau, starks, davis, & bell, 2002). even, at home which is a primary domain where community language is maintained, the migrants students sometimes do code mixing or even respond in english. in relation to problem discussed in this paper, schools play significant roles in promoting maintenance of community languages. besides school and society judgment, in his study, pauwels discussed the role of the family in maintaining the community languages (2005). she argued that family is a cornerstone for the acquisition and also maintenance of community lanleni amelia suek englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 301 guages in australia (pauwels, 2005). there are several challenges faced by family in maintaining the community languages such as proficiency of community languages particularly the second-generation parents, the amount of effort in devoted to maintain the language, and community attitudes toward language maintenance (pauwels, 2005). however, she also mentioned some successful strategies that can be applied to maintain the community languages. those strategies include persistence of use, consistency of language use and also parental use of teaching and learning technique. solutions and recommendations minimal maintenance of community languages will lead to language loss and language shift. it is argued that there is a potential shift in the languages toward the language of dominant culture after couple of years (taumoefolau et al., 2002). studies show that community is actually aware of language loss of their community languages and they want to keep the languages alive (lawson, 2004; taumoefolau et al., 2002). hence, actions should be taken to maintain the community languages. it is argued that the maintenance of language is heavily determined by language use and attitudes. the language use increases when positive attitudes toward the language is developed, and this leads to language maintenance (choi, 2003). therefore, solutions provided for a problem of maintenance of community languages should be related to language use and attitudes of community languages. the development of language use of community language and positive attitudes on native languages occurs mostly in two important domains, school and family. hence, the solution of the problem of maintenance of community language in relation to language use and attitude should be provided in a basis of those two domains. the preservation of community languages can be conducted through education (clyne, hunt, & isaakidis, 2004; li, 2006). it is argued that the higher the language competence, the higher the language use (lawson, 2004). language competence of community languages can be gained through community language program. community language schools are apparently one of the best places to provide huge opportunity for bilingual or multilingual children to learn their native the influence of language use and language attitude on the maintenance of community languages spoken by migrant students 302 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 languages. even though the role and position of community languages are still uncertain and vulnerable, this after-hour language schools can be a solution to maintain community languages because these schools are places where they can learn not only their mother tongue but also the culture (cardona, noble, & biase, 2008). for example in australia, these schools offer 47 languages for more than 32000 students who also enrolled in more than 400 schools in new south wales. in addition, these community language schools are recognized and also funded by nsw community languages school board (cardona et al., 2008). these schools conduct the classes at local primary schools in the area and operate after school hours on weekdays or saturdays. beside community language schools, language education program, preschool language nest and bilingual programs can places for migrant students to learn their native languages (lao, 2004; taumoefolau et al., 2002). in new zealand, there are several pacific language education programs in certain regions. in addition, there are also pre-school nests and bilingual programs of four largest pasifika languages (taumoefolau et al., 2002). these language education programs are operated to function as domain to practice and learn community languages in new zealand. this is important because those languages are currently in a state of gradual loss. since the maintenance of native languages cannot merely relied on schoolbased programs, practicing those languages at home domain is a crucial factor. it is argued that linguists should take certain actions to prevent loss of community languages (lao, 2004). however, native speakers themselves are the key actors of maintaining their own languages. this is because the linguists’ role is to conduct research and reveal the results as a theoretical foundation to solve the challenges in maintaining community languages. the action itself should be taken by the owner of the community languages. in this case, parents have significant contributions to promote the use of their native languages to their children. at home, they need to speak in their mother tongue (cardona et al., 2008; tse, 2000). however, sometime parents do not really preserve the languages by allowing the children to speak in dominant languages at home. some suggestion proposed by (lao, 2004) that parents can develop their children literacy of mother tongue since early childhood. leni amelia suek englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 303 in addition, strategies proposed by pauwels (2005) are valuable, for example, parents need to develop persistency and consistency in using the community languages in their daily conversations at home. parents should strict to the rule that their children should speak in their mother tongue at home. teaching and learning techniques also can be used to teach their children the native languages. modeling and rehearsing is two keys factors contribute to the development of language use and attitudes. parents might make the process of practicing and using language in a more motivating ways by introducing word games, providing storybooks, interactive videos or computer games. in addition, for parents who do not speak the native languages fluently because they are the second or third generation of the tribe, they can take several actions, such as asking native people to teach their children or they can learn the native languages together (lao, 2004). the degree of contact to the speakers of community languages needs to be increased in order to develop the use of community languages. one of the reason why english is dominant than community languages is because the migrant students of the language have less contact with the speakers of their native languages (lawson, 2004). in school they always speak in english while they do not have huge opportunity to practice their community languages either at home or other domains. besides attending community language schools, certain events or regions can be created to gather people to speak community languages on a regular basis inside and outside home. in new zealand, the area of manukau is called “linguistic enclave’’, this is a place where those who are coming from same ethnicity meet and speak their community languages (taumoefolau et al., 2002). this provides an opportunity for migrant students to practice their language outside home. this also develops their sense of belonging to their community languages that may lead to the development of positive attitudes to those languages. this is a key factor to promote the maintenance of community languages by providing opportunity to use the language. those solutions and recommendations given above are well supported but also have certain limitations. community language schools or community language programs may face challenges like fund, teachers, resources, and infrastructures. at home, there are some parents who might have lack of awareness of the importance the influence of language use and language attitude on the maintenance of community languages spoken by migrant students 304 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 of maintenance of their native languages. in addition, pressures from the society who reject the use of community languages in public domain as well as the negative attitudes of the community toward the community languages are also problematic. parents also might not persistent and consistent in assisting their children to use their community languages. loss of community language is inevitably; however, those recommendations have been proven to be effective measures to at least halt down the process of language loss (cardona et al., 2008; pauwels, 2005; taumoefolau et al., 2002). conclusion in conclusion, being bilinguals or multinguals does not only have positive but negative sides as well. one of the negative sides is lacking of the maintenance of the community languages. this is due to insufficient use of the languages and negative attitudes toward the languages. the maintenance of community languages is heavily determined by language use and language attitudes of people who speak the language. the dominance of dominant language over community language contributes to attitudes of migrant students toward their native languages. when they perceive their native languages as unimportant language, the will reduce the frequency of using that language even though at home domain. hence, the valorization of community language should be promoted not only in family but also school domains. several programs such as community language school and community language program can be places for migrant students to practice and use their native languages. since educational resources such as class session, teachers and government support are limited; family plays significant roles to stimulate positive attitudes toward community language and also to develop the use of native languages. leni amelia suek englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 305 references cardona, b., noble, g., & biase, b. d. (2008). community languages matter: challenges and opportunities facing the community languages program in new south wales. penrith south: the university of western sydney. choi, j. k. (2003). language attitudes and the future bilingualism: the case of paraguay. international journal of bilingual education and bilingualism, 6(2), 81-94. clyne, m., hunt, c. r., & isaakidis, t. (2004). learning a community language as a third language. international journal of multilingualism, 1(1), 33-52. hamers, j. f., & blanc, m. h. a. (2005). bilinguality and bilingualism. cambridge: cambridge university press. krauss, m. (1992). the world's languages in crisis. language, 68(1), 6-10. lao, c. (2004). parents' attitudes toward chinese-english bilingual education and chinese-language use. bilingual research journal: the journal of the national association for bilingual education, 28(1), 99-121. lawson, s. (2004). identity, language use, and attitudes some sylheti-bangladeshi data from london, uk. journal of language and social psychology, 23(1), 49-69. li, w. (2006). complementary schools, past, present and future. language education, 20(1), 76-83. mackey, w. f. (1991). language diversity, language policy and sovereign state. history of european ideas, 13(1), 51-61. moseley, c., & asher, r. e. (1994). atlas of the world's languages. london: routledge. pauwels, a. (2005). maintaining the community language in australia: challenges and roles for families. international journal of bilingual education and bilingualism, 8(2), 124-131. riagain, p. o. (2008). language attitudes and minority languages. in j. cenoz & n. h. hornberger (eds.), encyclopaedia of language and education (vol. 6, pp. 329-341): springer science+business media llc. taumoefolau, m., starks, d., davis, k., & bell, a. (2002). linguists and language maintenance: pasifika languages in manukau, new zealand. oceanic linguistics, 41(1), 15-27. the influence of language use and language attitude on the maintenance of community languages spoken by migrant students 306 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 tse, l. (2000). the effects of ethnic identity formation on bilingual maintenance and development: an analysis of asian american narratives. international journal of bilingual education and bilingualism, 3(3), 185-200. wurm, s. a. (1996). atlas of the world's languages in danger in disappearing. paris: unesco publishing. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2020. vol. 7, no. 2, 116-131 developing speaking skill: barriers faced by the bangladeshi efl learners md. mohsin mridha senior assistant secretary, government of bangladesh mridhamohsin@gmail.com sheikh md. muniruzzaman * lecturer, department of english, bangabandhu sheikh mujibur rahman science and technology university, bangladesh smmzaman@bsmrstu.edu.bd manuscript received january 24, 2020, revised april 14, 2020, first published may 18, 2020, and available online may 21, 2020. doi: 10.22373/ej.v7i2.6257 recommended apa citation mridha, md. m., & muniruzzaman, s. md. (2020). developing speaking skill: barriers faced by the bangladeshi efl learners. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 7(2), 116-131. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v7i2.6257 abstract this study aims at investigating the prevailing barriers for developing english speaking skill faced by the undergraduate students in bangladesh. the attempt was to locate the importance of speaking proficiency in english as one of the basic skills of a language in this “english” era. in this global age, the use of english has been inevitable and more often we cannot but use english in different phases of our life. but bangladeshi efl learners often fail to attain proper speaking proficiency for some reasons. the reasons behind the incompetence in speaking skill are many and some of them are the influence of mother tongue, lack of vocabulary, lack of practice, unfavorable environment, teachers‟ non-cooperation, shyness, fear, language „fossilization‟ etc. moreover, students do not get the opportunity to develop english speaking skill in a „natural‟ environment. the nature of the study is quantitative and the data collection tool is a questionnaire. this paper pinpoints all those problems and presents plausible recommendations in order for developing english speaking skill. keywords: speaking; efl learners; barriers; fossilization * corresponding author mailto:mridhamohsin@gmail.com mailto:smmzaman@bsmrstu.edu.bd https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v7i2.6257 https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v7i2.6257 md. mohsin mridha & sheikh md. muniruzzaman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020|117 1. introduction english has become the most widespread means of communication in the world from the beginning of the second world war. it is the most widely used „lingua franca‟ in the present world. it is no longer in the unique possession of the english or the american; rather it is the language of the global world now (shahidulla et al, 2001). hence, english has been an integral part of our teaching and curriculum system. the teaching of english has traditionally been considered as teaching and making the students aware of certain language aspects such as grammar, vocabulary, translation etc. in this way, the students are hardly provided with adequate practice in the development of communicative skill through speaking. as a result, after years of study, students have known a great deal about english without being able to use it to express their thoughts and intentions. the language is usually studied in its written manifestation and often the conversation skill is set aside. moreover, aspects of the spoken language are taught in a very superficial way. teachers also prefer to teach writing elements as it is the most conventional form to teach (rivers, 1968). for this reason, many teachers give up the attempt to teach speaking skill and concentrate on the writing aspects. there are also several techniques of developing conversational skill and these are often skipped in our teaching and learning system. for all, english is a matter of dire importance, our learners can hardly attain competency in english especially in speaking skill. as an independent nation, we do possess our mother tongue which has rather a glorious history as well as recognition. nevertheless, it is a demand of time to make english widespread among the learners after bangla. prior to 1971, the medium of learning was english (khan, 2003). after independence, bangla received the constitutional recognition in the newly born state as for linguistic nationalism. consequently, english learning in the country started to deteriorate. during the past five decades, multifarious policies were attempted to make it more effective. but the situation is yet to reach up to the mark. the downward situation of english proficiency is one of the prime issues of the education policy in the country. keeping the situation in mind, a number of changes in the textbooks and syllabus have been made to gear up the situation. many seminars, conferences and teachers‟ training workshops have been arranged from time to time that seem to be of no use. that language is primarily for communication is known to everybody and thus speaking is the elementary skill in any language. in recent years, the emerging and ever increasing importance of speaking skill in english both in educational and corporate areas has drawn our attention to the development of this skill. english has been made compulsory from the primary level in bangladesh, but the outcome is not much satisfactory and it is still under working. after the completion of university education, our graduates can hardly speak in english and they can hardly prove their conversational worth. but the demand from the corporate area is that they often need people with good command of english and having a good developing english speaking skills: barriers faced by the bangladeshi efl learners 118|englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 proficiency in conversational skill. in the long run, both the employers and the employees suffer and they start learning english again getting admitted to english learning centres. eventually, our educational system has not proved its efficiency in making our students apt in speaking english. few years back, our curriculum and syllabus were not in the favor of contextual communication system. it was rather grammar translation method of teaching where speaking, though an important skill, was set aside. communicative language teaching approach was introduced in our country in 1997 (ahmed, 2003). although speaking is an important skill, it has not been yet included in our syllabus and public examination system of ssc and hsc levels † . so, this important skill has to be re-examined and emphasized properly. the study tries to examine the existing problems and the causes underlying them. the study will also recommend some measures in order to minimize those problems and develop conversational skills in english. 2. literature review this section presents an overview of related literature including problems in developing speaking skill, importance of speaking as a skill and related research. conversations serve a variety of purposes (rivers, 1968). the different kinds of conversational interactions can be divided into those in which the primary focus is on the exchange of information (transactional) and those in which the primary purpose is to establish and maintain social relations (interactional) (brown & yule, 1983). however, the teaching of speaking skill is affected by whether the primary purposes involved are transactional or interactional. according to krashen‟s (quoted in ellis, 1985) monitor hypothesis input (listening) supersedes output (speaking). a number of factors such as fear, fatigue, inattention etc. affect one‟s speaking skill. practice in the process of learning speaking is also an important factor to be done. students should be encouraged for free practice. as the student becomes more and more independent of his thoughts and ideas, he should be encouraged to practice talking to himself and thinking in the foreign language as often as possible: describing to himself the things he sees on the way to school, recounting to himself what he has done during the day or what he intends to do. the forging of the instrument is not enough to prepare the student for the act of speaking in the foreign language; he needs guided practice (richards, 1990). the more one practices, the more one improves his/her own oral skill as well as helps others improve their skill. the ideal way for one to develop the speaking skill to the fullest is to go and live among the people who speak the language. for an average student it is hardly possible to have frequent contact with native speakers of the language in his own country. we can, however, import to him in the classroom with † ssc means secondary school certificate and hsc means higher secondary certificate in bangladesh md. mohsin mridha & sheikh md. muniruzzaman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020|119 basic attitudes and fundamental skills upon which one can build rapidly when the opportunity for real communication presents itself. speaking is an act of communication we are influenced by our environmental cues (richards, 1990). feedback from the teacher is considered very important in developing speaking, because feedback from a listener (facial expression, interoperations etc.) gives us indications of the meaning he is extracting. if the student has an unsympathetic relationship with his teacher or does not feel homely with his classmates, s/he may feel that what s/he would like to say can be of little interest to them or would not be appreciated by them (richards, 1990). congenial environment for free speaking is next to nothing in developing speaking skill in any language. in some places, free conversations may cause unpleasantness and embarrassment for speakers or for the people with whom they are conversing. psychological experiment has shown that people are more likely to continue a conversation when other people agree than when they disagree (verplanck, 1955). success in a language is measured in terms of the ability to carry out a conversation in the (target) language. therefore, if students do not learn how to speak or do not get any opportunity to speak in the language in the classroom, they may soon get demotivated and lose interest in learning. on the other hand, if the right activities are taught in the right way, speaking in class can be a lot of fun, raising general learner motivation and making the english language classroom an effective and dynamic place (nunan, 2003). some other aspects contribute to speaking as well. for example, speaking and listening are complementary language skills (brown & yule, 1983). certain psychological factors which enter interpersonal communication are highly relevant to the process of developing speaking abilities in a foreign language. in a class group, the teacher must be alert to recognize personality factors which are affecting participation in foreign language discussion. some students are talkative, others are shy or taciturn. these characteristics affect student performance in the oral part of the lesson. it has been noted that the talkative extroverts among missionaries learned language faster than quiet and studious people (nida, 1957). 3. research questions the research questions of the study are the following: a. what are the barriers bangladeshi efl learners encounter while attempting to develop speaking skill? b. what is the importance of speaking skill in english? c. why are most of the students of bangladesh inefficient in speaking skill? d. how suitable are the present syllabus and curriculum system of the secondary and higher secondary levels for developing conversational skill? developing english speaking skills: barriers faced by the bangladeshi efl learners 120|englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 4. rationale of the study this research is an authentic scenario of the efl learners in bangladesh. different linguistic factors of second or foreign language learning have been investigated in this research. this is a potential source of study for the teachers, teachers‟ trainers, stakeholders, policy makers, and researchers who want to carry out further research on language learning. furthermore, the ministry of education, national curriculum and textbook board (nctb), and different educational institutions could benefit from this research. 5. limitation of the study there are some limitations of this research. the limitations can be mentioned as follows: a. some students might not provide real information about their competence. they were asked about the classroom environment and teachers' performance. in this case, they might get feared if the results were disclosed to their teachers though there was no option for respondents' names in the questionnaire. some students were not familiar with research activities and thus they took the survey as merely time waste. b. the survey has been conducted on the students of departments under the faculty of arts and humanities. it would be convenient if the survey could be extended to other faculties and a comparative study could be made. c. another limitation of the study is that the data have been collected from students studying in five departments and coming from different parts of the country, but they will represent the bangladeshi students in general. d. because of the shortage of time, detailed interviews with teachers have not been possible. 6. methodology of the study the study is a quantitative research and hence it incorporates field work. for collecting data, a survey as part of the study was carried out for ten days in five departments under the faculty of arts and humanities at jahangirnagar university, bangladesh. 6.1 subjects the participants of the survey include 100 students. they were selected from five departments; 20 students from each department. the students were selected from the departments of bangla, history, philosophy, international relations and archaeology other than english department. the students studying in the english department have been excluded, because they do not represent the general students of bangladesh. all the students were selected from 38th batch (ba honors, 3rd year) as they study in the middle of bachelor program and serve the best purpose of the survey. there was a balance of gender in conducting the research. there were a few indigenous md. mohsin mridha & sheikh md. muniruzzaman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020|121 students among the participants. they all hailed from different parts of the country and hence they all could represent the overall learning situation of the country within a limited scope. english is a language primarily used for communication and so it is studied under the faculty of arts and humanities. 6.2 instruments a questionnaire was used to collect data. the questionnaire contained three types of questions and there were total 13 questions or statements. the subjects were required to answer those questions by putting a tick mark on the appropriate answer. they could answer single option for question number 1-3 and they could choose multiple options for question number 13. they were asked questions or statements about their present speaking performance, their classroom environment, teachers‟ cooperation and performance, their past activities in the english classroom at ssc and hsc levels, their opinion about the contribution of ssc and hsc syllabus and textbooks to develop conversational skill etc. students‟ background information was also taken in the questionnaire. but there was no option for students‟ names for maintaining confidentiality. 6.3 procedure the survey was conducted directly going to the respondents and the duration of the survey was ten days. the purpose of the survey was clarified to the respondents at first. then, the items of the questionnaire were clarified to them. it took them 8-10 minutes to answer the questions. however, many of them were found very enthusiastic in answering the questions. the data analysis framework of the study is as follows: table 1 data analysis framework research tools nature of data sample size sampling procedure mode of analysis approach of analysis questionnaire quantitative 100 purposive statistical analysis (%), organizing, identifying thematic analysis 7. presentation of the findings mutual understanding or mutual communication or transfer of message is the prime concern in any language. in this regard, speaking, one of the four skills of a language meets the purpose best as it is the primary and most direct way of communication in any language. thus, the first statement in the questionnaire is that speaking is very essential in english language. the respondents were asked how developing english speaking skills: barriers faced by the bangladeshi efl learners 122|englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 strongly they agree or disagree with the statement. nearly 81.71 % respondents strongly agreed with the statement and another 18.29% respondents agreed. it is important to note down here that nobody disagreed with this statement. table 2 speaking skill in english is essential. strongly agree agree neutral disagree strongly disagree 81.71% 18.29% the second question was about the speaking skill of the respondents. the respondents were asked if they could speak in english and if they could, how fluently they could speak while communicating with others. the survey shows a staggering ratio of their competency in speaking skill. it shows that only 5.76% respondents could speak english fluently. another 19.23% respondents could speak english moderately, 43.26% respondents could speak english little and another 21.15% respondents spoke very little. again, 10.57% respondents were unable to speak english and they were not capable of making any communication with others through speaking in english. table 3 can you speak english? fluently moderately little very little unable 5.76% 19.23% 43.26% 21.15% 10.57% in developing speaking skill, practice and contextual conversation play important roles. conversations with classmates and peers enable them to develop their skills. to find out the information, respondents were asked if they conversed with their classmates. the findings show that 9.52% respondents never speak with their classmates, 29.52% respondents rarely speak with their classmates, and 53.33% respondents speak sometimes, 6.67% respondents speak often and only 0.95% respondents speak english always. table 4 do you speak english with your classmates? never rarely sometimes often always 9.52% 29.52% 53.33% 6.67% 0.95% md. mohsin mridha & sheikh md. muniruzzaman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020|123 in bangladesh, students often use bangla naturally for communication. very few students use only english while communicating with others for some reasons. some students may use other languages such as chakma or other indigenous languages. this question was asked in order to note what type of language they use if they communicate with their friends or classmates. their answers show that nearly 63.20% respondents use both bangla and english for communication, 33.01% respondents use only bangla, and 3.79% respondents use other languages, for instance chakma language. but the number of respondents speaking only english for communication is nil. table 5 what type of language do you use if you communicate with your friends or classmates? both bangla and english only bangla only english others 63.20% 33.01% nil 3.79% a question about teachers and their performance in the classroom was asked because teachers‟ role in language learning class is very important. teacher talks and learners learn language through mimicry and repetition. this question was asked specially to know if our efl teachers practice themselves and make the learners practice in the classroom. about 1.86% respondents opine that teachers never use english in the classroom. 15.88% respondents opine that teachers use english in the classroom rarely. another 64.48% respondents opine that their teachers use english sometimes in the classroom. then, 15.88% respondents assert that their teachers use english often and only 1.90% respondents assert that their teachers use english always in the classroom. table 6 how often does your teacher use english in the classroom? never rarely sometimes often always 1.86% 15.88% 64.48% 15.88% 1.90% in order to develop speaking skill, learners are required to speak in the classroom. classroom speaking consolidates their conversational skill since they grow perfect speaker through practice, group discussion etc. this very specific question was asked to know if they have to speak english in the classroom. 26.16% respondents never speak in the classroom, 30.84% respondents speak rarely, 35.51% respondents speak sometimes, 4.67% respondents speak often and only 2.82% respondents always speak english in the classroom. developing english speaking skills: barriers faced by the bangladeshi efl learners 124|englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 table 7 do you have to speak english in the classroom? never rarely sometimes often always 26.16% 30.84% 35.51% 4.67% 2.82% any language comprises four skillsreading, writing, listening and speaking. reading and listening are considered as input whereas writing and speaking are considered as output skills. our ssc or hsc syllabus does not tend to put equal stress on all the four language skills. hence, the respondents were asked if they think it is necessary to put equal stress on all the four language skills in the ssc and hsc syllabus. 54.45% respondents strongly agreed with the notion that it is necessary to put equal stress on all the four language skills. 36.63% respondents agreed, 6.93% respondents were neutral and 1.99% respondents disagreed with the statement. table 8 it is necessary to put equal stress on all the four language skills in the ssc and hsc syllabus. strongly agree agree neutral disagree strongly disagree 54.45% 36.63% 6.93% 1.99% nil the textbooks in the ssc and hsc levels and their efficiency are important to be considered, i.e. how sufficient they are for developing speaking skills. the respondents were asked to opine with the statement that the textbooks in the ssc and hsc are not sufficient for developing english skill. 35.92% respondents strongly agreed with the statement that the textbooks are not sufficient for developing students‟ speaking skill. 47.57% respondents agreed with the statement, 9.71% respondents were neutral and another 6.80% respondents disagreed with the statement. table 9 the textbooks in the ssc and hsc are not sufficient for developing speaking skills. strongly agree agree neutral disagree strongly disagree 35.92% 47.57% 9.71% 6.80% nil md. mohsin mridha & sheikh md. muniruzzaman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020|125 the overall english proficiency among our students is not satisfactory and even after obtaining the highest degree from university they fail to communicate through speaking with others. obviously, there are many reasons for such incompetence in the oral skill of english. some of them are more problematic and they should be overcome. in this question, there are multiple answers and the respondents were asked to define the main reasons for lacking proficiency in english from the answers. table 10 what do you think are the main reasons of lacking competency in english? lack of lack of syllabus fear unfavorable lack of nonspeaking practice vocabulary does not environment good cooperation is emphasize teachers from considered teachers less important 90.91% 68.18% 68.18% 50% 50% 50% 45.45% 27.21% the respondents think that lack of practice (90.91%) is the main reason for lacking proficiency in english. then, lack of vocabulary (68.18%) and our defective syllabus (68.18%) that does not emphasize on speaking are also responsible for lacking competency. in addition to these, fear (50%), unfavorable environment (50%), and lack of good teachers (50%) are responsible. again, non-cooperation from teachers (45.45%) and the notion of many students that speaking is not so important in our country (27.21%) are also responsible for lacking competency in english speaking skill. spontaneity is important while using english for communication in any situation. if a student does not feel comfortable while using english with others, his or her competence level may go down in the tertiary level. this particular question was asked to observe how favorable the environment of the respondents is and if they feel comfortable in using english in the classroom. do you feel comfortable in using english in the classroom? among them, 35.84% respondents replied in the affirmative that they feel comfortable using english in the classroom. but 64.16% respondents replied in the negative that they do not feel comfortable using english in the classroom. this question is about the english classes at schools and colleges of the respondents. students should practise speaking from their school level. since language learning is more fruitful before puberty, according to lenneberg‟s critical period hypothesis (quoted in ellis, 1985), our school and college teachers‟ role in this case is very important. this question was asked in order to know if they used to speak english in their english classes at schools and colleges. developing english speaking skills: barriers faced by the bangladeshi efl learners 126|englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 did you use to speak english in english classes at school and college? 40.38% respondents replied in the affirmative that they used to speak english. but 59.62% respondents replied in the negative that they did not use to speak english in their english classes at schools and colleges. of late, english speaking courses run by different coaching centres and institutes have been introduced. the mushrooming of coaching centers throughout the country is the direct indication that our students do not feel that their academic classes are sufficient for learning english. this very question was asked to the respondents if they have done any english speaking course so far. have you done any english speaking course so far? 26.67% respondents replied in the affirmative that they have done english speaking course and 73.33% respondents replied in the negative that they have not done any english speaking course so far. 8. analyses of the findings speaking or conversation is a “multifaceted activity” (richards, 1990). it includes production of message, transmission of message, decoding of message and reception of message. in speaking, a speaker transmits a message and the hearer decodes and receives the message. the hearer also plays the role of speaker and speaker the role of hearer by turn. weaver (1949) shows the model of communication through speaking: carroll (1964) presents another model: both the above mentioned diagrams demonstrate the importance of speaking in the transfer of message. that is, speaking is very necessary for transferring messages and interpersonal communication. through speaking, man expresses his emotions, communicates his intention, reaches to other persons and situations, and influences other human beings. spoken language is, thus, a tool for communication and social role md. mohsin mridha & sheikh md. muniruzzaman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020|127 relationship (brown and yule, 1983). it is a matter of irony that our students feel the necessity of conversational skill, but they are unable to communicate. there are a number of barriers in the ways of developing speaking skill. the student who is to speak a language to express his personal meaning needs much practice. frequent practice enables a student to have mastery over conversation. in this regard, students need to converse with their classmates in english. but many students hardly converse with their classmates. even, a number of students never speak english with their peers. such kind of phobia for speaking on the part of students reduces their ability. thus, there is an absence of spontaneity for natural communication. another important finding of the study that hampers students‟ english skill is the interference of mother tongue. in the case of esl learners, the transfer of different elements from mother tongue is inevitable and natural. but when they interfere foreign language in an excessive way, the target language remains in the static position. most of our students speak bangla naturally as it is our mother tongue. but bangla is even spoken in the english classroom and it hampers their english learning. another fact is that when our students speak english, they do not use only english, rather they mix both bangla and english, popularly known as „banglish‟. a teacher should take the role of facilitator in a language class. teachers in the conversational class should encourage the learners to use english. he should speak english in order to make the students enable to speak the language. besides, teachers in the english speaking class should find themselves talking less and listening more and becoming active facilitators of their students‟ learning. the study shows the negligence and inefficiency of teachers in the classroom. teachers do not use english always in the classroom and many teachers rarely speak in english in the classroom. students should have conversational contribution in the classroom and they should be given real life communication system. our teachers might not be friendly enough to make the learners easy in making spontaneous conversation. the study shows that students are to speak english in the classroom rarely. a huge number of students never talk in the class. they do not even feel comfortable in using english. this is one of the main reasons for which our speaking proficiency does not develop because language learning cannot be fruitful if there is fear or shyness. our ssc and hsc syllabuses seem to be less effective in developing communicative competence. it is a matter of hope that clta (communicative language teaching approach) has been introduced, but still dialogue making and other conversations are memorized. our textbooks instruct our teachers for natural and contextual conversation such as situational talk, greetings, dialogue making, pair work etc. but they are followed neither by our teachers nor our students. the objectives of the textbooks are to enable our students to use the most common form of expression of the language freely and spontaneously. students are forced to memorize because they need to pass in the examination and they can do it without much effort and even their minds reside elsewhere. developing english speaking skills: barriers faced by the bangladeshi efl learners 128|englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 our public examinations fail to put equal emphasis on all the four language skills. our ssc and hsc syllabuses mainly focus on reading and writing. questions in the public examinations are set on reading and writing, but listening and speaking are excluded. students always concentrate on the items necessary for passing and getting a good grade in the examinations. they do not focus on the conversational skills and other items though they are very essential in real life situations. most of the participants of the study expressed their affirmation that it is necessary to put equal importance on all the four skills of english language. if our public examinations include speaking, the scenario may change a little bit. however, multifarious aspects also collectively contribute to the lack of competency in speaking skill. firstly, natural and contextual practice is necessary for improving one‟s skill. but our students are indifferent to the practice of conversation in different contexts. secondly, vocabulary is a very important component in any language. it is far more important than grammar. only grammar cannot make us express our thoughts. but if one has only vocabulary, he/she can express thoughts and communicate with others. vocabulary is unlimited deriving from a wide range of sources. in the consequence, our students fail to internalize the necessary amount of vocabulary. again, they memorize vocabulary without any reference of context and when those are needed, they can hardly use those properly. thirdly, unfavorable environment undermines students‟ proficiency in speaking skill. for developing speaking skill, a favorable environment is needed, where a student can practise his conversation without any hesitation or shyness. in bangladesh, people trying to speak english are not cordially appreciated; rather they are scorned and laughed at. for this reason, bangladeshi efl learners do not find their environment congenial to the development of their skill. fourthly, bangladeshi efl learners suffer from fear and hesitation while attempting to speak english. fifthly, the role of teachers in english speaking class is to cooperate with students to develop their skill. but many of our teachers are not concerned about their responsibility and act as rulers over the students. such kind of non-cooperation on the part of teachers highly contributes to the lack of competency in conversational skill in english. 9. discussion and recommendations to teach the speaking skill, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of the process involved in speech. if we wish our students to speak with ease in the foreign language, we must ensure that they are given ample practice in expressing themselves in different situations. students in a foreign language class will not learn to speak fluently merely by hearing speech although this is important in familiarizing them with the acceptable forms of language. the teacher should give the students many opportunities to practise speaking skill. the active practice of speech cannot be left to a later stage to be done. students should be given the opportunity throughout the years of study to md. mohsin mridha & sheikh md. muniruzzaman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020|129 develop skill in speech and control in speech habits. if the students are able to practise speech habits, our problems will be reduced. student motivation is also considered to be a strong factor in developing speaking skill. students come to study english with the strong idea that they will be able to speak it. but they are often discouraged and as a result they lose interest when they find that english is just like other subjects learning a lot of matters from a book. then they find that being able to speak english is some far distant goal, attainable only after a long time labor. but students should be taught language with a lot of fun and spontaneity. the students should be allowed to say something in english from the very beginning, no matter how simple it may be. thus, they feel a great sense of satisfaction and their attitude towards language learning becomes much more favorable. students should be given freedom in their selection of expression in language learning. they must be given the opportunity to apply what they have learned. teachers should wait with patience until practice is completed. students will select expressions themselves and such selection will develop their oral skill where they will create new utterances and expressions. students may be encouraged to vie with each other in the production of affirmative, and negative, statements, questions, conditional utterances etc. the role of a teacher in a language teaching classroom is that of a facilitator. he should make everything amusing, exciting and enjoyable. he should make his students practise orally without the support of a written script. teachers often try to provide with overlearning which causes fatigue and distaste on the part of the students. teachers should take care of making quite clear the situational context such as the place, the time of the day, the type of activity involved etc. to the students and the relationships among the characters such as approximate age, gender, occupations, authority patterns etc. and the emotional overtone of their conversation such as friendly, formal, hostile, teasing, reprimanding (rivers, 1968). the use of multimedia materials in the present age can be fruitful for developing speaking skill. in the traditional classrooms, objects, pictures, actions, gestures etc. are used for language teaching. with the easy availability in recent years film strips, slides, films, tapes etc. can be used. the picture with voice is very much effective for developing speaking skill. the ideal way for the students to develop the speaking skill is to go and live among the people who speak english. but most of our students do not have contact with native speakers in our country. for this reason, teachers should impart them to the real communication and classroom activities. teacher‟s facial expression, interruption etc. affect students‟ learning. in the classroom, the teacher must be friendly and he will recognize students‟ personality as well as potentiality. if the students have an unsympathetic relationship with the teacher, speaking skill may not develop. in a foreign country, the students live in a natural speaking environment. expression and conversation around them strike their ear continuously. thus, they can developing english speaking skills: barriers faced by the bangladeshi efl learners 130|englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 internalize skill without conscious effort. this constant hearing from native speakers is missing in a country like ours. hence, they must converse and practise themselves. a student should describe himself the things he sees on the way and remember what he has done during the day. in this way, he will have good practice and can develop his skill (rivers, 1968). english is a foreign language and naturally it will seem difficult to us to attain. but our students and teachers should be more active, energetic and innovative. teachers should change their outlook and they should be more dynamic as language learning is not like the teaching of other general subjects. they should have the role of a real facilitator. they should provide the students with every kind of possible motivation. they should talk in the class and should make it interactive and communicative. our textbook writers and syllabus designers should give more attention to the natural conversation because speaking skill cannot be attained by fake memorization or force study. listening is strongly connected with speaking and so students should listen to english news, discussions and dialogues as part of developing speaking skill. students should shake off fear and shyness because they bring nothing but failure in language learning. our students will need to be patient and persevering in improving their oral skills. in the existing scenario, our students face a lot of problems for which they cannot attain proper proficiency in english. nevertheless, with the right attitude to the problems, we can minimize those and develop the oral skill in english among our students. 10. conclusion to conclude, the competence of speaking skill has become a vital need in the present world. in this situation, conversational skill in english must be developed among our students though there are scores of barriers like the interference of mother tongue, lack of practice, vocabulary, immersion, student-teacher interaction, fossilization, anxiety etc. the emerging necessity influences our career path along with personal communication and interaction since different multinational companies and international organizations working in our country also use english as a means of communication. no doubt, we do love our mother tongue. again, we need to have competency in the global language because we are also part of this globalized world and english as the most accepted language of the world has been made wide in different sectors of our country. references bashir, a. (2003). “the communicative approach to english language teaching at the secondary and higher secondary level.” stamford university journal, 125-129. brown, g. and yule, g. (1983). teaching the spoken language. cambridge: cambridge university press. carroll, j. b. (1964). language and thought. new york: prentice hall. md. mohsin mridha & sheikh md. muniruzzaman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020|131 ellis, r. (1985). understanding second language acquisition. oxford: oxford university press. khan, s. r. (2003). “language learning in bangladesh.” language policy, planning and practice: a south asian perspective. karachi: oxford university press, 113-114. littlewood, w. (1981). communicative language teaching. cambridge: cambridge university press. nida, e. a. (1957). learning a foreign language. new york: the university of chicago press. nunan, d. (2003). practical english language teaching. new york: mcgraw hill. richards, j. c. (1974). error analysis: perspective on second language acquisition. london: longman. richards, j. c. (1990). the language teaching matrix. cambridge: cambridge university press. rivers, w. m. (1968). teaching foreign language skills. chicago: the university of chicago press. shahidulla, m., et al. (2001). english for today for class 11-12. dhaka: national curriculum and textbook board. verplanck, w. s. (1955). journal of abnormal social psychology. new york: the university of chicago press. weaver, w. (1949). “recent contribution to the mathematical theory of communication.” the mathematical theory of communication. new york: the university of chicago press. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2020. vol. 8, no. 1, 44-57 an analysis of focused metalinguistic written feedback: how would learners react? rizqiyyah rizqiyyah * universitas sebelas maret, surakarta, indonesia rizqiyyah@student.uns.ac.id tanty prianty universitas sebelas maret, surakarta, indonesia tanpriant@student.uns.ac.id manuscript received december 28, 2019, revised april 30, 2020, first published november 7, 2020, and available online november 9, 2020. doi: 10.22373/ej.v8i1.5972 recommended apa citation rizqiyyah, r., & prianty, t. (2020). an analysis of focused metalinguistic written feedback: how would learners react? englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 8(1), 44-57. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.5972 abstract learners of higher education are encouraged to write a scholarly publication in that it helps corroborate them as professionals in their fields of study. practices in academic writing are thus indispensable to do to achieve a higher level of competency. this study explores learners‟ reactions towards focused metalinguistic written feedbacks provided by a lecturer. the lecturer used electronic mail to provide constructive feedback to her students. this mixed-method study involved 22 post-graduate students from an indonesian university. in analyzing the qualitative data, the researchers employed miles and huberman‟s qualitative data analysis approach. meanwhile, the quantitative data, namely the basic analysis of focused metalinguistic written feedbacks were analyzed by employing cumming‟s writing approach. the findings reveal that: (1) learners revised and expanded their draft after getting back their paper; (2) lecturer‟s feedbacks through email have reportedly motivated learners because such the feedbacks did not lead learners perplexity compared to the handwritten feedbacks; (3) the majority of participants used revising and responding, consulting a dictionary/grammar book, and referring to the previous composition as the ways to handle lecturer‟s input. keywords: academic writing; focused metalinguistic feedback; learners’ reactions * corresponding author https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.5972 rizqiyyah rizqiyyah & tanty prianty englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 4 5 1. introduction writing scholarly publication is one of the skills that higher education students should have in an academic writing course. writing for publication differs from writing for course assignment as it needs special skills to possess (nolan & rocco, 2009). nevertheless, many studies highlighted that students experienced challenges in writing for academic publications, especially in the efl context. learners might have less experience writing their publications because they lack proper english writing skills to submit in a reputable journal (moldovan, 2011). grammatical issues are where the most higher education students struggle with which consumes teachers' time to correct the mistakes (jamian, sankaran, & abu bakar, 2006; nayan, 2002 as cited in mah, umar, & chow, 2013). for instance, grammar, technical vocabulary, sentence formation, and writing style have indicated as the thai learners' linguistic challenges (phothongsunan, 2016). besides, integrating distinct ideas, summarizing perspectives, and broadening theories that request a high composition skill also become one of students‟ difficulties (lavelle & bushrow, 2007). furthermore, a study in indonesia showed that learners still struggle in decision making and problem-solving which are essential points in publication writing, especially in making knowledge claim, organizing and developing the idea, and structuring arguments are also noted as challenges (azizah & budiman, 2017). due to the challenges learners may face, lecturers need to provide feedback towards learners writing before submitting the manuscript to the journals. providing enormous comprehensive written corrective feedback (cwcf) toward learners‟ writing has been reportedly exhausting as it was time-consuming and offered not that much significant impact (mah et al., 2013). learners repeatedly made the same mistakes that the feedback given would not improve their editing skills (lee, 2019). hence, lee (2019) proposed focused written corrective feedback (fwcf) practice, which was more helpful for learners to develop their english writing skills than cwcf. learners would take more risks, which will build more confidence through the practice of focused feedback. they would also engage more actively, especially in the class, by having a self or peer assessment. likewise, focused written corrective feedback was given to promote learners writing skill development to achieve a higher level of critical thinking. studies on learner feedback had started in the 1990s (diab, 2005) for examples by cohen and cavalcanti in 1987, leki in 1991, eginarlar in 1993, hedgcock & lefkowitz in 1994 and 1996 (ferris, 2006). however, the exploration of learner reactions towards the feedback is limited, especially in the efl writing context. besides, most studies also emphasized only the comprehensive corrective feedback of the erroneous forms, not on the lecturers‟ less feedback. this study attempts to link learners‟ reactions to focused written corrective feedback (fwcf). an analysis of focused metalinguistic written feedback 46 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 2. literature review many studies concerned with the significance of a written form of feedback after truscott (1996) had first acknowledged it through his work (as cited in kisnanto, 2016). parr and timperley (2010) argued that “written feedback quality affects learners‟ writing achievements” (as cited in o'brien & marken, 2016, p. 12). it helps learners measure themselves of the level to which they met the expected outcome. studies on the feedback have been conducted on some areas such as the effect of feedback on content (ashwell, 2000; diab, 2015; fazio, 2001;) and the impact of direct and indirect feedback on the accuracy of students‟ grammar and writing skill (benson, & dekeyser, 2018; chandler, 2003; ferris & roberts, 2001; lalande, 1982; robb, ross, & shortreed, 1986; saeb, 2014; shintani, ellis, & suzuki, 2014). direct feedback “concerns figuring out proof to attain some specific features, while the indirect one relates to enhancing learners‟ metacognitive skills” (ferris, 2010, p.190). written corrective feedback is also categorized into focused or unfocused based on the category of erroneous language form. focused written corrective feedback (fwcf) denotes a type that focuses on linguistic features while the unfocused one refers to non-linguistic terms. scales of emphasis come upon a scale where the most focused feedback aims at only one error type or linguistic structure, while the unfocused one relates to all linguistic features. comprehensive written corrective feedback (cwcf), which is usually treated as unfocused feedback, has been familiar to nearly all teachers. to provide feedback, teachers would correct all the erroneous language produced by learners (ellis, sheen, murakami, & takashima, 2008). however, some studies have proved that this type of feedback seemed inefficient and brought less benefit to learners (ferris, 1999; lee, 2009; truscott, 1996;). the comprehensive feedback led to a detrimental effect on the learning process (truscott, 1996). too many red inks or poor markings result in confusion and discouragements, which make learners losing their attentiveness in writing (lee, 2008; lee, yu & liu, 2018). on the other hand, focused written corrective feedback (fwcf) requires the lecturers to specify feedback types towards learners‟ writing (bitchener & knoch, 2009a, 2009b). with fewer errors to focus on, learners will find it manageable, and it surely facilitates learning aims. learners would also take advantage of fewer underlines, error codes, circles in that they are less confusing and intimidating (lee, 2019, p. 4). as a result, they can monitor themselves and conduct self-assessment on the extent to which their learning has improved. focused written feedback would fit learners' competency in higher education in that they have autonomously adapted to the learning process (kisnanto, 2016). it also seemingly surge learners‟ responsibility by offering more chances to involve in self-editing. it corresponds with vygotsky‟s view (as cited in lee, 2019), stating that learning was not merely an unresponsive practice where learners acquire language from being informed or spoon-fed, yet rather than an active building process affected by the contextual element, learners‟ principle, and schemata. rizqiyyah rizqiyyah & tanty prianty englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 4 7 ellis (2009) proposed three types of feedback, namely direct, metalinguistic, and indirect feedback. regarding the erroneous use of simple past tense in the sentence, “i go to his house yesterday”, the lecturer might provide feedback as follow: 1. direct feedback: give the correct form by substituting „go‟ to „went‟. 2. metalinguistic feedback: provide learners with a clue by associating the nature of error by asking, “don‟t you think you should use the past tense?” 3. indirect feedback: show the error by highlighting, underlining, or circling the word „go‟ without explaining. metalinguistic corrective feedback requires teachers to provide hints or comments about the nature of the error (ellis, 2009; sia & cheung, 2017). thus, some studies have confirmed the importance of metalinguistic feedback in efl writing (bakri, 2015; beuningen, 2012; mansourizadeh & abdullah, 2014; sheen, 2007). in a study, sheen (2007) examined that a focused metalinguistic approach promoted learners‟ writing accuracy. the research findings illustrated that the teacher focused on providing feedback on the use of articles in efl writing. at the outset, abundant erroneous forms of articles were marked. however, the practice of focused metalinguistic feedback has helped them generated fewer mistakes in their final writing. in another study, beuningen (2012) highlighted that metalinguistic written feedback was effective for the non-grammatical errors that profoundly stimulated learners to process the mistakes. in addition, the use of electronic feedback applied in their study has also resulted in better learners‟ uptake. likewise, mansourizadeh and abdullah (2014) worked on the same interest in employing both oral and written metalinguistic feedback on sla writing. the result depicted that verbal feedback impacted more significantly than the written one. it helped learners accelerate their performance and was less time-consuming. the aforementioned studies gave emphasized only on the lecturers‟ perspectives to investigate whether or not metalinguistic error correction feedback affected learners‟ outcomes significantly. in contrast, only a few studies on learners‟ voices toward the feedback have been reported. leki and carson‟s study (1994), as cited in best, joneskatz, smolarek, stolzenburg, and williamson (2014), was a case in point. it pointed upon the importance of the study on the learner perspective as follow: i was not interested in the “public transcript” of what they did, how they did it, or whether a particular teaching method or technique improved their writing. instead, i hoped to learn how they reflected on what they did and how they did it, what they understood from their experiences, how they constructed what was happening to them in l2 [second language] writing classes, what they said amongst themselves (best et al., 2014, p.3). their study implies that understanding how learners reflect on their writing process and making meaning is worth discussing. regarding learners‟ reactions to lecturers‟ feedback, a study asserted that learners first would spot the errors and revised an analysis of focused metalinguistic written feedback 48 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 them all to the correct form. second, they would like to ask the teacher to provide more specific comments on the writing's content and organization. last, they requested more self-editing, which means they have developed their metalinguistic awareness (chen, nassaji, & liu, 2016). 3. method this study aims to investigate the learners‟ responses to the written correction feedback given by a lecturer in an academic writing course. the design of this research was a case study with 6 males and 16 females of graduate students in one university in indonesia as participants. the goal of the course was for the learners to produce a manuscript then submit it to an efl journal. the lecturer facilitated learners to study by varying teaching methodologies such as self-editing, peer-review, discussion, and presentation. the lecturer also provided both oral and written feedbacks which were beneficial for learners‟ advancement in writing. the lecturer asked learners to send the manuscript files to the lecturer‟s email address, and the lecturer would check it for improvement. later, the lecturer handed them back so that learners could reflect and revised them before submitting them to a journal. the data for the study were collected through three instruments: 1) the writing samples with the feedback from the lecturer were collected to check the nature of feedback provided by the lecturer, 2) the questionnaires were distributed to find out how the learners handled the lecturer‟s feedback. this study adopted the questionnaire from saito‟s model (1994). 3) a semi-structured interview was conducted to gain learners‟ in-depth understanding of the chosen feedback handling reasons. the data were analyzed using a technique proposed by miles and huberman (1984) namely data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification and the basic analysis of focused metalinguistic written feedback (fwcf) employed cumming‟s thinking form (1989): format, in-text citation, organization, content, and language. this theory originated from former analyses of the thinking processes that sla learners frequently activated during the writing process (cumming, 1989; 1990), along with bereiter and scardamalia's (1987) model of “procedural facilitation” to develop cognitive skill in writing. this study aims to answer the following two research questions: (1) what kinds of focused written correction feedbacks do lecturers provide? (2) how do learners respond to their lecturers‟ feedbacks? 4. findings and discussion 4.1. type of metalinguistics feedback from the lecturers from the manuscripts composed by learners, it was noted that the lecturer was prone to provide focused-metalinguistic feedback. the focus of feedback varied depending on learners‟ writing. a learner might struggle in elaborating the argument while the other hardly organized the ideas neatly. thus, the lecturers did not treat them rizqiyyah rizqiyyah & tanty prianty englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 4 9 similarly. table 1 below illustrates the focus of feedback the teacher-generated in efl learners‟ writing. table 1 the kinds of focused metalinguistic feedback and its percentage. no types of feedbacks percentage 1 format 15% 2 in-text citations 23% 3 organization 18% 4 content 36% 5 language 8% in writing scholarly publications, the types of feedbacks proposed by cumming (1989) reflected the challenges learners might face. the table above depicts that the area of content covered the highest percentage (36%) of the lecturer‟s feedbacks, followed by less than a fourth (23%) of the overall percentage of the case in citing and referencing. a small number (18%) of focused feedbacks on the writing organization have reportedly ranked the third position. next, the focus on a format or the appropriateness towards the guideline covered more than a tenth of the total feedbacks. the last, a tiny proportion (8%) was focused on the language form. the lecturer highlighted the sentences containing the erroneous language form by demonstrating the nature of errors. the lecturer asked a simple question and provided a statement to trigger the learners' cognitive processing so that they could revise the sentences into the correct forms. this finding is in line with previous studies stating that type of focused feedback was beneficial for learners with a higher level of metalinguistic awareness (ferris, 2004; hyland & hyland, 2006). in addition, the types of errors made reflected some problems most of the participants faced while writing scholarly publications. the lecturer did not mainly emphasize the feedback on the grammatical issue as she already had demanded the learners check their writing to the grammarly before submitting them to get the feedbacks. grammarly is the language digital tool utilized to check the accuracy of learners‟ works. nevertheless, all participants did not apply for the premium membership, so the double-checking was done by the lecturer herself. the following figure illustrates the types of feedback provided. an analysis of focused metalinguistic written feedback 50 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 figure 1. an example of a learner‟s writing and types of feedback provided. as seen in the table above, the lecturer provided less feedback, which focused only on some mistakes repeatedly made by the student (fwcf). electronic feedback was devoted to using technology and electronic mail by providing colorful comment boxes to identify the feedback quickly. the effectiveness of feedback using technology has been mentioned by many studies (abuseileek, 2013; abuseileek & abualsha‟r, 2014; doughty & varela, 1998; elola & oskoz, 2016; ene & upton, 2014; muranoi, 2000; sheen, 2007; suadah, 2014; shintani, aubrey, & donnellan, 2016). a learner assured her opinion during the interview as follows. excerpt 1: i think being given the feedback through email is way more motivating than that of the conventional one. the colorfully highlighted words, the erroneous forms, are effortlessly spotted. compared with the handwritten feedback, it does not lead to confusion. this response shows that the wrong words were marked in different colors that it helped her tracking the errors easily. this simplicity triggered her to engage more with the writing and to produce a better composition. the finding supports sia and cheung‟s (2017) idea, who reported that providing feedback using technology facilitates selfdirected learning of the learners in the 21st century. 4.1.1. learners’ reactions to handle feedback from the lecturers once the learners received the paperback after being checked by the lecturer, they filled out the questionnaires asking for the strategies they applied towards the feedback. learners responded to one or more strategies due to the concern toward individual preferences. most of them argued that they would do something after receiving the feedback, yet each learner appeared to have moderately sole tactics to rizqiyyah rizqiyyah & tanty prianty englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 5 1 cope with their writing feedback. this finding is in line with prior studies asserting that individual learners‟ traits were necessary variable to concern while giving feedback to maximize benefits (agbayahoun, 2016; han & hyland, 2015; junqueira & payant, 2015; kormos, 2012; li, 2018; li & vuono, 2019; plonsky, & brown, 2015; rahimi, 2015; rummel & bitchener, 2015; simard, guénette, & bergeron, 2015; storch & wigglesworth, 2010). they exposed that learners‟ internal motivational aspects; for instance, learners‟ aims, behaviour, attentiveness, principles, and motivation will affect learners‟ responses to written corrective feedback. based on the questionnaires, their majority responses were categorized into 1) revising and responding 2) consult a dictionary/grammar book, 3) referring back to the previous composition. see the following figure for further information. figure 2. how learners handle the feedback. a. first, a majority of participants (75%) responded to the feedback by revising the erroneous forms, followed by more than half (55%) of them handling the feedback by consulting a vocabulary/grammar book. the result depicted that learners would mostly state that they revised and expanded the mistakes noted as the teacher provided the feedback indirectly. the finding of this study corresponds with the previous study by hillocks (1986), asserting that revising a composition after getting feedback from the lecturer was what most learners did. a learner exposed the process of revising and expanding as follows: excerpt 2: i define revising as fixing some wrong things and later expand things i need in case i find other things when i read, and those points were not mentioned by the teacher. in the process, the lecturer would first only mark the incorrect sentences that the learners pointed as „wrong things‟ produced in the composition. the lecturer then provided some prompts so that learners could correct the mistakes. regarding the mistakes, one of the learner stated that sometimes he struggled with the word choices to strategy number of students making a mental note writing down points by type identifying points to be explained asking for lecturer‟s explanation referring to the previous composition consulting a vocabulary/grammar book rewriting by incorporating lecturer‟s comment revising and expanding not doing anything 4 6 1 4 9 12 1 18 1 an analysis of focused metalinguistic written feedback 52 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 represent the most comprehensible meaning with the context. hence, he referred to online dictionaries or reference books or words. a further interview was conducted with the same participant to pursue in-depth information on handling the feedback by consulting a dictionary/grammar book. he confirmed the process as follows: excerpt 3: since selecting the most proper word in my writing has been a problem, i usually utilize thesaurus or a dictionary so that i‟ll find synonymous words. having figured out the word which i think it‟s the most appropriate one, finally, i will search in corpus whether the words go with together or not. b. second, the next most favorite strategies to handle the feedback were by referring back to preceding composition, which less than a half participants (41%) have applied it. a learner expressed: excerpt 4: the comments provided by the lecturer have urged me to turn back to my previous composition. sometimes i couldn‟t figure out what was meant by the feedback. therefore, i just had a look at the comments and checked in which part of my article i could find the information. finally, i would revise it and asked my lecturer if i had met her expectation. c. third, taking mental notes, asking for teacher explanation, incorporating the lecturer feedback, identifying points to be explained, and did nothing were the not so popular strategies used to handle the feedback. relating to incorporating the lecturer‟s feedback, a learner contended: excerpt 5: when you thought that you wrote all the things already, but it turns out you missed a couple of things, then there your lecturer comes to give some comments about those missing points found in your writing. i experienced this thing quite often, so yeah, rewriting some other parts by incorporating my lecturer‟s comment was and will always be what i gotta do. additionally, concerning to identifying the point strategy, a learner explained: excerpt 6: after i got some comments from the lecturer, i usually take some notes or make some points to be changed instead of directly revising them. those points are often in the form of categories; at least i name them so, for example, lack of definition, needs some more elaborations, etc. furthermore, jotting down points by types was the handling feedback strategy the low number of participants (27%) have made. they would classify the types of feedback and jot them down, enabling them to quickly revised the composition. an rizqiyyah rizqiyyah & tanty prianty englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 5 3 insignificant proportion (4%) responded to the feedback by either making a mental note or asking for the lecturer‟s explanation. learners might have asked about the erroneous forms directly to the lecturer to see whether they have different points of view. besides, confirming what the lecturer intended to say in her/his feedback was proved constructive to the writing. a learner expressed his opinion as follows: excerpt 7: just like what students always do, i‟ll ask my lecturer if i find something unclear, then i‟ll take some notes to clear things up for me. lastly, a learner wasn‟t provided with any written feedback, as her writing was nearly neat. the learner has responded to the feedback by asking the lecturer directly, who replied by giving positive oral feedback stating that the composition did not need any revision. 5. conclusion all things considered, the focused metalinguistic written corrective feedback towards learners‟ academic publication drafts were provided in terms of content, in-text citation, organization, format, and language. the way learners handled the feedback varied as they have various characteristics. some of them would revise and expand the writing while the others checked their online vocabulary platforms. referring to the previous composition and transferring the lecturer‟s comment into their writing seemed to be the least favorite thing that the learner would do. 6. implication the findings of the study have some implications for the field of scholarly writing publication. the lecturers need to know some strategies most learners do after getting back their manuscripts to see their metalinguistic awareness to be an autonomous writer. being autonomous means they can reflect on how successful they have achieved the objectives of the writing. the present study provokes some probing questions that future investigation on lecturers‟ reactions towards learners‟ strategies on handling feedback. 7. recommendation the findings reveal that learners‟ personalities, such as cognitive and affective variables as well as the learning context, should be the primary concern in providing the feedback. the right method will be helpful to learners so that the results of their writing would be better. an analysis of focused metalinguistic written feedback 54 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 references abuseileek, a. f. 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(1996). the case against grammar correction in l2 writing classes. language learning, 46(2), 327-369. englisia november 2019 vol. 7, no. 1, 82-101 acehnese onomatopoeias: investigating, listing, and interpreting their meanings ida muliawati universitas iskandarmuda, banda aceh, indonesia idadanish14@gmail.com dara yusnida universitas iskandarmuda, banda aceh, indonesia dara_yusnida@yahoo.co.id manuscript received august 27, 2019, revised october 29, 2019, first published november 30, 2019, and available online january 22, 2020. doi: 10.22373/ej.v7i1.5184 abstract this research aims at finding out kinds of acehnese onomatopoeias understood and spoken among native acehnese people by using pidie dialect. thus, five people in the pidie jaya regency were sorted out to be the subject informants by actualizing purposive and snowball technique. moreover, a descriptive qualitative method was manifested in the research by actualizing some instruments to get the data such as structured interviewing and documentation. hence, all of the data were interpreted in words by listing, transcribing their phonetics orderly, as well as describing both their function and meaning. a three-step analysis – data reduction, data verification, and data display – was employed to describe the data gathered. result of the research reveals that acehnese onomatopoeias covers a wide range of expressions in sound-imitating words which are categorized into three big classes; phonomimes which includes auditory impressions of various imitative sounds of nature; phenomimes – mimetic words to describe objects’ condition and human’s activities; and psychomimes – symbolizing psychological state or inner feelings. still, most of acehnese onomatopeic words are in forms of repetition and nasalization which seems to be more unique compared to other languages. keywords: acehnese; onomatopoeia; phonomime; phenomime; psychomimy introduction sound-imitating words, called onomatopoeia, are words whose sounds suggest their meaning (fromkin, et. al, 2003). they exist in most of languages in the ida muliawati & dara yusnida englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 83 world but the numbers of them are different (yamamoto, 1993). japanese, for example, is onomatopoeia-rich language which possesses a relatively big number of onomatopoeic words compared to indo-european languages (hasada, 1994). the immense numbers of the japanese sound-symbolism portray that they constitute fully permeate in daily speaking among communities and in literary works (tamori & schourup, 1999). aliyeh and zeinolabedin (2014) say that even though the number of onomatopoeias is different among different languages, they still mimic or resemble the same natural sounds. in a linear fashion, azwardi (2018) claims that acehnese language, a part of local language in indonesia, presents a great deal of onomatopoeias due to its construction uniqueness. the acehnese onomatopoeic words – specifically in particular sound sequences – are unique and seem to relate to a certain concept or object. he, then, states that acehnese people frequently speak several forms of onomatopoeias to name or address something related to sounds produced by humans, animals, natures, and things. for instance, some repetitive words ending with phonemes /-am-um/ such as in “kham-khum”, “tam-tum”, and “pham-phum” are all mimicry of noisy sounds coming from the particular objects, yet those words have different usage in utterances. “kham-khum” means noisy sound derived from repeatedly slammed door. acehnese speaker tends to use the onomatopoeic word “kham-khum” to give more powerful as well as stressful meaning to the sentence when someone is making noise by slamming the door forcefully. the sentence, solely, might be changed by “why are you slamming the door?” but the expression is not much vivid to portray the speaker’s emotion. accordingly, zolfagharian & ameri (2015) said that onomatopoeias are valuable ways to create vivid and actual sounds into readers or listeners imaginary as an attempt to put a powerful effect and sense of reality on the mood of the word. another example is “tam-tum” which refers to the meaning of bullets’ repetitive sound in a war. the last one is “pham-phum” that means sound of something smashing continuously or the sound-imitation of an object which is hit by someone constantly. in brief, acehnese people visibly prefer to say or name acehnese onomatopoeias: investigating, listing, and interpreting their meanings 84 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 something directly by using the sounds resembled to it rather than referring it using another term (azwardi, 2018). in spite of the fact as stated above, research about acehnese onomatopoeias are only a few as stated by azwardi (2018); there are only two researches done by researchers. the first one is abdul gani asyik who did his research entitled bunyi bahasa dalam kata tiruan bunyi dalam bahasa aceh in 1978. the research discusses he phonological transcribing in acehnese onomatopoeias—or in other words how to spell and pronounce the terms properly. after decades another researcher from aceh – azwardi—did another study about onomatopoeia in 2002 entitled onomatopoeia reduplikasi bahasa aceh. through his study, he only grouped acehnese onomatopoeias into four categories which are much related to sound-symbolism (phonomimes), they are natural sounds, animals’ sounds, object sounds, and human sounds. the other two terms; phenomimes and psychomimes were not put in his research. in other words, the researchers did not find a comprehensive, detailed category of acehnese onomatopoeias in other researchers. hence, in accordance with the elaboration above, this research is concerned salient to be done as it is still limited in number and a comprehensible, detailed class of each acehnese onomatopoeias categorized properly is strongly needed to be done and classified. hence, it is supposed to be a novelty research in acehnese onomatopoeia specifically. literature review definition of onomatopoeia onomatopoeia is simply defined as a word that mimics the sound it names. it depicts one of the figures of speech or language features that imitates the natural sounds by words such as “crunch, gurgle, plunk, and splash” (regot, 2015). similarly, assaneo et al (2011) point out that onomatopoeia are considered unique linguistic condition because they relate to the objects they resemble to by mimicking sounds naturally. to be exact, sound symbolism constitutes a salient relationship between sounds and meanings in which the sounds likely possess link with sensory experience. ida muliawati & dara yusnida englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 85 although onomatopoeia is basically known as sound-symbolism that refer to the representation of sound by an imitation, onomatopoeia in every language, apparently, can also express and describe broader range starting from moods, emotions and actions (yule, 1996). similarly, tamori and schourup (1999) claim that onomatopoeia is not only recognized as words imitating sounds, but also words denoting humans’ activities and psychological condition. onomatopoeia conveys a mental picture and giving a poetic sense to words, thus it is able to create a good imagination to listener or reader. for instance, in english, it is much more expressive to say “the wind howled, hissed, and whooshed” rather than “the wind blew.” the expression of “blew” cannot heavenly and fully express the emotion lying within the expressions or utterances of the speaker, or in other words, the word “blew” cannot create a vivid situation, thus the utilization of onomatopoeic word in the sentence can empower and deliver an immense emotion to the sentence. onomatopoeic words are quite different among languages in the world both in their sounds and ranges. in english cock-a-doodle-doo is an example of onomatopoeic word whose meaning is associated with the crow of rooster, whereas in bahasa indonesia the rooster’s crow is kukkuruyuk. another is laid on its numbers where english, for instance, contains a small number of onomatopoeic words compared to janapanese that possess approximately 2000 up to 4500 onomatopoeic words (tamori and schourup, as cited by sugahara, 2010). however, the function of the onomatopoeia in every language remains the same: to represent sounds, actions, emotions, and physical conditions of something. also, the onomatopoeic-like words are utilized to describe phenomenon associated with feelings and figurative expressions about objects or concepts. like every language in the world, acehnese language, the so-called bahsa or bahasa aceh also possess lots of onomatopoeic words spoken by its natives. some of acehnese onomatopoeias are related to sounds derived from objects which could be animals, things, and so on. in acehnese words such as ngèng-ngèng [ŋɛŋŋɛŋ], and ku’uek [ku?ũə?] are all recognized as onomatopoeias which symbolize the sound-imitating of animal production. acehnese onomatopoeias: investigating, listing, and interpreting their meanings 86 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 the word ngèng-ngèng is literally translated as “buzz” coming from the sound movement of insects, especially mosquitoes flying near ears, as in the following sentence: (1) brat that su ngèng-ngèng nyamok malam nyoe the buzz of mosquitoes is quite loud tonight later, the word “ku’uek” literally means “crow’ of chickens or cock-a-doodledoo in english as shown in the sentence: (2) su ku’uek manok nyan ube raya that rooster’s cock-a-doodle-doo is quite loud the last example is “tèp-tèp” which is associated with the sound of drop of water or pitter-patter in english and the word can be used in the sentence as follow : (3) lon dingö su tèp-tèp ie ujeun malam baroe i heard pitter-patter of raindrops last night kinds and functions of onomatopoeia shibatani (1990) and martin (1975), as cited in hasada (1994) categorize onomatopoeia into three categories. the first category is called phonomimes, which exclusively imitate various sounds produced and derived from nature such as sound of animals, things or objects, and humans. phenomimes come as the second category which depict manner of action or describe traits, appearances, states, situations, and conditions. the last is psychomimes which symbolize psychological states, bodily feelings, and inner feelings. moreover, phenomimes and psychomimes are frequently denoted as mimetic words, while phonomimes are called soundonomatopoeia or sound-symbolism. indeed, acehnese’s daily speaking uses numerous onomatopoeias to mimic various sounds, to describe gestures, and to symbolize physical state or emotions. likewise in acehnese language, sound-onomatopoeias and mimetic words are abundant. as in the above examples (1), (2), and (3) are all grouped into phonomimes since they are imitative sounds. later, the acehnese mimetic word klèpklèp [klɛp klɛp] which means continuous eye movements due to winking is one ida muliawati & dara yusnida englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 87 example of psychomime. the word is frequently used in everyday communication to express a gesture or manner of action done by humans. in other words, it is not a sound imitating, yet it describes a phenomenon related to a gesture. another example is the mimetic word ‘a –‘a [ã? ã] meaning a loud cry with mouth open widely. it symbolizes emotional state or impression in form of crying, so it is psychomime. furthermore, onomatopoeia, in a broader sense, creates a sound effect that mimics the thing resembled making the description more expressive and interesting for example, saying, "the gushing steam flows in the forest" is a more meaningful description than just saying "the stream flows in the forest". the reader is drawn to hear the sound of a gushing stream which makes the expression more effective. in addition to the sound they suggest, many onomatopoeia words have developed meaning of their own for example, "whisper" not only represents the sound of people talking quietly but also describes the action of it – the gestures of people while talking softly and quietly. later, onomatopoeia also serves other several functions in language; empowering the contents of readings; delivering a livelier situation, condition, or appearance; developing the level of musicality of the oral and written texts; and penetrating the impression of readers towards the message (aliyeh & zeinolabedin, 2014). accordingly, makino 1982, as cited in hasada (1994) mentions that the usage of onomatopoeic words in language is apparently needed to reveal a lively and realistic description of attitude, gestures or manners as well as emotional phenomena. research methodology data for this research were obtained from people in the village of ulee gle, pidie jaya regency. they were five people altogether to be the subject informants for this research. the researchers regulate certain traits that the informants must speak acehnese natively and they must be adult and elderly. it was crucial to take into consideration in selecting the subject informants due to several reasons. firstly, since it is the research of items in traditional language so it needs native speakers who can acehnese onomatopoeias: investigating, listing, and interpreting their meanings 88 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 give lots of information about it, especially the reduplicative mimetic words. secondly, the native speakers inherit these kinds of reduplications from generation to generation around the acehnese environment as well as frequently magnify them in daily conversation. thirdly, adults and elderly are the forefront of the subject informants to this research since they have been gaining and comprehending enormously the reduplication form in the language. to collect the data, the researchers used two instruments, namely interview and documentation. during the structured interview the researchers attempted to chit-chat as well as deliver some questions to the participants in order to stimulate their language. the conversation and questions are linked to acehnese onomatopoeia which have been arranged by them previously as bowern (2007) claims that to start a new research, the researcher get his/her first data through some prepared wordlist. later, to record the data that have been obtained from the informants during the talks, they will be documented both in electronics (recording) and printed (hand writing). this research uses a descriptive qualitative method in which the researchers try to describe the existence of the phenomena occurring among societies. in this case, the researchers try to describe kinds of acehnese onomatopoeias and then interpret both their meaning as well as function obtained from the subject informants of this study. to be exact, the data obtained were exclusively interpreted in words by listing, transcribing their phonetics orderly, as well as describing both their function and meaning. the subject informants were selected based on purposive and snowball sampling. in the purposive sampling, to select that kind of informant, the researchers made contact to people in the village. for the first step, it only needed one subject informant to meet. from that informant the researcher asked for other native acehnese in the village to be subjects. right on that time, the snowball sampling was being arranged. it means that the researchers questioned the very first informant to introduce them to another native acehnese in the village that will be the next informants. as the interview was being carried out, the researchers recorded and wrote them down as an attempt to clarify what they had heard. ida muliawati & dara yusnida englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 89 data collected from the subject informants, then, were analyzed by magnifying three-step analysis, namely data selection, data analysis and data presentation (miles, huberman, and saldana: 2013). data selection means a great deal of the data gathered previously from the talks and conversation with the informants were organized based on the research focus—acehnese onomatopoeias. next, data analysis includes listing, analyzing, and categorizing all of them into categories; phonomimes, phenomimes, and psychomimes. finally, the conclusion over the research was drawn based on the data analysis. findings list of acehnese onomatopoeias in the first stage, types of onomatopoeia were identified from the previous studies of azwardi (2018) and shibatani (1990) and martin (1975), as cited in hasada (1994). as for the second stage, the identification of kinds of acehnese onomatopoeias were gathered from the subject informants. the third stage was to group all of those onomatopoeic words into their proper classification in the data analysis or data interpretation step. all of the result of data interpretation can be shown as follow. table 1: the results of data interpretation of acehnese phonomimes acehnese phonomimes no. auditory impressions meaning sounds of animals 1. c’ap-c’iep [cãp-cĩəp] ‘sound of newly born fledgling while starving’ 2. ci’ep-ci’ep [cĩəp-cĩəp] ‘sound of newly born chick while starving’ 3. ku’uek [ku?ũə?] ‘sound of roosters’ crow, usually in the morning’ 4. gr’oh [gr˜ɔh] ‘grunting sound of pig’ 5. bh’oh [bh˜ɔh] ‘sound of cow’ 6. khieng-khieng [khiəŋ-khiəŋ] ‘sound of dog’ acehnese onomatopoeias: investigating, listing, and interpreting their meanings 90 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 7. ngèng-ngèng [ŋɛŋŋɛŋ] ‘buzzing sound of mosquito’ 8. ip-ip [ip-ip] ‘sound of eagle’ 9. hèk-hèk [hɛ?hɛ?] ‘sound of sheep’ 10. t’è-t’o [t˜ɛt˜ɔ] ‘sound of frog’ 11. soe-soe [sɔesɔe] ‘sound of a snake’s hissing’ 12. rok-rok [rɔ?rɔ?] ‘a loud, harsh noise while feeding made by ducks’ 13. kr’èh [kr˜ɛh] ‘a loud, angry sound of furious cat that is ready to pounce on’ 14. ri-ri [ri-ri] ‘a loud, continuous sound of calling ducks’ 15. mèong [mɛoŋ] ‘sound of cat’ 16. mbèk [mbɛ?] ‘sound of goat’ sounds of things/objects meaning 17. kr’am-kr’um [krãm-krũm] ‘sound of a loud bang of door due to the forceful shutting’ 18. ph’am-ph’um [prãm-prũm] ‘sound of something smashing continuously’ 19. t’am-t’um [tãm-tũm] ‘a series and repetitive sound of a gunshot in a war/battlefield’ 20. gruk-gruk [gru?-gru?] ‘clear rattling sound in the shield produced by dried areca nuts 21. grik-grik [gri?-gri?] ‘sound of coins which are shaken’ 22. tok-tok [tɔ?tɔ?] ‘sound of door or another wooden stuff knocked or tapped’ 23. tèp-tèp [tɛptɛp] ‘sound of rain drops falling on the roof/ sound of water dripping from faucet drop by drop’ 24. bh’am-bh’um [bhãm-bhũm] ‘sound of a bed hit repetitively/ sound of people fighting by smashing onto a gentle surface’ 25. br’am-br’um [brãm-brũm] ‘ heavy, noisy sound of much water dropped continuously while bathing’ 26. h’am-h’um [hãm-hũm] ‘sharp, noisy and continuous sound of various vehicles’ engines going back and forth over a road’ ida muliawati & dara yusnida englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 91 27. pr’oet [pr˜ɔt] ‘a heavy, noisy sound of fart’ 28. dh’am-dh’um [dhãm-dhũm] ‘sound of a hard object hitting each other repetitively’ 29. rha-rh’ie [rha-rhĩə] ‘sharp, noisy and continuous sound of various motorbikes’ engines going back and forth over a road’ 30. h’um-h’um [hũm-hũm] ‘sound of a huge flame of fire’ 31. blup [blup] ‘sound of a heavy object falling into water’ 32. bh’um [bhũm] ‘a dull, heavy sound such as that made by a heavy, hard object falling from a high place and landing to the ground’ 33. bap-bup [bap-bup] ‘sound of repetitive hits/ punches on one’s body or on another hard surface’ 34. pr’ang-pr’ing [prãŋ-prĩŋ] ‘a high-pitched, continuous clatter sound of dishes striking each other’ 35. tr’ang-tr’ing [trãŋ-trĩŋ] ‘high-pitched, continuous clinking sound of glass striking each other’ 36. t’um [tũm] ‘sound of a head bumping heavily into a hard surface ‘ 37. trap [trap] ‘a sudden, sharp cracking and breaking sound of something’ 38. tuk [tu?] ‘sound of a head bumping lightly into a hard surface’ 39. t’am/p’am [tãm] [pãm] ‘sound of a hard slap to a face using palm’ 40. thap-thuep [thap-thuəp] ‘a collective, noisy, short, and repetitive explosive sound of something small one after another’ 41. ‘iet [ĩət] ‘a short, high – pitched sound, especially of door while opening due to its dry hinges’ 42. ‘at-‘iet [ãt-ĩət] ‘a short, continuous high-pitched sound, especially of door while opening due to its dry hinges’ 43. ting [tiŋ] ‘a sharp, clear ringing sound, such as when glass is struck by a metal object’ 44. thum [thũm] ‘a heavy sound of explosion’ 45. kr’éuet [krϖǝt] ‘sound of something cut off using two acehnese onomatopoeias: investigating, listing, and interpreting their meanings 92 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 bladed of metal stuff’ 46. thak-thuk [tha?-thu?] ‘a loud, noisy sound made by small pieces of metals on a gentle surface’ 47. kr’ang-kr’ing [krãŋ-krĩŋ] ‘a series of loud, clear, continuous sound of phone’ 48. pr’èt [pr˜ɛt] ‘sound of a hard-pushed button of a perfume and leaking out some liquid that is blown or driven through the air in the form of tiny drops’ 49. grak-gruk [gra? – gru?] ‘sharp, continuous sound coming from something moved agitatedly/ sound of bones while one is starching / stretching his/her body’ 50. kruk-kruk [kru? – kru?] ‘sound of stomach growling due to extremely starving’ oral related sounds meaning 51. gr’o [gr˜ɔ] ‘a large, audible, noisy sound of snoring while asleep’ 52. khahkhuh [khah khuh] ‘throat disease with a sharp, barking cough’ 53. ak-uk [a?u?] ‘continuous vomiting sound’ 54. s’ah [sãh] ‘arbitrary sound while whispering softly and quietly’ 55. pruh [pruh] ‘striking forcefully with a sharp blow/ a sharp blow’ 56. hah [hah] ‘a soft, quiet sound while opening mouth widely’ 57. syeuh [šωh] ‘sound to frighten or drive away a person or animal’ 58. ph’èhph’èh [ph˜ɛh ph˜ɛh] ‘sound of a soft, continuous snoring while asleep’ nasal-related sounds meaning 59. pr’èh-pr’oh [pr˜ɛh pr˜ɔh] ‘continuous sound of running nose due to catching a cold’ 60. pr’ah-pr’ieh [prãh prĩəh] ‘sound of a strong, repeated kiss’ 61. ch’o [ch˜ɔ] ‘nasalized sound due to crying or catching a cold’ 62. syah-syeuh [šah-šωh] ‘repetitive sneezing’ ida muliawati & dara yusnida englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 93 action-related sounds meaning 63. cah-côh [cah coh] ‘noisy, hectic, repeated sound coming from the activity of cooking several cuisines busily at the same time’ 64. cr’a-cr’ie [crã crĩə] ‘hissing sound, as of food fried or cooked’ 65. tèh-tèh [tɛh tɛh] ‘sound of inconstant footsteps of infants learning to walk’ 66. p’am-p’um [pãm pũm] ‘sound of something being set down carelessly and noisily’ 67. ‘chèp-chèp [chɛp chɛp] ‘footstep sound due to a slow running’ 68. ’ap-’iep [ãpĩəp] ‘noisy sound (shouting, screaming, crying, and speaking at the same time) made by some children in crowded groups’ 69. c’a-c’ie [cãcĩə] ‘noisy sound (running all around) made by children in crowded groups’ 70. pok-pok [po? – po?] ‘sound of continuous firm taps on children bottoms as a lullaby’ 71. h’ah-h’ah [hãh – hãh] ‘sound of inhaling and exhaling shortly as well as quickly due to exhaustion’ 72. prak-pruk [pra? – pru?] ‘imitative sound of running helter skelter’ table 2: the results of data interpretation of acehnese phenomimes acehnese phenomimes no. visual impressions meaning 1. klèp-klèp [klɛp klɛp] ‘continuous eye movements due to winking’ 2. sè-soe [sɛ sɔə] ‘continuous eye movements due to watching surreptitiously over something’ 3. blèk-blèk [blɛ? blɛ?] ‘continuous eye movements due to admiring or longing something’ 4. bre’ut-bre’ut [brϖt brϖt] ‘a blurred view over something’ acehnese onomatopoeias: investigating, listing, and interpreting their meanings 94 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 no. attitude-related impressions meaning characteristics 1. gèh-goh [gɛh goh] ‘walking quickly and impolitely in front of elders’ 2. sak-sak [sa? – sak?] ‘pressing close on each other’ 3. rôn-rôn [r○n – r○n] ‘going along with whatever happens aimlessly’ 4. mèh-moh [mɛh moh] ‘being unable to sit quietly in a certain place, constantly moving all around’ 5. krèh-kroh [krɛh kroh] ‘to behave in a careless noisy fashion’ 6. sy’èh-sy’oh [šɛh šoh] ‘to burst/speak many unimportant things constantly’ 7. dèh-doh [dɛh doh] ‘moving/walking back and forth aimlessly’ laughing manners meaning 8. khik-khik [khi?-khi?] ‘giggle laughter’ 9. haha [haha] ‘roaring laughter’ 10. seuhèh-seuhèh [sωh˜ɛh – sωh˜ɛh] ‘laughing quietly or inwardly/ a quiet or suppressed laugh’ 11. khèkkhèk [khɛ?-khɛ?] ‘cheerful laughing, especially used for elderly and baby’ speaking manners meaning 12. ngom-ngom [ŋɔmŋɔm] ‘talking rapidly and unclearly or incomprehensible way’ 13. sie-sie [siəsiə] ‘to speak firmly and softly’ 14. ju-ju [siəsiə] ‘to speak too much without keeping a single secret’ 15. bop-bop [bɔpbɔp] ‘to speak harshly and continuously’ no. object condition impressions meaning 1. yeuk-yeuk [yω? yω?] ‘a ragged, worn-out clothes’ 2. yèk-yèk [yɛ? yɛ?] ‘cutting something off yet it does not completely broken off’ 3. klèk-klok [kɛ? – klo?] ‘a remote area that is hard to reach’ ida muliawati & dara yusnida englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 95 4. pr’am-pr’um [prãm-prũm] ‘doing something rashly and quickly’ 5. cr’et-cr’et [cr˜ɛtcr˜ɛt] ‘a broken sound of liquid stuff coming out from a hole little by little or inconstantly’ 6. bl’èt-bl’èt [bl˜ɛt bl˜ɛt] ‘bright sparkle of glittered stuff (diamonds, beads)’ 7. hèng-hèng [hɛŋ -hɛŋ] ‘too much bright, gaudy color’ 8. kliep-kliep [kliəpkliəp] ‘haziness of lamp, unclear light of lamps’ 9. brop-brop [brɔp brɔp] ‘a lot of tears flowing down on cheek’ no. body trait impressions meaning 1. eungkèh-eungkèh [ωŋ?ɛh ωŋ? ɛh] ‘imbalanced walking or dragging of steps due to game lame’ 2. bu?eng [bu?ɛŋ] ‘a fully-rounded tummy due to satiation’ 3. bunthok [buntho?] ‘a short, corpulent human’ 4. pr’op-pr’op [pr˜ɔp pr˜ɔp] ‘an overweight body’ table 3: the results of data interpretation of acehnese psychomimes acehnese psychomimes no. sensation/sensory impressions meaning taste 1. krap-krup [krap-krup] ‘making a sharp noise while biting and crashing food (especially chips), pleasantly crisp’ 2. s’ep-s’op [s˜ɛp – s˜ɔp] ‘to chew noisily’ 3. cèp-cèp [cɛp – cɛp] ‘munch or chew vigorously and noisily’ 4. lèt-lèt [lɛt –lɛt] ‘to drool over something, particularly food and beverage’ 5. gl’ok-gl’ok [gl˜ɔ?gl˜ɔ?] drinking with gurgling sound’ no. smell 1. hi’ep-hi’ep [hĩəphĩəp] ‘a sharp, strong, stinky, yet inconstantly smell’ temperature 1. trip-trip [trip – trip] ‘an extremely hot temperature or acehnese onomatopoeias: investigating, listing, and interpreting their meanings 96 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 weather at noon’ 2. s’ap-s’ap [sãp sãp] ‘a cold sensation (due to the application of ointment or breezy wind blowing) soaking through the skin’ 3. khip-khip [khip – khip] ‘a sensation of an extremely cold temperature or weather that makes body trembling’ no. inner sensation impressions meaning headache sensations 1. ng’ap ng’ap [ŋãp ŋãp] ‘headache feeling with low intensity of throbbing pain’ 2. t’eung-t’eung [tϖŋ tϖŋ] ‘headache feeling with high intensity of throbbing pain’ skin ache sensations 3. t’iet-t’iet [tĩət tĩət] ‘painful sensation under the skin as if pricked with needle firmly and continuously’ 4. ch’op-ch’op [ch˜ɔp ch˜ɔp ‘painful sensation under the skin as if pricked with needle hardly and continuously’ body ache sensations meaning 5. krôt-kreut [kr○t – krωt] ‘feeling unwell on a whole body as a symptom of an illness’ 6. tat-t’iet [tat tĩət] ‘feeling uncomfortable on a whole body due mugginess or soaking in sweat’ 7. kr’eut-kr’eut [krϖt krϖt] ‘a constant, sharply painful sensation within the bones’ 8. wat-wat [wat wat] ‘unbalanced walking due to a severe big hit on head’ no. emotional impressions meaning crying 1. ‘a –‘a [ã? ã] ‘a loud cry with mouth open widely’ 2. ‘i –‘i [ĩ?ĩ] ‘a loud, harsh, piercing cry’ ida muliawati & dara yusnida englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 97 3. soek-soek [sɔe?sɔe?] ‘sobbing cry followed by convulsive gasp’ 4. ‘ep -‘ep [˜ɛp ˜ɛp] ‘a continuous whimper crying of a fussy, agitated baby’ nervousness meaning 5. dhuk-dhuk/ bh’ak-bh’ak [dhu? – dhu?]/ [bhã? – bhã?] ‘accelerated heart beat due to apprehension and anxiety’ 6. khét-khét [khǝt khǝt] ‘trembling or shaking with a slight rapid motion, typically as a result of apprehension and anxiety’ discussion based on the above findings of this research, it can be resumed that onomatopoeic words present in all aspects of life. phonomimes -various sound imitations -elicit in form of auditory impressions, including sounds of animals, objects, oral-oriented sounds, nasal-oriented sounds, and action-oriented sounds. from this point of view, acehnese people prefer to magnify sound-symbolism or onomatopoeia to express what they hear or listen to in forms of sounds rather than use the long, exact words. then, to describe the manners, actions, appearances, conditions, along with situations they utilize mimetic words -phenomimes. there are abundant of physical appearances which cannot be described by using word – they need a long word description -so they use mimetic words to express them based on the actions they resemble to. the mimetic words of the phenomimes include visual impressions, attituderelated impressions (character, laughing, and speaking manners), object-related impressions, and body trait conditions. and one more thing which is interesting to note from this acehnese phenomimes is that one attitude or manner which only has a slight difference possess a different mimetic words as well. for example, laughing manners have four different mimetic words to portray them based on the gestures and facial expressions while laughing. the way of speaking is another example to note since it has some varieties to describe the gestures of it according to the intensity of the voices. acehnese onomatopoeias: investigating, listing, and interpreting their meanings 98 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 the last is psychomimes which occur in sensory or sensual impressions, covering taste, smell, temperature, and inner sensations which constitute any kinds of pain (headache, skin ache, body ache), and emotions (crying and nervousness). in this sense, various mimetic words are also used to symbolize one general sensory impression. headache feelings, for instance, embrace two kinds of mimetic words to describe the sensation based on the intensity of the ache. another one is skin ache that also present two kinds of mimetic words to resemble the ache. in acehnese speaking, the onomatopoeic words related to reduplication serve to adopt a tone more expressive or figurative than ordinary speech and is also often iconic meaning. in other words, it is done because acehnese people prefer to name something concretely rather than labelling them with another name. to be exact, those onomatopoeic words are used as an attempt to smoothen oral communication among them. moreover, most of acehnese onomatopeic words are in forms of repetition and nasalization. the condition of repetition occurs since it is one of general characteristics of acehnese language as well as the special trait of sound imitation, known as variety of reduplications (sulaiman et al. 1983). it means that reduplication is a morphological process in which the root or stem of a word or part of it – partial reduplication—or the whole word—full reduplication—is repeated exactly or with a slight change. the nasalization of the reduplicative words exist due to there are many nasalized vocal in acehnese language, namely 7 nasal vowels [‘a], ‘[‘i], [‘è], [‘eu], ‘[‘o], ‘[‘ö], ‘[‘u] (asyik, 1987). still, this nasalization modulates as a special regional feature in which special sequences of nasal occur in the language (durie, 1985). asyik (1972) claims that this nasalization are called the funny nasals since they are short and incomplete nasals which differ in their length and in the degree of nasality. a. partial reduplication table 4: the partial reduplication of acehnese onomatopeia can be presented below. ida muliawati & dara yusnida englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 99 c’ap-c’iep bap bup pr’ahpr’ieh mèhmoh t’èt’o pr’ang-pr’ing syah syeuh krèh-kroh kr’am-kr’um tr’ang-tring cahcôh sy’èhsy’oh ph’am-ph’um thapthuep cr’a-cr’ie dèhdoh t’am-t’um thak-thuk p’am-p’um klèk-klok bh’am-bh’um krang-kring ’ap-’iep pr’ampr’um br’am-br’um grak-gruk c’a-c’ie krap-krup h’amh’um khah-khuh prak-pruk s’eps’op dh’am-dh’um ak-uk sè-soe krôt-kreut rha-rh’ie pr’èh-pr’oh gèh-goh tat-t’iet b. full reduplication on the other hand, the full reduplication of acehnese onomatopeia can be presented below. table 5: the full reduplication of acehnese onomatopeia the full reduplication of acehnese onomatopeia ci’ep-ci’ep h’um-h’um khik-khik kliep-kliep t’eung-t’eung khieng-khieng kruk-kruk seuhèhseuhèh brop-brop ‘a –‘a ngèng-ngèng ph’èhph’èh khèkkhèk eungkèheungkèh khét-khét ip-ip tèh-tèh ngom-ngom pr’op-pr’op t’iet-t’iet hèk-hèk chèp-chèp sie-sie cèp-cèp ‘i –‘i soe-soe pok-pok ju-ju lèt-lèt ch’op-ch’op rok-rok h’ah-h’ah bop-bop gl’ok-gl’ok soek-soek ri-ri klèp-klèp yeuk-yeuk hi’ep-hi’ep kr’eut-kr’eut gruk-gruk blèk-blèk yèk-yèk trip-trip ‘ep -‘ep grik-grik bre’ut-bre’ut cr’et-cr’et s’ap-s’ap wat-wat tok-tok sak-sak bl’èt-bl’èt khip-khip dhuk-dhuk tèp-tèp rôn-rôn hèng-hèng ng’ap ng’ap bh’ak-bh’ak conclusion to this point, the researchers can highlight several essential points about the findings of acehnese onomatopoeias. firstly, acehnese onomatopoeias modulate the partial reduplication acehnese onomatopeia acehnese onomatopoeias: investigating, listing, and interpreting their meanings 100 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 in three classes; phonomimes, phenomimes, and psychomimes. all those three classes serve and note different various things to mimic the sounds derived from the natures, yet their functions remain the same – to give, portray, describe, symbolize, resemble, and suggest the sounds, actions, manners, situation, conditions, traits, even physical states into more vivid and livelier ways. secondly, acehnese onomatopoeias come in forms of repetition or reduplication as well as nasalization. the phenomena happen since those two are the special trait of acehnese language and it is unusual in other languages. in other words, there are only a few languages around the globe that has such things . references aliyeh, k., & rahmani, a. (2014). a comparison between onomatopoeia and sound symbolism in persian and english and their application in the discourse of advertisements. international journal of basic sciences & applied research, 3 (sp), 219-225. assaneo, m.f., nichols, j.i., & trevisan, m.a. (2011). the anatomy of onomatopoeia. journal plos one, 6 (12), 1-11. asyik, a. g. (1972). atjehnese morphology . unpublished master thesis. institut keguruan dan ilmu pendidikan, malang. asyik, a.g. (1987). a contextual grammar of acehnese sentences. unpublished doctorate dissertation. the university of michigan. michigan. azwardi. (2018). ilmu bahasa aceh. banda aceh: bina karya akademika. bowern, c. (2007). linguistic fieldwork: a practical guide. london: palgrave macmillan. durie, m. (1985). a grammar of acehnese, on the basis of a dialect of north aceh. dordrecht: foris publications. fromkin, v., rodman, r., & hyams, n. (2003). an introduction to language. massachusetts: thomson heinle. hasada, r. (1994). the semantic aspects of onomatopoeia: focusing on japanese psychomimes. thesis. canberra: the australian national university. miles, m.b., huberman, a.m., & saldana j. (2013). qualitative data analysis: a method sourcebook (3rd ed.). london: sage publication. regot, n.r.r. (2015). translating sounds: the translation of onomatopoeia between english and spanish. thesis. barcelona: universitat de barcelona. sugahara, t. (2010). onomatopoeia in spoken and written english: corpus and usage based analysis. hokkaido: hokkaido university. ida muliawati & dara yusnida englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 101 sulaiman, b., yusuf, h., hanoum, s., & lani, r.c. (1983). struktur bahasa aceh: morfologi dan sintaksis. jakarta: pusat pembinaan dan pengembangan bahasa depdikbud. tamori, i., & schourup, l. (1999). onomatope: keitai to imi (onomatopoeia: morphology and semantics). tokyo: kurosio publishers. yamamoto, h. (1993). sugu ni tsukaeru jissen nihongo shirizu 1— oto to imeji de tanoshiku oboeru: giseigo-gitaigo (sho-chukyu) [practical japanese workbook 1— onomatopoeia: elementary-intermediate]. tokyo: senmon kyoiku shuppan. yule, g. (1996). pragmatics. new york: oxford university press. zolfagharian, m., & ameri, a. (2015). a sound symbolic study of translation of onomatopoeia in children’s literature: the case of “tintin”. journal of language and translation (jlt), 5 (2), 111-117. introduction introduction introduction englisia may 2014 vol. 1 no.2, 155-171 excellent school, status and its  existence   syarwan ahmad state islamic university of ar-raniry banda aceh abstract the excellent school and effective school share their characteristics. their main characteristic is that higher student academic achievement and there is no disparity or gap across the scores gained. the status of the excellent school is a dynamic process. it should not be decided by educational authorities. the existence of the excellent school has become heated discussions lately. the status of the government supported excellent schools including the rsbi (international standard school pilot project) has recently been revoked. however, the existence of the school should be maintained. further research on the excellent school is badly needed. keywords: excellent school; effective school; excellent school status; excellent school existence. introduction ‘excellent schools’ had been mushrooming before the ministry of culture and education brought them to an end in 2013. the status of the excellent school is questioned and its existence has also been recently revoked. this writing tries to present the concept of the excellent school, its status and existence. in most of the literature, the term effective school is more frequently found than the term excellent school, which is often associated with ‘sekolah unggul’, ‘sekolah unggulan’, ‘sekolah model’, ‘sekolah percontohan’, and ‘sekolah khusus’ in bahasa. apart from these schools, the rsbi (international standard school pilot project) also refers to ‘sekolah unggulan’ or excellent school. in international literature, the effective schools/excellent schools are frequently associated with lab school, effective school, excellent school, status and its existence 156 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 demonstration school, experiment school, or accelerated school (abidin, 2007). however, scholarly speaking, the concept of the excellent school is different from that of effective schools or high performing schools, even though one day the excellent school is hoped to become an effective school. in malaysia, effective school is often referred to ‘sekolah berkesan’ or ‘high performing school.’ output, which is normally expressed in terms of students’ academic achievement, is often measured as a standard of school effectiveness (rahimah & zulkifli, 1996). taking output student achievement as a standard of school effectiveness is coincided with what elucidated by idris (2006) that the main measure of effectiveness is higher student achievement, which is measured by employing standardized test. it is also found in the literature that aspects of school environment and school climate have also been used to measure the characteristics of effective schools because they affect student achievement as well. in aceh, indonesia the status of the excellence is decided and inscribed in an official decree by the head of the education service office of regency/city level together with regents or mayors, and school administrators in aceh (laisani, 2009). since the characteristics of effective schools are often found similar to those of excellent schools, which are less frequently mentioned in international literature compared to effective schools, it is academically safe to discuss the characteristics of effective schools. characteristics and criteria before describing the characteristics of effective schools it is academically sound to mention some alleged characteristics of a “less effective” school.” after visiting “less effective” schools in urban areas rahimah and zulkifli (1996) found at least 7 characteristics of “less effective” schools in contrast to those of effective schools: (1) based on the information gathered during unplanned conversation with the teachers in the teachers’ sitting room, principal of the school was unpopular among the teachers; (2) the principal did not talk much about the school; (3) the principal complained about his transference from another place recently to fill in the vacant post in this particular school; (4) she was looking forward to retiring shortly; (5) the score on interpersonal relationship of “less effective” school was lower than syarwan ahmad englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 157 that of its effective counterpart; (6) concerning the items that measure the four constructs namely: interpersonal relationships, teaching & learning, administration and physical facilities, the students and teachers of “less effective” schools tend to agree to a lesser degree on the items compared to their counterparts in effective schools; (7) principals from a “less effective” school resembles more of a responder, rather than an initiator, directive from higher authorities. (rutherford, 1985, in idris, 2006) also questioned the principal of a “less effective” and that of an effective school. the principal of an effective school answered the questions on school missions and goals confidentially. however, the principal of a “less effective” school answered the questions in doubt such as: we have good school and teachers and i would like to maintain this condition; we have heard some recommendations from the commission, and i think we have implemented most of the recommendations; we are going to have a safe and tidy school. it is not easy to find a well organized concept of effective schools of indonesian context. however, educators have a common view that “less effective schools” usually accept future students of any level of intelligence or even the loser who fails to enter favorable schools; the facilities are inadequate or less than those of effective schools; the teachers and students are not familiar with technology such as internet; the teachers are rarely given opportunities to upgrade themselves concerning the most current theories and practices in their fields (zainoeddin, 2010); the teachers of “less effective schools” must work extra hard to upgrade the below average students in the same period of time as effective schools. some teachers of “less effective schools” say that “we have to thank god that with limited facilities and weak inputs we are able to make students pass national examination and gain good achievement” (winggowati, 2011). some analysts even suggest that the paradigm of effective school be changed. the title of effective school (sekolah unggul) should be granted to the general schools which are able to educate low capacity students to be high achievers. the existing literature of indonesian context on effective school (sekolah unggul) indicates that they have something in common. they illustrate that effective excellent school, status and its existence 158 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 schools generally accept only superior or academically excellent students; they have adequate facilities; at the end of the year, it is not surprising that the students reach a high level of achievement; grade point average of the students is higher than those of “less effective schools;” students have no problem passing entrance test to further their education to a higher level or tertiary education (ahsan, 2010); teachers and students are familiar with technology such as internet; teachers are recognized and given the opportunities to keep abreast of the development of the most current theories and practices in their fields (zainoeddin, 2010). characteristics of an effective school vary in number. garibaldi (1993), for example, set six characteristics of effective schools: the schools have pleasant environment and in which goals and rules are well articulated; takeover rates of the teachers are low; principals function as instructional leaders; teachers are involved in decision making; teachers feel that they are supported by the school leaders, parents and community; students enjoy the school learning and social atmosphere. the characteristics indicating an effective school not only vary in terms of size of characteristics, but also their substance. according to mclaughlin (2005), an effective school is a school that can, in measured student achievement terms, demonstrate the joint presence of quality and equity. said another way, an effective school is a school that can, in measured student achievement terms and reflective of its “learning for all” mission, demonstrate high overall levels of achievement and no gaps in the distribution of that achievement across major subsets of the student population (mclaughlin, 2005, p. 5). referring to the above definition, it can be inferred that an excellent school is the school whose whole students could achieve a common quality and equity in measured student achievement terms, and there is no disparity among the students in terms of the achievement. effective school studies indicate that both students from less fortunate and wealthier family backgrounds are successful. the studies consistently show that instructionally effective schools set a high standard of expectations for student attainment. principal instructional leadership plays the most significant role for success of these effective schools (hallinger & murphy, 1987). most literature on effective schools has something in common that is the professional principal is counted as one of the most important elements of the criteria. syarwan ahmad englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 159 mclaughlin (2005) also specifies 8 factors that make a school be called an excellent/effective school: 1. professional leadership of the principal a qualified and professional principal who has a comprehensive understanding on the overall school operation is an effective school leader. only an effective and professional head master with leadership capacity, integrity, and managerial skills could encourage students to excel. effective school leadership is a key to students’ academic success. 2. reliable and professional teachers teacher plays the most significant role in promoting an educational institution. reliable and effective teachers are able to realize the expectations of the school principal and parents. thus, the capacity of the students is more likely to be enhanced. 3. clear operational philosophy most schools are operated based on a well formulated philosophy. however, if the philosophy cannot be brought into reality, the impact of the philosophy on school operation could hardly be noticeable. the philosophy should be shaped into a statement of vision and mission. the vision and mission must later be specified into academic goals. then, it is necessary to clearly elaborate the goals into objectives and policies of the schools. finally, the objectives and policies have to be fully figured out and mandatorily practiced by all school elements in carrying out their school activities. 4. conducive learning environment good setting for learning does not necessarily mean luxurious classroom with extravagant facilities. the most important consideration is that the learning environments provide students with feeling of comfort and make them learn peacefully, be it in the middle of the field, under a tree or anywhere else. the comfortable environment that ensures students can learn to their best potential. 5. good organizational networking good organizational networking is often misunderstood by the principal. some principals assume that networking here means linear communication between excellent school, status and its existence 160 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 the principal and the teachers and other school elements. as a matter of fact, organizational networking here has a notion of parallel communication between principals, teachers and parents particularly on the problems and constraints encountered by the teacher and students in the teaching-learning process. in addition, the members of this organization especially parents should be well informed particularly in terms of school atmosphere and education in a broader sense. 6. well-oriented curriculum school leaders play a crucial role in setting high standards for student performance in their schools. however, these high standards must be translated into ambitious academic content represented in the curriculum experienced by students. school leaders work with colleagues to ensure that the school is defined by a rigorous curriculum program in general and each student’s program, in particular. however, the drawback is that all public high schools’ curricula are currently provided by the ministry of national education of the republic of indonesia in a centralized manner. only 20% of the curriculum content is regionally loaded. as a consequence of this, the teachers could hardly have any room to develop a curriculum considering local potentials. the students’ intellectual development regarding their local culture and wisdom is unavoidably undermined. as the curriculum is nationally designed by the ministry of national education, evaluation is also conducted by following the nationally set standards. ideally, high school curriculum is regionally made. the ministry of national education had better offer the lattice, framework of the curriculum. the teachers develop the curriculum and learning objectives. in this way, each province will design fairly unique curriculum on the basis of the local potentials, by accommodating the local aspirations in agreement with the uniqueness of the region. for instance, aceh could color its high school curriculum with syari’ah law. 7. evaluation evaluation is aimed at looking at the progress students have made and their accomplishments based on the learning objectives stated in the curriculum. a properly organized curriculum would guarantee a measurable student achievement and map the students’ strength and weaknesses. 8. active parent participation in school activities syarwan ahmad englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 161 at the least involvement, participation of the parents in school activities is simply controlling students during the break. the serious partaking is that parents take part in curriculum development. this role is considered significant part for parents to play, because involving in the curriculum arrangement would result in the parents’ awareness of the students’ learning and synchronize home and school learning. thus, parents would feel accountable for the success of the learning. in turn, parents and community members as a whole would realize that education and human resource development is everybody’s responsibility. regardless of the 8 indicators illustrated above, hammond and friedlander (2008) point out one distinctive feature of all five excellent schools researched in the united states in contrast to traditional high schools, that is their degree of personalization. the teachers are exceptionally responsible and close to students. in this respect, the schools establish a small learning environment; promote continuous, long term relationships between adults and students; and create advisory systems that systematically organize counseling, academic supports and family connections which make the school more effective. macgilchrist, myers, and reed (2004) viewed a shared vision and agreed upon goals as characteristics of an effective school. sammons, hillman, and mortimore (1995) undertook a review of international school effectiveness literature. they focused on schools in the uk, north america and the netherlands. despite the many differences in approaches to education from one country to another, they were invited to evaluate whether or not it was possible to find distinctive features that effective schools have in common. the main indicators of ‘success’ of the schools under investigation are that the examination performance and improvements in tests. the synopsis of the review provided as a result of the assessment is depicted in table 2.1. characteristics elements 1. professional leadership firm and purposeful a participative approach the leading professional 2. shared vision and goals unity of purpose consistency of practice collegiality and collaboration excellent school, status and its existence 162 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 3. a learning environment an orderly atmosphere an attractive working environment 4. concentration on teaching and learning maximization of learning time academic emphasis focus on achievement 5. purposeful teaching efficient organization clarity of purpose structured lessons adaptive practice 6. high expectations high expectations all around communicating expectations providing intellectual challenge 7. positive reinforcement clear and fair discipline feedback 8. monitoring progress monitoring pupil performance evaluating school performance 9. pupil rights and responsibilities raising pupil self-esteem positions of responsibility control of work 10. home-school partnership parental involvement in their children’s learning 11. a learning organization school-based staff development table 2.1 eleven characteristics found in effective schools resulting from a review of international school effectiveness literatur taken from sammons, hillman and mortimore (1995, p.8). status the status of effective school is a dynamic process. the findings on effective school is growing. the present substantial body of the research literature on effective schools had no origin prior to the 1970s. then, the researchers visited the apparently effective schools to see what they were like, to observe what were going on in them. over the years, this body of research literature has grown (owens, 2001). however, even though the pieces of research have increased in volume, scope and sophistication, the conceptualization and school settings are in diversity. syarwan ahmad englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 163 in addition, according to rahimah & zulkifli (1996) school effectiveness is a dynamic process. a school which is less effective at this moment may be more effective in the next couple years in the future, and this condition also applies in reverse. based on this nature of effective school, it means that there is no special status of a school or a group of schools which are categorized into effective schools. the schools may meet the requirements to be effective schools any time, be it through changes made by administrators together with the teachers or government authorities or other parties, or other factors. this measure is in line with that used by reuter (1992) suggesting that effective schools could be located or found anywhere either in urban or rural areas. in practice, in many developing countries high performing schools are associated with certain schools in urban areas. this is a consequence of the focus of development in those countries in which governments concentrate on developing urban areas. in indonesia, the concept or dimension of effectiveness or excellence (keunggulan) of the schools as stated by the ministry of national education (depdikbud) 1993 is indicated in the following criteria: the superiority of the student learning achievement demonstrated in school report card; the results of intelligence, creativity and physical test; the availability of infrastructure and structure that make it possible for students to channel their talents and ability both through curricular and extracurricular activities; conducive learning atmosphere both physical and psychological conditions for developing and realizing the talents; excellence in terms of teaching staff who are more capable and committed than those in regular schools; curriculum which is developed in such a way that is referring to the national curriculum with the enrichment and acceleration as needed; leadership capacity development of the student through practices around the schools. in this era, educational institutions become more and more independent and the sources of funding may derive from any sources. therefore, effective schools possibly emerge anywhere and anytime. there are diverse effective schools in indonesia and are controlled by different government departments. there are in the main two indonesian government ministries in charge of education: the ministry of national education and the ministry of religious affairs. except for those under the conexcellent school, status and its existence 164 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 trol of government ministries, there are a number of private effective schools of different levels under the management of boarding schools (pesantren or dayah) and foundations or firms. existence 1. controversy it is said that the idea of the excellent school establishment is considered controversial. it is unaffordable, legally groundless and theoretically baseless. the emergence of the excellent school undermines the paradigm of inclusive education, education for all, democracy and equity and it contradicts the philosophy that “no students left behind” which was sounded in jomtien, bangkok, in 1990. government is obliged to ensure equal access to education for all citizens. unfortunately, government especially regional government pays too special attention to the excellent schools or model schools ignoring the rest of the regular schools in the country (daud, 2010). according to a distinguished educator, djohar (2007), the learning model of the excellent schools that are mushrooming now is not in accordance with the norm of education. students are, more often than not, forced to master more materials especially science and to apply themselves to over loaded homework. in addition, parents still exhaust the students by making them take additional courses outside to guarantee their survival in the program. in this way, teachers and parents unconsciously chain them and violate their rights. the teaching learning process is mostly conventional in style by which the students are textually fed to ensure their success. more ironically, the success of the school student is allegedly viewed due to the prior outstanding academic achievement and financial well-being of the potential enrolment (nurkolis, 2002). however, in fact, the basic idea of the excellent school refers to the theory of education, psychology, and pieces of research. it is essential that intellectually distinguished students be considered and treated in a special setting through schools with special model and system. this strategy is in line with the principal function of syarwan ahmad englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 165 education, namely, developing the potential of the learners wholly and optimally (arifin, 2009). a study conducted by the ministry of education of indonesia in 1994 shows that around one-thirds of the learners encounter the symptom of under achievement. one of the factors cited is that the teaching-learning process of the regular system is not challenging enough for the strong to develop their ability optimally. in line with this finding, results of research carried out in a number of provinces of indonesia such as in west java, east java, lampung, and west kalimantan in 1997, widyasono reminds us about mishandling of the gifted children. based on this investigation widyasono, who is also a senior researcher of the research center of the ministry of national education of indonesia, states that 20 % of the junior high school (sltp) students and 22 % of the primary school (sd) students categorized into special or gifted students are more likely to fail to be promoted in school. according to him, the special or talented students do not get proper educational service yet. they are still treated in the same way as other children who learn at slower pace and have lower ability than them. therefore, non-conventional system, as an alternative system, excellent/effective school is badly needed for the sake of catering to distinguished capability and talent of special students (rahayu, 2009). in this way, the special learners are optimally educated and high quality graduates who are able to compete globally or on a par with the international students of the same levels are more likely to be produced. the government decided the legal basis for the excellent or model or effective or favorite school operation, as inscribed in the broad outline of the national development direction (gbhn) 1993 and constitution (uu) no. 2/1992 on the educational system. although gbhn is not very popular after the collapse of the new order government, it used to be an effective national development guideline. gbhn 1993 on education, point f stated, "students who have an excellent intelligence need to be specially considered, in order to push ahead the development of their achievement and talent.'' while in uu no. 2/89 there are several articles, among others, article 8, point 2: “citizens who have an excellent intelligence and ability deserve special attention.” article 24, point 1 stipulates that “each student excellent school, status and its existence 166 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 deserves to be treated in accordance with his or her talent, interest, and ability.” article 24, point 6: “each student deserves to finish his or her educational program earlier than the period of time that has been determined.” then, article 26: “learners deserve to have the opportunity to develop their capability by studying all the time along the course of their life aligned with their talent, interest, and their ability.” in the governmental regulations (pp) no. 28/1990 on primary education and pp no. 29/1990 concerning high school education article 16, point1 and article 17, point 1 is stated that the right of the student, among others, to be treated in conformity with his or her talent, interest, and ability. 2. revocation the status of the excellent school, including rsbi (international standard school pilot project) was revoked by the government. this revocation gave a surprise to many community members, parents, teachers and educators.the reason why the law for the excellent school or the rsbi establishment was suddently revoked is that because the establishement of the school is allegedly discriminative in terms of education provision. the rsbis and government supported excellent schools just approve the applications of the have while the disadvantged parents cannot afford to send their children to the schools, even though they are potential students. this discrimination is considered in conflict with the constitution. early in 2013 many parties especially educational stakeholders were surprised by the issuance of mk (constitutional court) decree on the annulment of the rsbi and the excellent school. the minister of culture and education, muhammad nuh, asserted that the annulment did not give any negative impacts on students because the status was converted into ‘sekolah mandiri’ (independent school). unfortunately, on the annulment, the operational system of the ‘sekolah mandiri’ was not clearly defined yet. at first the rsbi and the excellent school were aimed at improving the quality of education. however, the reality was that it became to too expensive for economically average parents to afford. in fact, the school got more than enough financial support from government every year. ironically, it allegedly indicated that many academically average sudents from the rich families were accepeted by the syarwan ahmad englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 167 school. this practice deviated from the origional idea of the rsbi and the excellent school erection in which intelectually superior students would get priority even though they come from the poor family. some people say that the revocation of the rsbi and the excellent school is public’s victory, because the establishment does not contribute to the correction of the quality of education. the operation the rsbi just leads to the privatization and profit oriented education, without taking into account the graduate outcome quality and side effect of the discrimination (diyah, 2013). conclusion the concept of excellent school is similar to that of effective school. the most important criteria of excellence or effectiveness is the best student achievement and there is no disparity or gap across the students scores of standardized tests. the status of the effective school is a dynamic process meaning that any schools may potentially become an excellent or effective school due to changes made such as principal leadership that focuses on academic affairs, teaching and learning. this also means that the status cannot be decided by any authorities. the existence of the school has long been controversial. some people say that the existence of the excellent school undermines the concept of inclusive education, education for all. it is discriminative and a waste of money. it is also criticized that the academic achievement gained by the students not because of better practice of teachinglearning, but because of students’ previous academic ability and their family background. however, the advantages of the excellent schools outweigh the disadvantages. the school is the place where talented children are optimally educated. the concept of the school does not break the law. among others, in the governmental regulations (pp) no. 28/1990 on primary education and pp no. 29/1990 concerning high school education article 16, point1 and article 17, point 1 stated that the right of the student, among others, is to be treated in conformity with his or her talent, interest, and ability. some people argue that excellent students be treated in a special ways as special need students treated in special manners. in excellent school, status and its existence 168 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 australia, one special need student deserves to have one teacher and it costs a furtune. why should bother with the cost of the rsbi or excellent school? a study conducted by the ministry of education of indonesia in 1994 shows that around one-thirds of the learners encounter the symptom of under achievement. one of the factors cited is that the teaching-learning process of the regular system is not challenging enough for the strong to develop their ability optimally. global competitiveness cannot be gotten rid of. all we have to do is to prepare and educate young generations who would become on alert and on a par with their counterparts in developed worlds. government should not have revoked the status or closed the rsbi/excellent schools. if the management is wrong, it should be improved. if the teachers are not the capable ones, they deserve to be removed. revocating the status of the school is not a wise measure to take. further exploratory studies on the excellent school needs to be conducted. syarwan ahmad englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 169 references abidin, zainal. 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(2002, june 26). sekolah unggul yang tak unggul. retrieved from http://re-searchengines.com/nurkolis3.html owens, r. g. (2001). organizational behavior in education (7th ed.). boston, usa: allyn and bacon. excellent school, status and its existence 170 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 rahayu, sri. (2009, may 22). pengembangan pendidikan khusus untuk siswa ci/bi. retrieved from http://srirahayu09.blogspot.com/2009/05/pengembangan pendidikan-khusus-untuk.html rahimah, h. a., & zulkifli, a. m. (1996). towards developing a profile of effective and less effective schools. journal of educational research, 17. reuter, s. f. (1992). characteristic of successful schools: perception differences rural and urban school teachers. paper presented at the 14th annual rural small schools conference at manhattan, kansas, u.s.a, october 26-27, 1992. document reproduction number ed 360115. sammons, p., hillman, j., & mortimore, p. (1995). key characteristics of effective schools: a review of school effectiveness research. paper presented at an internal seminar for ofsted, london: institute of education, march 1995. retrieved from http://www.highreliability.co.uk/shared/school effectiveness.aspx winggowati, sri. (2011, march 21). sekolah unggulan? [web log comment]. retrieved from http://soegi58.wordpress.com/2011/03/21/sekolah-unggulan/ zainoeddin, syafbraini. (2010, july 25).sekolah unggulan, haruskah dihapuskan? retrieved from http://pewarta-kabarindonesia.blogspot.com/ englisia may 2018 vol. 5, no. 2, 51-65 an analysis of tenses usage in animated movie “up”: the relevance with 2013 curriculum for teaching efl at junior high school in indonesia nuzulul isna stkip muhammadiyah, aceh barat daya, indonesia nuzulul_isna@yahoo.com abstract movies have been seen as an encouraging media in learning english, tuning out the formal fear of english. they have helped increase students’ confidence and initiative to ask and answer the questions, and improve their listening skill and attention span in english drastically (o'donnell, 1990). this article is intended to seek the applicability of the english sentences used in the movie up and their uses for efl learning in indonesia. the 2013 curriculum was used as the standard guideline to determine the sentences’ appropriateness. a qualitative research by imposing content analysis method was employed to conduct the data analysis in this article. the findings classified the specific numbers of sentences generated in this research into ten (10) categories of english tenses. another finding also indicated the applicability of those sentences for teaching efl/esl in junior high schools. remarkably, these findings were substantial for appending the teachers’ resources in teaching english tenses. keywords: movie; 2013 curriculum; authentic materials; english tenses introduction clearning english for efl (english as a foreign language)/ esl (english as a second language) students in a developing country, like indonesia, relies on the materials presented by the teachers. the geographical location also holds a significant role in the distribution of the teachers and learning materials in a way to gain the technological aspect in facilitating the access to the authentic learning an analysis of tenses usage in animated movie “up”: the relevance with 2013 curriculum for teaching efl at junior high school in indonesia 52 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 materials. the efl students are still presented with the types of the tenses through the class textbooks. their classroom activities mostly around how to develop those sentences individually, which may sometimes take the meaning away from its context. learning english is not only about understanding the meaning of its sentences but also comprehending the use of the sentences as well developing the appropriate sentences based on the time of action. oxford dictionary defines tenses as “a set of forms taken by a verb to indicate the time (and sometimes also the continuance or completeness) of the action in relation to the time of the utterance” (oxforddictionaries.com, 2018b). the tenses are patterns of verb form indicating when actions happen. tenses are critical in making a flawless language and delivering the intended messages across. they help the learners to convey their ideas clearly in the forms of words. they also indicate the time of the statements and provide the readers with the overview of the events. the second point which was sometimes missed out on teaching efl/esl process is the context. in current learning practices, the students tend to imitate the examples or follow the tenses pattern. they, however, do not completely understand how to apply those tenses in developing english sentences. i personally experienced this situation while living in one of the urban areas in aceh province in indonesia. moreover, the students in the remote areas still consider english as a difficult subject to learn. particularly, when they encounter the explanation on the english tenses, the students feel discouraged and begin to lose their interests in learning. here, providing a supportive learning environment may be the only option to encourage the students’ motivation to learn. therefore, the teachers’ role in facilitating such enjoyable learning atmosphere is especially significant. it is undeniable that the teachers’ efforts to facilitate the teaching-learning process in classrooms help to ensure the knowledge transfer process takes place. one of these efforts is by presenting fascinating learning materials or learning media. video clips generated from children’s famous friendly movies may suggest a less intimidating environment for learning. by this means, the students might obtain another perspective of learning that possibly allow the learning process to be in place more easily. nuzulul isna englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 53 the 2013 curriculum has initiated the shift in the objectives of teaching english at school to focus more on the communication aspect. various learning materials and media are encouraged to be included in the class activities. presenting students with english movies or video clips supports the objectives of this curriculum. therefore, it is expected that findings in this article will add the variety of english learning resources at schools in indonesia. to meet the objective, the following research questions were employed: (1) what kinds of tenses are used in the movie “up”? and (2) how relevant are the sentences used in the movie “up” to the 2013 english curriculum for teaching efl at junior high school? literature review movies as authentic materials for teaching efl/esl talking about an authentic resource for teaching efl/esl may deal with the language authenticity produced by the native speakers. a great number of definitions of authenticity have been identified in the literature (gilmore, 2007). these definitions, however, mostly related to the authentic texts. gilmore (2007) defines an authentic text “is a stretch of real language, produced by a real speaker or writer for a real audience and designed to convey a real message of some sort” (p. 98). referring to these criteria, in this article, an authentic text should refer to the source of the discourse and the context of its production. based on the above definition, english movies can be considered as authentic learning resources because they are produced within english culture and spoken by the native speakers. movies have been considered as a useful and effective method of teaching efl/esl (rammal, 2006) because they may motivate students, arouse their interests, and expose them to the context of the language (al azri & al-rashdi, 2014). additionally, the teachers may use them in various ways of instructional settings to attract learners’ attention to learn, particularly in helping the students to be engaged in the learning process (ismaili, 2013). movies also have proven to provide an attractive situation for learning english for efl/esl learners. the benefits of using videos for teaching english skills are becoming more prominent over the time. these sorts of visual aids serve students’ listening (hayati & mohmedi, 2011; woottipong, 2014) and also speaking (ulusoy & demirbilek, 2013). an analysis of tenses usage in animated movie “up”: the relevance with 2013 curriculum for teaching efl at junior high school in indonesia 54 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 mathew and alidmat (2013) discovered that audio-visual materials could make english easy to understand. the students can easily remember and comprehend the images they view on the screen rather than from descriptive reading materials. they will not also feel the long class duration as they are provided with audio-visual aids. in addition to that, movies can also be used as the tool to understand the context of the english sentence used (hong-nam & leavell, 2006). this way, the students are able to select or develop appropriate sentences that are contextually and grammatically correct. therefore, having additional visual material is strongly encouraged. allen and marquez (2011) further elaborated that the impact of visual aids may have added students' interest and develop their excitement, allowing them to use the language in more than one sense. another advantage of using the audiovisuals for the students, it promotes an enjoyable learning atmosphere for students (mansourzadeh, 2014). a comfortable learning environment allows the natural process of language acquisition to take place which eventually results in an effective learning process. consequently, the students’ exposure to the authentic materials will set off their natural language acquisition which may lead to the efl/esl effective teaching. english movies and 2013 curriculum grammar is “the whole system and structure of a language or of languages in general, usually taken as consisting of syntax and morphology (including inflections) and sometimes also phonology and semantics” (oxforddictionaries.com, 2018a). therefore, syntax, morphology phonology and semantics are an important aspect to consider when talking about grammar. xu and zhang (2015) elevated the discussion on the importance of grammar, particularly on functional grammar in teaching english for esl/efl to a higher role, where they showed that grammar not only enhanced the students’ competence in a test but also improved their communication. the focus in english teaching curriculum in indonesia has shifted from learning grammar into communicative language teaching (kemendikbud, 2016). however, english tenses still govern the process of learning english in developing nuzulul isna englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 55 countries. efl/esl students entail grasping english tenses’ topics to enable them in applying the appropriate sentences as needed. therefore, english sentences are incorporated in many texts discussed in schools. here, some grammar aspects expected in the english syllabus of the 2013 curriculum (kemendikbud, 2016) are also identified. the syllabus indicates that tenses are crucial in improving the students’ english skills as tenses provide basic information to support the skills. as stated earlier that movies are parts of learning media, sufen (2006) elaborates that movies provide both audio and visual materials which help the students understand the language easily. harmer (2001) also reveals a myriad of advantages on learning tenses by using movies. the ability to choose the proper tenses when stating what the students intend to say based on the overview of the events or series activities portrayed in the movie is one of those advantages. accordingly, many teachers utilize movies as the learning aid in their teaching activity. methodology research design to obtain the information required, the study of this article employed a qualitative content analysis method. the main major sources of data were documented, including the movie “up” and the 2013 curriculum document. the process of generalizing the data went through some significant observation process to ensure the accuracy of the data. to allow the systematic data analysis process, the data were coded. the study assessed the appropriateness of the data to the english grammatical patterns as the initial attempt. then, it proceeded on checking the sentences relevance to the english teaching materials based on the 2013 curriculum english syllabus for the eight and ninth grades of junior high school. an audit trail was utilized to keep the aspect of trustworthiness of this study. research objects using video clips as the media for learning requires several considerations to make them appropriate for the students. therefore, the selection of this movie “up” was determined by three factors: (1) ethical scenes presented in the movie are agean analysis of tenses usage in animated movie “up”: the relevance with 2013 curriculum for teaching efl at junior high school in indonesia 56 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 appropriate, (2) the sentences are in considerable lengths, and (3) the moral values offered in the movie are substantial for building students’ positive characters in the future. therefore, we chose to analyze an animated movie, titled “up” which was produced by pixar animation studios and released by walt disney on may 29, 2009. the movie was directed by pete docter and produced by jonas rivera. the movie duration was one hour thirty minutes and eight seconds. it was the first animated and 3d movie to release. it also won five academy award nominations, including in the best picture category. the movie used was supplied with english caption/subtitle (nichols, 2008). results & discussion the use of tenses in the movie “up” after analyzing the data, it was found that there were 567 sentences matching ten grammatical english tenses (figure 1 and table 1). these sentences have been validated with the english grammatical structure, meaning that the sentences were grammatically correct. the biggest proportion of tenses used in the movie was simple present tense with 59.3% (336 sentences), indicating that this movie could be used as the teaching material for comprehending simple present form of english. figure 1. the types of the tenses found in “up” 59.3 16.4 9.7 5.3 3.5 4.2 0.7 0.4 0.4 0.2 the distribution of the tenses present tense past tense future tense present continuous tense past future present perfect tense past continuous tense present perfect continuous tense past perfect tense future past perfect tense nuzulul isna englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 57 table 1. kinds of tenses generated from “up” type of tense number of sentences percentage (%) present tense 336 59.3 % past tense 93 16.4 % future tense 55 9.7 % present progessive tense 30 5.3 % past future 20 3.5 % present perfect tense 24 4.2 % past progressive tense 4 0.7 % present perfect progressive tense 2 0.4 % past perfect tense 2 0.4 % future past perfect tense 1 0.2% total sentences 567 100% the tenses appropriateness for teaching efl/esl based on 2013 curriculum in addition, the appropriateness of these sentences to the 2013 curriculum syllabus was in line with the english teaching-learning process in indonesia’s schools. the results are presented in table 2 and table 3. table 2. the application tenses in 2013 junior high school currriculum syllabus for the eight grade basic competence# basic competence tenses covered 3.6 applying text structures and linguistic elements to carry out social functions declare and ask actions / events that occur / occur regularly or are common truths, in accordance with the context of their use. present tense 4.7 prepare oral and written texts to state and inquire about actions / events occurring / occurring on a regular basis or as a general truth, taking into account the correct and context-appropriate function of the social, text structure, and linguistic elements. present tense and present progressive 3.7 apply the structure of the text and linguistic elements to carry out the social function of declaring and inquiring about actions / events that are currently taking place, in accordance with the context of their use. present progressive an analysis of tenses usage in animated movie “up”: the relevance with 2013 curriculum for teaching efl at junior high school in indonesia 58 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 4.8 prepare oral and written texts to state and inquire about current actions / events, taking into account the correct and contextappropriate function of the social, text structure, and linguistic elements. present progressive 3.11 applying text structures and linguistic elements to carry out social functions declare and inquire about actions / events occurring in the past, in the context of their use. past tense 4.13 prepare oral and written texts to state and inquire about past actions / events, taking into account the correct and contextappropriate function of the social, text structure, and linguistic elements. past tense 3.7 apply the structure of the text and linguistic elements to carry out the social function of declaring and inquiring about actions / events that are currently taking place, in accordance with the context of their use. present progressive 3.12 apply text structure and linguistic elements to carry out the social function of the recount text by stating and asking about events, events, and events, short and simple, according to the context of its use. present progressive and past tense 4.14 capturing the meaning of verbal and written recount text, short and simple, about events, events, events. present tense 4.15 arrange the oral and written recount text, short and simple, about activities, events, events, taking into account the social function, text structure, and linguistic elements that are true and contextual. present tense table 3. the application tenses in 2013 junior high school currriculum syllabus for the ninth graders basic competence# basic competence tenses covered 3.8 apply the text structure and linguistic elements to carry out the social function of declaring and inquiring about actions / activities / events occurring / occurring in the present, past, and future, in the context of their use. present progressive tense; past progressive tense; and future tense nuzulul isna englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 59 4.9 prepare oral and written texts to state and inquire about actions / activities / events occurring / occurring in the present, past, and future time, taking into account the correct and contextappropriate function of the social, text structure, and linguistic elements. present tense; past tense; and future tense 3.9 apply the text structure and linguistic elements to carry out the social function of declaring and inquiring about actions / activities / events that have / have been done / occurring in the past without mentioning of the time of occurrence in specific, in accordance with the context of its use. present perfect tense 4.10 prepare oral and written text to state and inquire about actions / activities / events that have / have been done / happened in the past without mentioning of the timing of the occurrence of the specifics, taking into account the correct and contextual social functions, text structures, and linguistic elements. past tense and present perfect tense 3.11 understand the social function, text structure, and linguistic elements of narrative text in the form of folklore, in accordance with the context of its use. present tense and past tense 4.11 capturing the meaning of narrative text, oral and written, in the form of folklore, short and simple. present tense and past tense. the basic competencies listed in the eight and ninth grades syllabus involve six types of tenses: present tense, present progressive tense, present perfect tense, past tense, future tense, and past progressive tense. considering that students are expected to master the intended those competencies, the sentences in the movie “up” seem to be highly proper to be used by the teachers as the examples in the classroom. the following table provides the breakdown of the appropriateness for teaching tenses based on the 2013 curriculum. table 4. tenses appropriateness with 2013 currriculum syllabus for junior high school. tenses number of sentences percentage present tense 336 59.3 % past tense 93 16.4 % future tense 55 9.7 % an analysis of tenses usage in animated movie “up”: the relevance with 2013 curriculum for teaching efl at junior high school in indonesia 60 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 present progressive tense 30 5.3 % present perfect tense 24 4.2 % past progressive tense 4 0.7 % total sentences 542 95.6% table 4 indicates that 95.6% of the sentences in the movie “up” matched the basic competencies highlighted in teaching english syllabus of the 2013 curriculum for teaching junior high school students. therefore, it is concluded that the sentences produced in the movie could be an additional learning material source for teaching efl/esl in indonesia, particularly the eight and ninth graders. retaining information from videos as authentic learning materials using movies as a learning resource as the movies has been successfully applied to various educational applications (yang, huang, tsai, chung, & wu, 2009). however, although the information presented in the movies was highly accepted by learners during the learning process (mackey & ho, 2008), the absence of captions or subtitles may have caused difficulties for the students to comprehend the information presented. sun and dong (2004) revealed that l2 learners had difficulties in grasping the vocabulary presented in an animation-based movie context. other research also indicated that video clips with captions could facilitate vocabulary acquisition (plass, chun, mayer, & leutner, 1998), reading (chun & plass, 1997), and listening comprehension (danan, 1992; markham, peter & mccarthy, 2001). therefore, integrating the movie clips with a subtitle or a caption for teaching efl/esl is deemed to be more useful and efficient. presenting the students with subtitles help the teachers visualize the appropriate form of the tense while the video clip of the movie is played. likewise, the subtitles help the students to build the sense of using the appropriate tense form. additionally, the exposure to the video can also improve the students’ pronunciation. dahbi (2004) indicated that video clips with authentic accents have been recognized as a good learning resource for language learners. similarly, with the process of retaining vocabulary, the availability of captions or subtitles help the nuzulul isna englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 61 students to identify the appropriate pronunciation. a good deal of research has proven that combining captions with audio-visual materials is an effective instructional method to enhance the listening and reading comprehension of a second language (danan, 2004; garza, 1991; markham & peter, 2003). through this, the learners can confirm the information they hear to what is provided by the captions (froehlich, 1988; grimmer, 1992; vanderplank, 1988). in other words, the captions provide the students with auditory information of the foreign language (danan, 2004). thus, this additional aid helps the students to indicate the correct pronunciation of the word they hear. as the movie “up” support the students in improving their listening and speaking skill, it is appropriate to include this movie as one additional resource for teaching efl/esl. conclusions & suggestions the purposes of this study were to analyze the tenses used in the up movie and to evaluate the appropriateness of the sentences as additional learning resources for teaching efl/esl at junior high school in indonesia. the data analysis revealed 567 sentences uttered in the movie associated with ten types of english tenses. the majority (59.3%) of the sentences generated in the movie was in the present tenses form. another finding indicated 95.6% of the sentences used in the movie were in accordance with ten basic competencies intended for the eighth graders and six basic competencies for the ninth graders. these findings suggested that video clips from the movie “up” can be appropriate enough as additional learning materials for teaching english at junior high schools in indonesia. however, a particular arrangement is necessary to integrate this movie into the teaching process in schools. it is recommended that the teachers assign the students to watch the full movie at home, prior to the discussion in the classroom. this will help the students to build their preliminary understanding of the movie. then, the teachers may present shorter video clips of the movie, by highlighting the parts of the sentences being discussed in the classroom. this technique will provide a reasonable time for the students to process and understand the topic which results in an effective learning process. an analysis of tenses usage in animated movie “up”: the relevance with 2013 curriculum for teaching efl at junior high school in indonesia 62 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 limitations and further research this study was conducted to search for an authentic learning material that suits the students’ needs for learning english. although miller (2005) and mcneill (1994) believe that authentic materials can be used with lower level learners, kim (2000) and kilickaya (2004) have raised some concerns on the learners’ levels to be exposed to the authentic materials. therefore, it is strongly encouraged that the teachers must be aware of the proper authentic materials used for teaching. the movie can be useful for learning if it is used in the classroom in the same context that it was designed for and represents the real world context. for the learning purpose, teachers are supposedly assigned the students to watch the video prior to the class activities so the students are able to understand the context of the movie. hence, the activities in the classroom may focus on introducing and applying the uses of the forms in building english sentences. since the movie analyzed in this study was produced in 2009, it is encouraged that future researchers study the most current 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(2006). the bilingual child. in t. k. bhatia & w. c. ritchie (eds.), the handbook of bilingualism. blackwell publishing: malden. englisia may 2014 vol. 1 no.2, 216-231 perspectives on teaching english  and transforming values of  character to broaden students  horizon  firman parlindungan universitas teuku umar, meulaboh abstract a great demand of mastering english in globalization era has made english education in indonesia valuable and popular. problems in classroom, quality of teachers, teaching strategies and media are a plethora of topics that have been concerns to be developed. on another front, there is an effort to shape students’ character building which enables them to master social competence with the expected behavior and moral capacity. students can be trained some certain good characters within the implementation of language teaching. by taking these two variables into account, success of learning can be achieved not only in language mastery, but also in students’ character. keywords: character education, character teaching, english teaching introduction as a nation and a state, indonesia has its own decision and authority to create the national education system. this system is expected to become a powerful tool in producing students who reflect the country’s principle (pancasila); religious, humane, patriotic, democratic, and socially just. therefore, the implementation of this idea is adjusted in the curriculum. firman parlindungan englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 217 the government of indonesia has officially issued a number of curricula, start from the independence year of indonesia (1945), up to the present time. those curricula are the 1947 curriculum, the 1952 curriculum, the 1968 curriculum, the 1975 curriculum, the 1984 curriculum, the 1994 curriculum, and the school-based curriculum (2006). such curricula are changed time to time to meet the educational goals of each year (cahyono & widiati, 2011, p. 2). concerning with english education in the indonesian context, it is taught as a foreign language, beginning from junior high school through the university. the competence being emphasized varies in respective year of curriculum. cahyono and widiati (2011, p. 13) explained that the recent one, the school-based curriculum, aims at developing students’ potential to create graduates who are religious, faithful, knowledgeable, skillful, creative, innovative, autonomous, democratic, and responsible. in short, there is a demand that students are expected not only to master the language but also other competences, especially social competence. in line with the explanation above, the government of indonesia has declared character education concept in addition to the development of national education system. it is clearly stated in national system of education act number 20/2003 chapter 3: “national education function to develop skill and shape character as well as a dignified nation’s identity in order to educate the life of the nation,…” the importance of character education in the process of teaching and learning emerged because of some reasons. the first reason is to prevent indonesian youth from the negative action such as pornography, corruption, drugs usage, bullying, violence, and others. the second one is to set students in a never ending process of education, a lifelong education in which they can take responsibility to their own learning. indeed, whether teachers are able to teach character in the classroom setting or not, is still in question. consequently, english teachers in indonesia are required not only to comprehend the theory or framework of language learning (including approach and method), but also capable to adjust character as moral values in accordance to the teaching and learning outcomes. it is important to teach the language and transform perspectives on teaching english and transforming values of character to broaden students horizon 218 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 the values of certain character become a single entity. as kartadinata (2012) highlighted “…the best provision that given to the next generation is character education”. this paper is primarily written to give a perspective on how to teach english and set successful learning outcomes in harmony with the transformation of character values that broaden students’ horizon. therefore, this paper will discuss the fundamental theory of teaching english, the concept of character education in the indonesian context, and implication for teaching. relating these variables to one another, this paper aims to explore and investigate the ways in which english teaching and character transfer may in turn provide success in teaching and learning language. the teaching of english lies on interrelation of theory and practice. as with teaching in general, language teaching can be conceptualized in various ways. freeman (2000) outlined that the awareness of the nature of language, the nature of learning, the nature of culture, and students’ need, is important as a guide of what to do in classroom. in teaching and learning process, language has a prominent role, especially english, because it is as a means of communication. emmit and pollock (1997, p. 206) mentioned that “language is central to learning. learning is central to teaching.” this means that language is used either as medium of instruction or the subject being learned and language learning is a focus of teaching. concept of character education in indonesian context there are some definitions of character. first of all, character as traits that attributed to individual. character as a trait of individual can be shaped. it means that individual might be changed. although trait has internal factor that every people must be different, trait is strongly affected by external factor such as family and environment (adisusilo, 2012, p. 76). another opinion according to lickona (2012, p. 82) character has three interrelated part; moral knowledge, moral feeling, and moral behavior. a good character consists of knowing good things, willing good things, firman parlindungan englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 219 and doing good things. so character here is a value to conduct. moreover, based on indonesian dictionary, character is psychological trait, moral, or manner which differentiate people one another. next opinion according to malik (2012, p. 10) character education is “the composite of those psychological characteristics that impact the child’s capacity and tendency to be effective moral agent, to be socially and personally responsible, ethical, and self-managed”. to sum up, a good character education must involve the aspects of moral knowing and moral feeling, to achieve a moral action (ministry of national education, 2011). character is related to moral which substituted with particular individual’s durable qualities. character education is not totally a new tradition in indonesian education because the founding fathers of this country have tried to apply the spirit of character education as a foundation for national identity and integrity in accordance with the context and situation (koesoema, 2007, p. 46). the concept of character can imply a variety of attributes including the existence or lack of virtues such as integrity, courage, fortitude, honesty, and loyalty, or good behaviors or habits. the former of indonesian country, soekarno as well as mohamad said from taman siswa, st. takdir, and soedjatmoko once sounded the importance of character building for the people of indonesia. what they meant by character building is character education for students that is how to educate students in school, so they are not only smart but also well behaved (buchori, 2007). in the national system of education act number 20/2003, some points need to be taken into account concerning with character education concept. those points are as the following. 1. definition of education as defined in national system of education act number 20/2003: “education is a conscious and deliberate effort to create the atmosphere of learning and learning process so that learners are actively developing their potential to have strong of religious spirit, self-control, personality, intelligence, noble character, and skill that are needed by themselves, as well as by the society, the nation, and the country”. “pendidikan adalah usaha sadar dan terencana untuk mewujudkan suasana belajar dan proses pembelajaran agar peserta didik secara aktif mengemperspectives on teaching english and transforming values of character to broaden students horizon 220 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 bangkan potensi dirinya untuk memiliki kekuatan spiritual keagamaan, pengendalian diri, kepibadian, kecerdasan, akhlak mulia, serta kerampilan yang diperlukan dirinya, masyarakat, bangsa dan negaranya.” 2. in chapter ii article 3 explained that: “national education functions to develop skill and shape character as well as a dignified nation’s identity in order to educate the life of the nation, aims at developing learners’ potential so that they become faithful and pious human to god the almighty one, having noble character, healthy, knowledgeable, skillful, creative, independent, and become democratic as well as responsible citizens”. “pendidikan nasional berfungsi mengembangkan kemampuan dan membentuk watak serta peradaban bangsa, bertujuan untuk berkembangnya potensi peserta didik agar menjadi manusia yang beriman dan bertakwa kepada tuhan yang maha esa, berakhlak mulia, sehat, berilmu, cakap, kreatif, mandiri, dan menjadi warga negara yang demokratis serta bertanggung jawab”. 3. in chapter x about curriculum, article 36, point (3) mentioned that: “curriculum is based on levels of education within the framework of unitary republic of indonesia with regard to (a) improvement of faith and godfearing; (b) improvement of noble character; (c) improvement of potential, intelligence, and interest of learners; (d) improvement of regional and local potential; (e) variability of regional and national development; (f) demands of workplace; (g) development of science, technology, and art; (h) religion; (i) dynamics of global development; and (j) national unity and national values. “curriculum disusun sesuai dengan jenjang pendidikan dalam rangka negara kesatuan republik indonesia dengan memperhatikan: (a) peningkatan iman dan takwa; (b) peningkatan akhlak mulia; (c) peningkatan poensi, kecerdasan, dan minat peserta didik; (d) keragaman potensi daerah dan lingkungan; (e) tuntutan pembangunan daerah dan nasional; (f) tuntutan dunia kerja; (g) perkembangan ilmu pengetahuan, teknologi, dan seni; (h) agama; (i) dinamika perkembangan global; dan (j) persatuan nasional dan nilai-nilai kebangsaan. it is clear to conclude that, the three points above highligh that character education has been conceptualized in the national system of education, for instance the objective of national education emphasizes the character “faithfull and pious to god the almighty one”. similarly, the curriculum also takes into account the improvement of faith and pious to god the almighty, the improvement of noble character, and an obligation to take religion course beginning from primary school up to higher education. it shows the consistency if the government of indonesia to make the concept of character education in line with the education act. firman parlindungan englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 221 in addition to the explanation above, the ministry of education and culture republic of indonesia (2011) explained that “character education is an effort to develop character of the nation”. true character cannot be achieved by listening to someone explains what it is. rather, it is something each individual must find on his/her own. character needs to be built up from relationships with family and school. therefore, national research and development board of curriculum narrows character education in 18 terms which have to be implemented in the teaching and learning process. look at the table below. table 1: specific terms of character education in the indonesian context terms of trait notes religious attitude and behavior to be adherence to religion command, tolerance to other religions, and living in harmony with other religions honest attitude and behavior to make themselves to be an individual who can be trusted in word, action, and work tolerant attitude and behavior to respect religion, race, ethnic, opinion differences discipline attitude and behavior to behave orderly and obedient to various rules and regulations hard working attitude and behavior that showed a willingness to seriously solve the obstacle of learning and task creative think and do something to produce a process or a new product of what already exist independent attitude and behavior that are not easily depend on other people in doing task democratic way of thinking, behaving, and conducting that judge the right and obligation of himself the same as others curious attitude and behavior that always try to explore something deeper and wider of what being learned, seen, and listened nationalist the way of thinking, behaving, and having conception that put the interest of the nation and the state over the interest of himself and his group perspectives on teaching english and transforming values of character to broaden students horizon 222 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 patriotic the way of thinking, behaving, and conducting that showed high loyalty, awareness, and appreciation to the language, physical environment, social, culture, economic, politic, and the nation appreciate the achievement attitude and behavior that encourage himself to produce something useful for the society as well as acknowledged and respected the achievement of other people communicative/ friendly attitude and behavior that showed a pleasure to speak, socialize, and cooperate with others pacifist attitude, word, and action that make others feel happy and secure of his existence love reading a habit to provide time to read any reading material that give good virtue to himself care for the environment attitude and behavior that always try to prevent damage to the environment and develop an effort of solving environmental damage social care attitude and behavior of having a willingness to help other people responsible attitude and behavior of having awareness of what he is doing and taking a risk of it the eighteen terms of character above are the ideal trait to be implemented as character education. it must be appeared in every single process of learning; in preparing the lesson, implementation, and evaluation of learning. school as formal institution of education must give a positive contribution to the learners and the moral of this nation (lickona, 2012, p. 7). islamic perspective on character education religion plays a major role in shaping character of human. because character education is associated with various terms, it is necessary to discuss the definition from the perspective of religion. in this paper, the discussion of character education based on islamic perspective is discovered by exploring character according to alqur’an. firman parlindungan englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 223 in line with the explanation above, al-quran has a number of visions related to character education such as in surah annur (the light: 30-31); al-ahzab (the confederates: 33); al-israa’ (the journey by night: 23); at-taubah (the repentance: 119); ali imran (the family of imran: 133-134), which explain about attitude, behavior, self-esteem, and honesty. “tell the believing men to lower their gaze (from looking at forbidden things), and protect their private parts (from illegal sexual acts). that is purer from them. verily, allah is all-aware of what they do”. [surah annur (the light): 30]. “and stay in your houses, and do not display yourselves like that of the times of ignorance, and perform as-salat (iqamat-as-salat), and give zakat and obey allah and his messenger. allah wishes to remove ar-rijs (evil deeds and sins) from you, o members of the family (of the prophet peace be upon him), and to purify you with a thorough purification”. [surah al-ahzab (the confederates): 33]. “and your lord has decreed that your worship none but him. and that you be dutiful to your parents. if none of them or both of them attain old age in your life, say not to them a word of disrespect, not shout at them but address them in terms of honor. [surah al-israa’ (the journey by night): 23]. “o you who believe! be afraid of allah, and be with those who are true (in words and deeds). [surah at-taubah (the repentance): 119]. “and march forth in the way (which leads to) forgiveness from your lord, and for paradise as wide as the heavens and the earth, prepared for al-muttaqun. those who spend (in allah’s cause) in prosperity and adversity, who respress anger, and who pardon men; verily, allah loves al-muhsinun (the good doers). [surah ali imran (the family of imran): 133-134]. the paragraph above explain that al-qur’an lead people who believe to live in a good conduct and attitude for themselves, for other people, for other creatures, and for environment. character in al-qur’an is a basis of dignity. a good person with a good character will be a part of a good society as well (hafidhuddin, 2012, p. 68). the terms of character as explained in table 1 is in harmony with islamic perspective on how character being taught and learned. in addition, these terms are similar to the terms used to describe virtues listed by lickona, schaps, & lewis, (2007), in their character education partnership (cep) document which defines character from psychological view. they list caring, honesty, fairness, responsibility, perspectives on teaching english and transforming values of character to broaden students horizon 224 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 and respect as the core virtues for developing good character. no doubt to conclude that the teaching of character in the indonesian context has been in line with religious, social-cultural, and psychological points of view. how does character emerge in english classroom? when teaching language, teachers are also expected to teach students about social context that shape character building of the students. how the teaching of language can promote and shape character building? jacobs and farrell (2003) suggest that learning is not an individual, private activity, but a social one that depends upon interaction with others. by this interaction, students gain interpersonal skill as well as learn to respect others. in language teaching, this means that students do not learn language for its own sake but in order to develop and apply their thinking skills in situations that go beyond the language classroom. in addition, learners learn in different ways and have different strengths. teaching needs to take these differences into account rather than try to force students into a single mold. so what does teacher need to do in order to be successful in teaching language and in shaping students’ character? firstly the teacher should understand that effective character education is not adding or setting program to school. rather, it is a transformation of the culture and life of the school (berkowitz & bier, 2006). good character consists of knowing the good, desiring the good and doing the good (lickona, 1991, p. 51). moreover, lickona (2012, pp. 111-136), explained teachers’ role in integrating the teaching of english and transforming the values of character, as the following. 1. teacher as a merciful person. the teacher respects the students, helps them to reach success in school, builds their self-confident, and makes them understand what is moral with good ethic 2. teacher as a model. the teacher is an ethical person, showing respect to others and responsible both in class and outside the classroom. firman parlindungan englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 225 3. teacher as a mentor. the teacher gives instruction based on a certain character/moral and guides through explanation, class discussion, storytelling, personal motivation enforcement, and constructive feedback. meanwhile, in teaching language, the teacher can use a number of strategies or method to train students both the language and character. for example, the use of communicative language teaching (clt) which carries the theoretical framework of communicative approach (brown, 2012, p. 121), is appropriate to be applied. the aim of communicative language teaching is to enable students to communicate in the target language. communication requires that students perform certain function within a social context such as inviting, promising, declining invitation etc. in short, it is important to understand when and how to say what to whom. implementing clt in classroom is not only to enhance the ability of mastering content subject but also to foster and maintain character which is transformed from culture and school. students should understand the knowledge of forms, meanings, and functions. they must use this knowledge and take into consideration the social situation in order to convey their intended meaning (brown, 2002, p. 131). another method that can be applied is cooperative learning method. cooperative learning is a method that engages students in group or to work cooperatively to achieve the learning objective. they share information and help their friend’s problem in group or pair (brown, 2007, p. 53). this method can improve not only students’ cognitive ability, but also students’ social competence, tolerance, and selfesteem. besides, it can train students’ critical thinking, problem solving, and integrating the knowledge and skill (adisusilo, 2012, p. 113). this method has a number of variations such as jigsaw, one stay two stray, group discussion, think pair share, three steps interview, etc. however, there is a greater flexibility for teacher to choose the appropriate technique that suit to learning objective. to sum up, the teacher might select the use of various strategies in teaching and learning english. what should be considered is how to integrate the focus of leaning with the transformation of values of character. for example, if the language focus is transactional function such as inviting, introducing, expressing feeling, and perspectives on teaching english and transforming values of character to broaden students horizon 226 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 the culture judgment is in western context, so teacher must think how to include certain trait such as honesty, friendliness, democracy, or curiosity in the process of learning. this integration is illustrated as follows. from figure 1 above; the teaching can be illustrated as the following points. firstly, the language focus determined in teaching writing for eleventh grade of senior high school students are as follows: (1) using grammar, vocabulary, punctuation, spelling, and writing rules accurately, (2) elaborating of the main idea, and (3) making draft, revising, and editing. for that focus, the material to be taught is “advertisement and invitation”. the next step is determining the character or personal trait that students should acquire, for example “religious, creative, care for environment, and communicative”. after that, teacher should think about social and cultural judgment being made. in this part, language learners need to be aware, for example, of the culturally appropriate ways to address people, express gratitude, make requests, and agree or disagree with someone. they should know that behaviors and intonation patterns that are appropriate in their own speech community may be perceived differently by members of the target language speech community. they have to understand that, in order for communication to be successful, language use must be associated with other culturally appropriate behavior. final step, strategy of teaching as a much broader concept that is inherently tied to many of the linguistic concepts taught in foreign language classes, should be determined. for example, in this case “write-pair-share” as part of “cooperative learning method” is used. teacher should make sure that the strategy chosen is apfigure 1: the formulation of character education in language teaching language focus certain character social & cultural judgment teaching strategy firman parlindungan englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 227 propriately matched with the material being taught. it is important to avoid mislead teaching and learning activities. using authentic sources from the english native speaker helps to engage students in authentic character experiences. sources can include films, news broadcasts, and television shows; web sites; and photographs, magazines, newspapers, restaurant menus, travel brochures, and other printed materials. teachers can adapt the authentic materials to suit the age and language proficiency level of the students. for example, even beginning language students can watch and listen to video clips taken from a television show in the target language and focus on such cultural conventions as greetings. the teacher might supply students with a detailed translation or give them a chart, diagram, or outline to complete while they listen to a dialogue or watch a video. after the class has viewed the relevant segments, the teacher can engage the students in discussion of the cultural norms represented in the segments and what these norms might say about the values of the culture. conclusion the teaching of language especially english can be integrated with the teaching of social competence. this social competence includes the teaching of certain traits which shape student’s character for their success. based on national research and development board of curriculum, republic of indonesia, there are 18 terms of traits in the concept of character education. they are religious, honest, tolerant, disciplined, hardworking, creative, independent, democratic, curious, nationalist, patriotic, appreciate the achievement, communicative/ friendly, pacifist, love reading, care for the environment, social care, and responsible. those characters are in line with the religion point of view particularly islam. as the source of guide for muslim, in al-qur’an, there are a number of surah that explain about character such as in surah annur (the light: 30-31); al-ahzab (the confederates: 33); al-israa’ (the journey by night: 23); at-taubah (the repentperspectives on teaching english and transforming values of character to broaden students horizon 228 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 ance: 119); ali imran (the family of imran: 133-134), which explain about attitude, behavior, self-esteem, and honesty. finally, to integrate the teaching of english with the transformation of character, the teacher can use various approaches or methods for instance communicative language teaching (clt), cooperative learning, and many others. character building and language competence must be the focus of teaching. therefore, it must be stated clearly in the goal or learning; what to achieve, in the process of leaning, and in the evaluation. once a teacher can make it happen in the teaching of english, the character itself will forever broaden students’ horizon. firman parlindungan englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 229 references adisusilo, s. (2012). pembelajaran nilai karakter: konstruktivismen dan vct sebagai inovasi pendekatan pembelajaran afektif. depok: rajagrafindo persada. berkowitz, m. & bier, m. (2006). what works in character education: a research – driven guide for educators. washington, d.c brown, h, d. (2002). strategies for success. new york: pearson education company. buchori, m. (2007). character building dan pendidikan kita. retrieved from http://paramadina.wordpress.com/2007/03/04/character-building-danpendidikan-kita/. cahyono, b.y. & widiati, u. (2011). the teaching of english in indonesia. malang: um press. character education partnership (cep). (2006). principle 1. retrieved from http://www.character.org/principle1?s=virtues freeman, d. l. (2000). techniques and principles in language teaching. new york: oxford university press. hafidhuddin, d. (2012). pendidikan karakter berbasis al-quran. depok: rajawali pers. harmer, j. (2007). the practice of english language teaching (4th edition). hong kong: pearson education ltd. kemendiknas. desain induk pendidikan karakter, (2013), retreived from http://pendikar.dikti.go.id/gdp/wp-content/uploads/desain-induk pendidikan-karakter-kemdiknas.pdf. koesoema, d. (2007). pendidikan karakter: strategi mendidik anak di zaman global. jakarta: grasindo. lickona, t. (1991). educating for character: how our schools can teach respect and responsibility. new york, ny: bantam books. lickona, t., schaps, e., & lewis, c. (2007). cep’s eleven principles of effective character education, retrieved from http://www.character.org lickona, t. (2012). mendidik untuk membentuk karakter: bagaimana sekolah dapat memberikan pendidikan tentang sikap hormat dan tanggung jawab. jakarta: bumi aksara. malik, rs. (2012). deep learning and academic literacy – how they would contribute to character building?. in samsudi (eds), enhancing academic literacy perspectives on teaching english and transforming values of character to broaden students horizon 230 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 to foster conservation values in character education, (pp.1-17). semarang: postgraduate program semarang state university. taqi-ud-din al hilali, m., & muhsin, km. (2000). translation of the meanings of the noble qur’an in the english language. madinah: kingfahd complex for the printing of the holy qur’an. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2020. vol. 8, no. 1, 1-11 critical thinking skills toward youtube resources in students' argumentative texts andik nur wijaya * universitas sebelas maret, surakarta, indonesia andiknurwijaya@student.uns.ac.id siti roki'ah universitas sebelas maret, surakarta, indonesia sitirokiah@student.uns.ac.id manuscript received m a r ch 2 1 , 2020, revised june 20, 2020, first published november 7, 2020, and available online november 9, 2020. doi: 10.22373/ej.v8i1.6622 recommended apa citation wijaya, a. n., & roki’ah, s. (2020). critical thinking skills toward youtube resources in students' argumentative texts. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 8(1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6622 abstract this study explored critical thinking skills toward youtube resources in students' argumentative texts. the study was conducted at two non-english majors of the universities in the indonesian context. the data were in the argumentative forms that were constructed by selected students. this study used a content analysis approach that was involved in coding and categorizing to analyze the data. after the data were analyzed, the findings showed that the patterns of critical thinking elements of the student's argumentative texts were varied, and the integration of technology resources was able to foster critical thinking skills. however, it is based upon the quality of the technology itself and the instruction in the classroom. thus, technology implementation, youtube resources should be found on the quality of the resources and teaching in the school. keywords: argumentative essay; critical thinking; youtube 1. introduction the teachers have numerous resources to teach, and the students have numerous resources to learn since information technology advancement has significantly facilitated english teaching and learning. owing to those various resources which may * corresponding author https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6622 https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6622 critical thinking skills toward youtube resources 2 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 provide different and ambiguous information, then students should process the information they receive appropriately. in this situation, students need to have critical thinking abilities. moreover, the implementation of critical thinking abilities can be applied at all school levels. teachers are expected to design learning activities to encourage students' critical thinking abilities. videos enable students to learn more interestingly. to deal with it, teachers should direct students to communicative activities around the content of videos (karn, 1995; passero, 1996; forster, 1997; matsuta, 1998). videos can stimulate students to interpret both through audio and visual materials. the writing activities are alternatives to promote student's critical thinking ability. after watching a video, the students write an argumentative text based on what they watch and listen to in the video. teachers train students to focus on a particular aspect to be explored and support it with supporting evidence. in completing the task, the students concern about five elements of argumentative writing. the way students present their ideas reflect how well their critical thinking ability development. this study aims to investigate the use of technology (video resources) toward students' critical thinking. by analyzing students' argumentative writing, the present study examines how the videos promote students' critical thinking at the tertiary level. 2. literature review nowadays, there are shifting focused from the teacher-centered to the learnercentered; the purpose of the study also changes. teaching and learning activity is not as simple as transferring knowledge from the teacher to the students. however, students have to construct their knowledge (holzer, 1994). creative thinking and critical thinking should be the focus for the students to create their knowledge since the strategy of education is shifted to the learner-centered. karakoc (2016) says that creativity is the human skill in a period, experiences some improvement, and possesses features; flexibility, multiple thinking, and treating easily and quickly, originality reaching for a different result. critical thinking is more than memorization (critical thinking cooperation, 2006). thus, in this case, the students think beyond just emulation. karakoc (2016) explains that when learners think critically, they are encouraged to think for themselves, to question the hypothesis, to analyze and synthesis the event, to go one step further by developing a new hypothesis and test them against the fact. to encourage the students to think critically, the teacher needs more than just a textbook in the teaching and learning process. they need the latest method and mode, which are practical to foster students' critical thinking. various teaching and learning strategies enhance digital tools in the teaching and learning process, including in english as a foreign language. the purpose of improving technology in the learning process is helping the students to develop some skills, for instance, writing ability. there are numerous researches toward technology related to andik nur wijaya & siti roki'ah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 3 students' writing (liao, 2016; fu, lin, hwang, & zhang, 2019; yang & lin, 2015; jiang, 2018; ranalli & chukharev-hudilaine, 2018). liao and hanauer’s (2016) research focuses on the use of the application to develop grammar performance, fu’s et al. (2019) research is about using the game to improve writing performance, and tai, lin, and yang’s (2015) study investigated the effect of collaborative note-taking strategies toward efl writing performance. those researches are focus on the relationship between technology and writing ability. some researchers focus on writing and multimodality since technology is the representative of the multimodality in teaching and learning english as a foreign or a second language. bazalgette and buckingham's (2012) research raises some critical about the newest issue, i.e., multimodality. another issue comes from liu and stapleton (2018), which focuses on investigating the effect of prompt on students' writing performance and critical thinking. meanwhile, hidayah, salimi, and susiani (2018) focus on the definition and indicator in critical thinking toward writing skills. they are focusing on the theory of critical thinking and writing ability. jiang (2018) conducts a research related to digital multimodal composing in changing writing ability. then, mckinley (2013) focuses on the japanese university's issues with students' writing ability. those are researches that have been done regarding critical thinking toward writing ability in the english language as a foreign language context. there are numerous findings related to the research between critical thinking ability that affects writing ability. liu (2018) administers the research regarding the development of critical thinking ability in the english course by doing some steps. the findings say teachers have to guide the students first, which means that students need instructions in the first step of writing. it also shows that critical thinking is developed simultaneously along by doing brainstorming, editing, and revising. another research in the same focus carried out by afshar, moyassagh, and arbabi (2017) that focuses on the research is in the relationship between critical thinking ability toward iranian efl learners' knowledge. its findings show that there is a significant correlation between both of them. the primary association is only at an organization correlated with certain sub-skill of critical thinking. researches on the critical thinking concern to writing ability have numerous attentions from the researchers. however, there is a smaller amount of research that integrates the digital media or technology media as the multimodality is integrated into the study. research by huang (2017) examines learners' critical multimodal literacy practice with a moving image text focusing on text comprehension and interpretation rather than text production. its findings show that students focus on the image, sound, and organization purpose; thus, they can examine a moving image text. another research related to them is done by sharadgah (2014), which focuses on the effectiveness of using an internet-based writing program to develop students' critical thinking ability. the results say that the experiment group (the group which used critical thinking skills toward youtube resources 4 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 ibwp) showed significant improvement than the control group (the group which did not use ibwp). since this study focuses on investigating the use of technology (youtube resources) toward students' critical thinking in the argumentative text, the authors will analyze the pattern of students' argumentative essay. suyono, roekhon, and hartati (2019) say that the arrangement of interpreting, analyzing, influencing, and evaluating as a form of critical thinking activity appeared in the students' argumentative text to show how students thought; thus, they become critical. it is because the arrangement of that element shows how the students build their critical thinking ability since it can manifest in what ways the students develop the idea and concept in each phase they write. a previous research that has been conducted by suyono, roekhon, and hartati (2019) uses this pattern to verify the presence of critical thinking in the students' argumentative text. students' argumentative writing in that previous research is established by reading the text with a particular topic first. it means that the argumentative text is created based upon students' reading activity first. however, this study integrates the technology, more specifically youtube resources, as the first activity, used as references for students to write argumentative text. thus, the references are the differences between the previous study and the current study. the previous research uses particular text types in a specific topic as the references for the students to establish the argumentative text. in contrast, this study uses the video as references. however, this study uses some formulations to analyze the text since the current research adapts that formulation from the previous research. 3. method this study analyzed students' argumentative essay to investigate their critical thinking ability. thus, this study used a qualitative approach with a content analysis method. creswell (2012) argues that a qualitative approach is used to explore the interpretation meaning since one of its characteristics is analyzing data to describe the theme using text analysis and interpreting the meaning. on the other hand, content analysis was used to examine the concepts and ideas written by the students in their argumentative text to reveal their critical thinking patterns in the text. holsti (1969) says that content analysis is “any technique for making inferences by objectively and systematically identifying specified characteristics of a message.” this study examined the students' written ideas and concepts in the argumentative text. thus, the data were written by the students. the writers shared the instrument to several students from which five students from two universities filled out the instrument. non-english department students were selected to investigate how they were fostered in writing english by using youtube resources. the participants were three female students from universitas muhammadiyah semarang, central java, indonesia, and two male students from institut agama islam negeri syekh nurjati andik nur wijaya & siti roki'ah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 5 cirebon, west java, indonesia. they were early semester students of the health analyst department and islamic economy department. the data were in the written argumentative text form, and they were collected by an assignment based on the instrument given. the students were asked to access the link that was connected to the youtube resources researchers provided in the instrument. the students observed the video. they focused on some aspects of the video to stimulate their critical thinking while and after watching the video. the video was chosen since it was a short video, and it related to the indonesian culture. after watching the video, the students were asked to make an argumentative text based upon the instrument as follows: 1) go to this link and observe the video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m7xfosn0ei&list=ll9in111cxxsrqpowl m29stq&index=95. after watching the video, answer the questions below by writing a hortatory exposition text. 2) what message does the video maker try to deliver? 3) how do you think about the aspects of the video (pictures, colors, sounds, and characters) in helping you to understand the story? 4) write an argumentative text (consisting of a thesis, arguments, and a recommendation) about how the video aspects help you understand the story. the data analysis was adapted from suyono, roekhon, and hartati (2019) that applied six stages. first, preparing and organizing the data to be analyzed. the students' argumentative texts were collected and marked based on their parts. second, the coding process was to initiate exploring the data. the researchers coded the thesis, the arguments, and the recommendation. third, developing a more general description of the data and theme was conducted by using the code. the thesis, the arguments, and the recommendation were analyzed to find a similar theme and different patterns. fourth, representing findings was done through narration and visual. each pattern was interpreted based on the researchers' investigation. fifth, interpreting the meaning of the result was performed from the findings. the researchers explained how the students created patterns in their argumentative texts. the last was data validity and reliability (creswell, 2012). in this step, the researchers made sure that all of the students' writings discussed the video aspect, and the students wrote the texts based on the video they watched. 4. findings and discussion the study revealed the pattern of the students' argumentative text based on the six cores of critical thinking (facione, 1998). those critical thinking cores are interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation. there were six argumentative texts analyzed using critical thinking cores. the pattern shown in the students' argumentative text was varied. 1) interpretation – inference – analysis – evaluation critical thinking skills toward youtube resources 6 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 from this video, we know that betrayal is a bad character. the bat is refused by the beasts and the birds. the two groups hate that the bat is not a loyal animal. the bat joins the winning animal group to take advantage. the sound and the image in this video are clear and understandable. they help the viewers to understand each scene. the story is lively and interesting. the sound and image in this video represent the animals’ characters. the disloyal bat plays his character in persuading to join the groups and regretting after he gets a refusal from the two groups very well. the first pattern of the text was starting from interpretation. the students began the text by revealing the implied meaning of the video that researchers asked to be analyzed. then, the students identified the element which was needed to make a rational conclusion. the students identified the aspects of the video, for instance, the sound and the image. it was an element that they used to conclude the video's acceptance to be a medium of teaching and learning. in identifying the elements, students analyzed the relationship of the situation (sound and image of the video) to the concept. 2) inference – analysis – interpretation – evaluation the bat is a distrust character in the video. he cheats to every group he joins just to make him happy. at first, he tries to convince that he will help the groups. in the end, he joins the other group to get his satisfaction. the sound and the image in this video are clear and understandable. they help the viewers to understand each scene. the story is lively and interesting. the color, sound, image, and characters in the video are simple and helpful for the viewers to understand the content. even if they are at the beginner english level, they can still understand what the story about. but when the viewers are at a higher english level, they should not use this kind of video to improve their english. the second pattern of student argumentative text was from the inference to the evaluation. the text was started by investigating the issue by providing the evidence. the student's argumentative text was come from identifying some elements needed to make a rational conclusion. the students started with the importance of technology as a medium of teaching and learning process. then, the students continued to analyze the meaning that was implied in the text. the students integrated some elements that delivered meaning by some aspects of the video, such as images and sounds. then, the students tried to analyze the mistake or the weakness of the video and concluded that analysis. andik nur wijaya & siti roki'ah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 7 3) interpretation – inference – analysis – evaluation the video maker tries to teach the viewers that a cheating person will get disrespect from others. the real thing of a person will be revealed at one moment. the bat at the beginning is trusted by both the beasts and the birds. after those groups know the bat’s real character, they do not want the bat to be a member of their groups. the bat realizes that his bad character brings him into loneliness. the duration of the video is too short for university students. the image is attractive and interesting to watch. the sound gives a special effect that makes the story runs attractively. the third pattern of the students' argumentative text was starting from interpretation. the students tried to identify and reveal the implied meaning by interpreting the video as a whole. after identifying implied the meaning of the video, the students tried to analyze the conclusion of the video that related to the title of the students' argumentative text. after the analysis, the student tried to identify each element of the video that established implied meaning to make some arguments at the end of the paragraph. the argument was related to video elements, such as duration, image, and sound. 4) inference – interpretation – analysis – evaluation a betrayal always gets a refusal in any community. people will not tolerate it when they know that someone cheats on them. in the video, we can see that the bat experiences a refusal after the animal groups know the bat’s disbelief character. any argument gives no effect to the animal groups for giving a second chance to the bat. they seem not to take any risk to allow the bat to join their groups. the video maker supports this video with an appropriate image, sound, and characters. they help us in understanding what the video maker delivers to the viewers. in writing an argumentative essay, began with an inference element, the students recognized the problem by giving valid evidence. the evidence proposed as the basis of the argument and the evidence was interpreted by recognizing it. in recognizing activities, students explained the relationship between the provided evidence and explained the effects or particular results of existing problems (marzano & kendall, 2007). students then generalized and concluded after they supported the argument by giving evidence. it seemed that the students had demonstrated their critical thinking by writing in the form of argument essays. critical thinking skills toward youtube resources 8 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 furthermore, the element of critical thinking emerging in this pattern seemed simple. students utilized the four elements to develop critical thinking. those elements were inference, interpretation, analysis, and evaluation. 5) explanation – analysis – interpretation – inference the characters in the story are showed clearly by the image and sound. the bat as the main character is shown by his agility and persuasion ability. he influences the beasts and the birds to accept him as a member. in another moment, the bat is sad because the animal groups do not trust him anymore. he feels lonely and rejected. to join a group, we need to persuade the group members to accept us. the bat comes to the groups’ leaders and convinces them to accept him. but after his disloyalty is revealed the bat is rejected by both groups. the bat turns sad and regretful. the video shows us that verbal communication and body language give a certain impact on persuading other people. on another occasion, the character proves that it is the strongest thing in convincing people. the contents of the argument contained elements of an explanation. in this pattern, students elaborated more accuracy in producing their arguments. it could be seen when students began their writing by integrating the supporting features, then explained it in detail and specified how they played a role in developing comprehension. the students recalled ideas about how the information facilitated the readers to receive the author's implicit purpose. after this step, the author stated his/her inference to persuade readers to investigate in what way the evidence strengthened his/her thesis. it proved that the students' competence in the critical thinking process had improved since people who were able to think critically interpreted and inferred things based on evidence to make a decision. the students created an argumentative text called a hortatory exposition text since the final part of the text should be recommended. the students' argumentative text was the response of the video that was watched in the youtube resources as a medium of teaching and learning. the purpose of this study is to identify students' critical thinking in their written argumentative text. that is a form of the response of integrating technology in classroom teaching and learning. the idea and the concept of the students in their written argumentative texts reveal their critical thinking ability since there is a relationship between critical thinking ability and argumentation. stupple, maratos, elander, and hunt (2017) argue that to measure critical thinking skills, argumentation can be used. the first question of this study is aimed to identify the pattern of the students' critical thinking elements based on facione's (1998) theory that is revealed in the argumentative text. andik nur wijaya & siti roki'ah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 9 from the findings, the patterns of the critical thinking element that are demonstrated in the students' argumentative text are varied. most of them start with interpretation and inference, while only one argumentative text starts with an explanation. the varied pattern of critical thinking element is based upon the students' understanding and interest in the reference text issue (suyono, roekhon, and hartati, 2019). since this reference of this study is video, which means that the video should be responded by the students, the pattern of the elements of critical thinking ability is based on the students' focus on the aspect of the video. some students start with the general issue of integration of technology in the educational system, and the others start with the implied meaning of the text. it proofs that argumentation is the space for critical thinking skills (andrews, 2007; joiner & jones, 2003; kadayifci et al., 2012). the argumentative text reveals that the elements of critical thinking skills demonstrated in the argumentative text have various patterns. however, not all the elements of critical thinking skills are revealed in the argumentative text. the study that is conducted by suyono, roekhon, and hartati (2019) also indicates that only some elements of critical thinking skills are found in the early semester students' argumentative texts. moreover, this study is conducted in a non-english major; thus, only a few elements of critical thinking skills are found in their argumentative texts. the integration of technology influences the reason for lacking the critical thinking element in the student's argumentative text, in this case, are youtube resources. the video's duration makes the student confused about making another idea and concept to write the argumentative text. the limitation of the aspect in the video makes the limitation for students to create and develop their ideas. the integration of electronic learning can foster critical thinking skills, as sharadgah (2014) argues. some factors influence the success of fostering critical thinking ability through the integration of technology. one of the factors is the technology resources itself. thus, it is concluded that the pattern of the students' critical thinking element that has been demonstrated in their argumentative text is varied. the variation of the pattern is influenced by the focus of the student in analyzing the video and their choice in the development of the idea. furthermore, not each technology can foster critical thinking skills if there is no maximizing in the use of technology. 4. conclusion from the findings that have been revealed above, the pattern of the students' element of critical thinking ability is varied. the pattern of the element of critical thinking ability is based on the students' understanding, interest, and focus on analyzing the video. most of them start with interpretation and inference. meanwhile, the presence of the six core elements of critical thinking ability is not found in the students' argumentative text. some factors influence the presence of a few elements of critical thinking ability in the students' argumentative text. the video selection is the most influential factor in the critical thinking of students in this study. the limitation of the critical thinking skills toward youtube resources 10 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 aspect of video makes the students disrupted in getting and developing the idea. however, the better selection of video is possibly fostering students' critical thinking skills, and it can be measured in the argumentation form, whether in spoken or written. the video selection, including the duration and the genres of the video, should be done to get some points of view in fostering critical thinking ability in the argumentation form. references afshar, h. s., movassagh, h., & arbabi, h. r. 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(1997). stand by me revisited: group presentations through character studies. eleri journal, 5, 4-l2. fu, qing-ke et al. (2019). impacts of a mind mapping-based contextual gaming approach on efl students’ writing performance, learning perceptions and generative uses in an english course. computers & education, 137, 59–77. hidayah, r., salimi, m., & susiani, t. s. (2018). critical thinking skill: konsep dan indikator penilaian. jurnal taman cendekia, 1(2), 127-133. holsti, o. r. (1969). content analysis for the social sciences and humanities. ma: addison-wesley. holzer, s. m. (1994). from constructivism to active learning, the innovator, spring (2). retrieved from: http://www.succeed.ufl.edu/innovators/innovator_2/innovator002.html. huang, shin-ying. (2017). critical multimodal literacy with moving-image texts. english teaching: practice & critique, 16(2),194-206. jiang, l. (2018). digital multimodal composing and investment change in learners' writing in english as a foreign language. journal of second language writing, 40, 60–72. joiner, r., & jones, s. (2003). the effects of communication medium on argumentation and the development of critical thinking. international journal of educational research, 39(8), 861–871. doi: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2004.11.008 https://doi.org/10.1080/00131910600796777 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2004.11.008 andik nur wijaya & siti roki'ah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 11 kadayifci, h., atasoy, b., & akkus, h. (2012). the correlation between the flaws students define in an argument and their creative and critical thinking abilities. procedia social and behavioral sciences, 47, 802–806. doi: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.06.738 karakoc, m. (2016). the significance of critical thinking ability in terms of education. international journal of humanities and social science, 6(7), 81-84. karn, r. (1995). advanced efl concepts: teaching double entendre and euphemism through film. eleri journal, 3, 51-66. liao, fang-yu., & hanauer, d. i. (2016). esl students’ perceptions of creative and academic writing. in scientific approaches to literature in learning environments. amsterdam: john benjamins publishing company. liu, fulan., & stapleton, p. (2018). connecting writing assessment with critical thinking: an exploratory study of alternative rhetorical functions and objects of inquiry in writing prompts. assessing writing, 38, 10–20. liu, j. (2018). cultivation of critical thinking abilities in english writing teaching. theory and practice in language studies, 8(8), 982-987. doi: http://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0808.09 marzano, r.j., & kendall, j. s. (2007). the new taxonomy of educational objectives. corwin press: a sage publication company matsuta, k. (1998). applications for using authentic materials in the second language classroom. eleri journal, 6, 41-44. mckinley, j. (2013). displaying critical thinking in efl academic writing: a discussion of japanese to english contrastive rhetoric. relc journal. 44, (195), doi:http://doi.org/10.1177/0033688213488386. passero, t. (1996). melting down stereotypes using the film: torch song trilogy. eleri journal, 4, 153-159. ranalli, et al. (2018). exploring the potential of process-tracing technologies to support assessment for learning of l2 writing. assessing writing, 36, 77-89. sharadgah, t. a. a. (2014). developing critical thinking skills through writing in an internet-based environment. international journal of humanities and social science, 4 (1), 169-178. stempleski, s. (1995). teaching communication skills with authentic video. in stempleski, s., & arcario, p. (eds.), video in second language teaching: using, selecting and producing video for the classroom (pp.7-24). alexandria, va: tesol. summary: the delphi report. millbrae, ca: the california academic press. suyono, s. m., roekanh., & harsiati, t.(2019). critical thinking patterns of first-year students in argumentative essay. journal for the education of gifted young, 7(3), 683-697. tai, hung-cheng., lin, wen-chuan., & yang, s. c. (2015). exploring the effects of peer review and teachers' corrective feedback on efl students' online writing performance. journal of educational and computing research, 53(2), 284-309. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.06.738 http://dx.doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0808.09 englisia november 2018 vol. 6, no. 1, 15-26 podcast: an alternative way to improve efl students’ listening and speaking performance marisa yoestara zaiyana putri universitas serambi mekkah banda aceh, indonesia marisayoestara@yahoo.com universitas serambi mekkah banda aceh, indonesia zaiyana.putri@serambimekkah.ac.id manuscript received november 12, 2018, revised december 29, 2018, first published december 30, 2018, and available online january 12, 2019. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.22373/ej.v6i1.3805 abstract this article aims to view the impacts of using podcast in improving listening and speaking performance. as there is a trend of using ict in language teaching growths, the authors intend to discuss about the media that can be used in enhancing students’ ability in listening skill and speaking performance. the authors collected the information related to the topic of this article from several sources such as, books, journal articels, and previous studies. from these sources, it can be concluded that podcast can bring many benefits in teaching listening and speaking for efl learners. keywords: podcast; listening comprehension; speaking performance introduction in developing countries, such as indonesia, english is considered as a foreign language (kachru, 1992), which is a compulsory subject to learn, especially in indonesian secondary schools. this means that indonesian students have limited exposure to english as they only have english in formal setting, as english is not normally used outside the classroom. consequently, the students’ english performance is still considered low and needs improvement (mulyadi, 2011). this is in accordance with the previous study by sawir (2005) who claims that most podcast: an alternative way to improve efl students’ listening and speaking performance 16 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 international students from asia, including indonesia, had listening and speaking difficulty due to the fact that they were not well-prepared with those skills in their secondary schools. in fact, the students’ listening skill should be one of the focus skills to acquire in order to improve their students’ speaking skill (hasan & hoon, 2012; weiler, 2012). thus, the secondary school english teachers should consider employing podcast as one of the possible alternative to overcome this issue as suggested by rosell-aguilar (2007). podcasting (the combination of the word ipod and broadcasting) is an asynchronous cmc (computer mediated communication), which contains audio/video that are published on the internet and updated in a regular interval (stanley, 2006). the advantages of using podcast in language learning—particularly to assist the students in listening and speaking skill—have been researched, and the results show increase in the students’ listening and speaking performance (stanley, 2006; o’bryan & hegelheimer, 2007; rosell-aguilar, 2007; lord, 2008; knight, 2010; ashraf, noroozi & salami, 2011; istanto, 2011; hasan & hoon, 2012, 2013; alfadda & al-qasim, 2013). in addition, some other studies also found that the students’ motivation and positive attitude towards language learning increased when podcast was used to support the learning process (o’bryan & hegelheimer, 2007; rosell-aguilar, 2007; ducate & lomicka, 2009; ashraf et al., 2011; hasan & hoon 2012; al-fadda & al-qasim, 2013). moreover, an experimental study with iranian efl students also revealed that the students who used podcast had higher listening comprehension score and higher learning motivation, compared to those who did not (shiri, 2015). shiri (2015) further explained the interview result in which the students considered podcast as being an important learning tool to support their listening and speaking performance. these previous research results obviously support the use of podcast in language learning. therefore, in this article, we firstly elaborated four main reasons of why podcast could help improve indonesian secondary school students’ listening and speaking performance. additionally, we also discussed some important consideration in employing podcast as a learning tool with tpack framework. finally, we highlighted some possible challenges in integrating podcast into language classrooms in indonesia. marisa yoestara & zaiyana putri englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 17 literature review using podcast in teaching listening and speaking in this digital era, the influence of ict in language teaching is undeniable. teachers can easily obtain the teaching material from various sources. varied teaching media that can be enabled in language teaching are also developed recently. podcast is one of the media that is currently discussed today. according to jordan (2007) as cited in bustari, samad & ahmad (2017, p. 97) “the term podcast is a combination between the words pod (i.e., from the brand name ipod) and broadcast.” related to the definition above, podcast can be categorized one of the media that can be implemented in teaching and learning process especially teaching english. listening and speaking are two interrelated skills. speaking is indeed a vital skill in communciation that needs to be taught. however, it is also important to teach listening skills and ensure that they can listen effectively and critically. listening is considered profound in the developmnet of speaking since it provides input that can promote speaking (ramli & kurniawan, 2017). furthermore in order to get a better comprehension in listening, we also have to consider some components of speaking (fitch-hauser, powers, o'brien, & hanson, 2007; richards, 2008). usually when teachers want to teach listening to their students, they also include speaking in it. consequently, they have to find the media which areis appropriate to be applied in both skills. particularly, podcast is one of the media which is considered can deal with both skills. specifically speaking, curriculum changes periodically in indonesia,. several years ago, the objective of teaching english to the efl’ learners emphasized on receptive skill only, but now it has changed as the new trends of teaching rose in language teaching. to obtain the synergy, the new trends of language teaching tools also need to be utilized; one good tool is the podcast. one of the skills in english that is considered difficult to be learnt for efl learners in indonesia is listening since it needs listeners’ focus and concentration. ahmed (2016) in her study found that implementing podcasts in language teaching podcast: an alternative way to improve efl students’ listening and speaking performance 18 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 can assist learners to have a good understanding about the content and to develop their ability in listening comprehensionfurther, speaking is one of the productive skills that is widely learnt in indonesia. someone is considered to be able to speak in english when she/he is able to communicate fluently in english (richards, 2008). henceforth, teachers have to implement various methods in teaching speaking in order to make students able to speak english well. besides providing suitable methods, teaching media also play an important role in teaching and learning process (smaldino, lowther, russell, & mims, 2008). particularly in this article, the use of podcast is pondered to be useful in both listening and speaking as it can also provide ample classroom activities (sze, 2006). in short, related to the explanation above, podcast is considered as the appropriate media that can be used in teaching speaking. a number of previous studies have been conducted on this topic. edisitingha (2007) as cited from fitria, vianty & petrus (2015) found that podcasts can ease students to practice listening. besides,it also helps them to enhance their speaking performance. then baehaqi (2014) claims that using podcast in language teaching classroom can engage learners’ motivation to be involved in the activities provided. furthermore, ramli and kurniawan (2017) proved that podcast can bring many interesting topics that pose a lot of language inputs to students. discussion there are some rationales why podcast can be used in order to improve the students’ english listening and speaking performance. the first reason of why podcast could help indonesian students enhance their listening and speaking skill is the fact that podcast enables students to be exposed to authentic language use of english. this is, particularly, because the materials in podcast cover a wide range of topics with real life speech and are generally prepared by native speakers (thorne & payne, 2005; stanley, 2005; rosell-aguilar, 2007; hasan & hoon, 2013). for example, from the authentic podcast materials, the students can listen to everyday conversations in the real life situation, familiarise themselves with english pronunciation and practice their listening as well as speaking skill. the exposure to marisa yoestara & zaiyana putri englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 19 the authentic materials is unquestionably important to provide a meaningful language learning experience (brown, 2007), especially in indonesia, where the students have limited experience in real life communication outside the classroom (hapsari & ratri, 2014). this meaningful learning experience will further increase their engagement and motivation to learn english and improve their listening and speaking performance, as explained by o’bryan and hegelheimer (2007). then, fata and ismail (2017) conform to the fact that media exposure such as internet, webpages, english songs, english movies, and english tv shows has numerous contribution in language learning process for indonesian students. this is also in line with hasan and hoon (2012) who claimed that 87% students enjoyed using podcast as it was an interesting way to learn english and the students also admitted the role of podcast in improving their listening skill. the second underlying reason is that podcast could encourage self-regulated learning outside classroom. the facts that, first, there are a large number of students at indonesian secondary schools (around 35 students per class) (oecd, 2012); and second, that there is a limited time allocated to learn english in class, contribute to the students’ poor listening and speaking performance. therefore, the english teachers should motivate students to be able to learn english independently by using podcasts, particularly outside the classroom (mccarty, 2005; thorne & payne, 2005; o’bryan & hegelheimer, 2007). the convenience that podcast offers, such as 24/7 accessibility, automaticity, simplicity and portability, allows students to listen to english language repeatedly at almost anytime and anywhere (lee & chan, 2006, 2007; jowitt, 2008; abdous, camarena & facer, 2009; ashraf et al., 2011; hasan & hoon, 2013). for example, students can practice their listening through podcast materials that have been downloaded to their personal computer, mp3 players, or ipods in their spare time at home. this self-regulated listening activity will likely result in english improvement, particularly because the students are responsible and have control over their own learning in terms of choosing what, when, and where to listen from the podcasts (lee & chan, 2007; istanto, 2011). since students can choose which content they want to listen,the students’ motivation can also incline as they can integrate their interests into the learning process (dornyei, 2001). podcast: an alternative way to improve efl students’ listening and speaking performance 20 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 this self-regulated learning is also essential to develop students’ autonomy, which will further improve their language learning performance ((brown, 2007; al-fadda & al-qasim, 2013). the third reason is that podcasts could help increase students’ confidence in listening and speaking skill. the fact that indonesian students have lack of confidence in listening and speaking skill is also confirmed by juhana’s (2012) study about psychological factors. she clarified that low confidenceimpede indonesian students from speaking english. using available podcast material independently and producing podcast talk through collaborative learning are two possible podcast activities that can enhance students’ confidence in listening and speaking skill (rosell-aguilar, 2007). for instance, when listening to podcast independently, students can comfortably learn english without being afraid to be judged by their teacher or peers, as clarified by knight (2010). in addition, the activity of creating podcast in a small group work could also help less confident students to feel more prepared and supported, as they will collaboratively work together to rehearse the talk before they publish it (chan & lee, 2005; lee & chan, 2006, 2007; sze, 2006; lord, 2008; knight, 2010). this activity will further result in the increase in students’ motivation as well as the improvement in students’ speaking skill, particularly for less confident students. the final reason is the fact that podcast could encourage active learning. this is in accordance with stanley (2006) who believes that when the podcast content is successfully chosen (by the teacher/students), the active class discussion can be encouraged. besides, rosell-aguilar (2007) recommends producing podcast as an effective group work activity, particularly because it will engage students in practicing their speaking skill. the most engaging part of activity in creating podcast materials is the community building (lord, 2008; al-fadda & al-qasim, 2013); not only when the students work collaboratively in group to produce the podcast, but also when the podcast is published, in which the students will have real audience around the world, listening to their talks (stanley, 2006). stanley (2006) further suggests english teacher to get involved in an inter-school podcast project that allow to exchange the podcast talk as well as comment and respond to each other (as marisa yoestara & zaiyana putri englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 21 asynchronous activity). additionally, the combination of podcast and skype will serve as another possible follow-up synchronous activity that the teacher could employ in this manner, the students could have a face-to-face (online) language interaction through skype (stanley, 2006). the active learning activities will finally increase the students’ motivation and english performance, particularly in listening and speaking skill. even though integrating podcasts in language learning has been claimed to benefit the students in improving their english skill (abdous et al., 2009; kim & king, 2011; hasan & hoon, 2013), it is important to remember that in order to integrate podcast into the process of teaching and learning listening and speaking skill effectively, the teacher should apply tpack (technological pedagogical content knowledge) as the teaching framework, as suggested by koehler & mishra (2009). this teaching framework has covered necessary knowledge that the teachers should have before conducting the process of teaching and learning with technology. in terms of pedagogical and content knowledge, the english teachers should consider the appropriateness of materials and classroom tasks, including the follow-up activity to actively engage the students in the learning process and successfully achieve the set learning goals. this is in line with rosell-aguilar (2007) who urges teachers to use their creativity in selecting the podcasts materials to meet the purpose of learning in order to help students develop their listening and speaking skill effectively. for example, in integrating the use of podcast into the language learning process, it is important to remember that indonesian students have different level of english proficiency, so that task differentiation is needed. therefore, english teachers could assign more advanced students to listen to podcast materials that are more authentic (a normal speech conversation with more informal language use/everyday vocabulary); while low level students could listen to a specifically designed podcast materials with a slower speech to help them get used to english pronunciation and learn the listening and speaking skill (sze, 2006; rosell-aguilar, 2007; chan, chi, chin, & lin, 2011). in addition to the pedagogical and content knowledge, shiri (2015) also highlights the importance of technological knowledge, particularly on how to access (subscribe and download) the podcast materials and how to make the podcast: an alternative way to improve efl students’ listening and speaking performance 22 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 effective use of the tool. to have this technological knowledge, the teacher can learn from relevant teacher training (koehler & mishra, 2009) or from their peers. the teacher should then ensure that students are also aware on how to access podcasts before having the students to learn with it (hasan & hoon, 2012, abdous et al., 2009). this technological knowledge is important for both teacher and students to receive maximum benefits of podcast in supporting language-learning process, as highlighted by istanto (2011). nevertheless, there are several possible challenges, including the internet problem (hur & suh, 2012) and insufficient technological devices, which might obstruct the use of podcast in indonesian teaching and learning context. in terms of internet connection problem, the teachers could either download the podcast content into cds/mp3 players to be presented as teaching and learning resources in the classroom, as recommended by stanley (2006) or suggest the school to provide better internet connection. meanwhile, for the lack of technological devices problem, the teachers should manage to allow all students to get access to podcasts equally by having the students to use the device interchangeably or by encouraging the schools to provide borrowed portable device, such as ipods to assist the process of teaching and learning foreign language (mccarty, 2005). the later solution, of course, will take time. however, we believe that it is possible to do, particularly with the support of all stakeholders. conclusion in conclusion, podcast is an effective teaching tool to enhance the indonesian students’ speaking and listening skill since it can provide access to authentic materials, support self-regulated learning, increase language confidence as well as create active learning. however, in order to integrate the use of podcast effectively into the language classroom, the teacher should consider tpack framework and should be aware of the possible obstacles. more studies, particularly in indonesian context, are required to find out more about the effective use of podcast in the process of teaching and learning english, particularly the listening marisa yoestara & zaiyana putri englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 23 and speaking skill. additionally, it is also important to bear in mind that podcast is only a medium to support, but not to replace the teaching and learning process. references abdous, m., camarena, m. m., & facer, b. r. 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(2005). evolutionary trajectories, internet-mediated expression, and language education. calico journal, 22(3), 371-397. weiler, a. (2012). improving language learning listening skills. retrieved from http://www.strategiesinlanguagelearning.com/improving-listening-skills/. englisia may 2015 vol. 2, no. 2, 86-94 validity in computer­based testing: a  literature review of comparability issues and exam­ inee perspectives  ika kana trisnawati universitas muhammadiyah aceh, indonesia ika.arraniry@gmail.com abstract these past years have seen the growing popularity of the computer-based tests (cbts) in various disciplines, for various purposes, although the paper-and pencil based tests (p&ps) are still in use. however, many question whether the use of cbts outperforms the effectiveness of the p&ps or if the cbts can become a valid measuring tool compared to the pbts. this paper tries to present the comparison on both the cbts and the p&ps and their respective examinee perspectives in order to figure out if doubts should arise to the emergence of the cbts over the classic p&ps. findings show that the cbts are advantageous in that they are both efficient (reducing testing time) and effective (maintaining the test reliability) over the p&p versions. nevertheless, the cbts still need to have their variables well-designed (e.g., study design, computer algorithm) in order for the scores to be comparable to those in the p&p tests since the score equivalence is one of the validity evidences needed in a cbt. keywords: computer-based tests; paper-and-pencil based tests; comparability; examinee perspectives; validity; reliability introduction the use of computers has significantly increased over the past decade in testing and assessment applications (olsen, 2000; gallagher, bennett, cahalan, & rock, 2002; russell, goldberg, & o’connor, 2003). one reason for the ever rising use is that many testing developers believe that computerized testing will be able to provide potential benefits (e.g., efficiency in testing administration) (gallagher, benika kana trisnawati englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 87 nett, cahalan, & rock, 2002). further, examinees need only to answer shorter tests, as in adaptive testing, compare to traditional tests (paper-and-pencil based testing) to get their achievement measured (bennett & rock, 1995; zenisky & sireci, 2002). olsen (2000) defined such computer-based tests as “tests or assessments that are administered by computer either stand-alone or networked configuration or by other technology devices linked to the internet or the world wide web.” however, despite the potentials gained from computerized tests, many studies keep trying to look at the validity of these computerized tests by conducting comparability studies between paper-and-pencil based testing (p&p) and computer-based testing (cbt). additionally, studies have also been conducted to see the examinees’ perceptions on computerized tests. hence the objective of this paper is to review the validity studies in testing and assessments related to computer-based testing, particularly in the comparability of p&p tests and cbts and the examinee surveys. validity issues as stated in the standards for educational and psychological testing (aera, apa, & ncme, 1999), the definition of validity refers to “the degree to which evidence and theory support the interpretations of test scores entailed by proposed uses of tests.” (p. 9). due to the rapid movement from the p&p test administrations to the cbt system, there are some major concerns in terms of appropriateness of cbts scores in relation to previous p&p test scores: equivalence across formats and criterion-related validity (neuman & baydoun, 1998) in order for scores in different items or testing materials, different testing procedures, or test forms administered in different test formats to be used interchangeably, the standards for educational and psychological testing (aera, apa, & ncme, 1999) suggested that evidence of score equivalence should be provided. green, bock, humphreys, linn, and reckase (1984) also stated that cbt and ppt are equally valid only if they have been demonstrated to yield equivalent measures. in addition to the issues mentioned above, the administration factors are also considered affecting the examinees’ performance throughout the test, such as during the transfer of problems from the screen to scratchwork space, lack of scratchwork validity in computer-based testing: a literature review of comparability issues and examinee perspectives 88 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 space, and inability to review and/or to skip test items (russell, goldberg, & o’connor, 2003). therefore, the effect of test modes to the examinees should also be investigated thoroughly. summary and results mead & drasgow (1993) conducted a meta-analysis of all research from 1980s to 1990s by comparing the computerized and paper-and-pencil versions of 123 timed power tests and 36 speeded tests. the tests were intended to measure young adults’ and adults’ cognitive ability. after correcting for measurement error on 159 cross-mode correlations, they found that the estimated cross-mode correlations were .97 for timed power tests and .72 for speeded tests. for speeded tests, mead and drasgow (1993) believed that the test mode affected examinees performance due to the longer time they read text from the screen. while the computer delivery algorithm, either linear or adaptive computer tests, did not result in any differences between cbt and p&p scores. wang & kolen (2001) addressed comparability analyses between act mathematics assessment computerized adaptive version and paper-and-pencil version through simulation procedures. raw scores from both versions were converted into the act assessment scale score (range from 1 to 36) to better understand the score interpretation. the findings indicated that cumulative scores distribution in computerized adaptive tests are quite similar to one another, but they differed from the paperand-pencil tests scale scores. wang & kolen (2001) assumed that the differences in scoring methods might influence the major difference in scale score distribution for both test versions. gallagher, bennett, cahalan, & rock (2002) examined a computerized mathematical expression (me) using anova to detect construct-irrelevant variance. the test required examinee to enter mathematical expressions into the computer. the study took 178 participants from colleges and universities in the united states. participants were asked to take parallel computer-based and paper-based tests consisting of me items, plus a test of their skills in editing and entering data using the computer interface, and also complete questionnaires regarding their personal ika kana trisnawati englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 89 background, computer familiarity, perceptions on the math task, and plans for graduate study. gallagher et al. (2002) found there was no statistical evidence to claim that individual differences in facility with the computer-based form affected performance on computerized mathematics tasks in a quantitatively skilled, computer-familiar population, and that mean performance, reliability, and relations with other variables were closely similar for both paper-and-pencil and computerized test modes. however, some examinees reported mechanical difficulties in responding on the computer screen and indicated a preference for the paper-and-pencil test. in addition, the authors noted that the findings could not be generalized to other population considering that the sample in this study had higher quantitative skill. pomplun, frey, & becker (2002) studied the score equivalence from two computerized and two paper-and-pencil versions of the nelson-danny reading test. the test provided three types of scores: vocabulary, comprehension, and total score. the results showed that both forms of computerized version had higher vocabulary scores than the paper-and-pencil version, and one form also had higher comprehension and total score in the computerized version. pomplun et al. (2002) believed that such differences might be due to the response speed associated with the use of mouse when recording the responses compared to when examinees had to write their responses in the paper-and-pencil answer sheets. yet, scale scores for the computerized versions had similar predictive power for course placement as paperand-pencil did. to investigate examinees efforts on computerized test, wise and kong (2005) analyzed the computer-based version of information literacy test (ilt)—a low-stake assessment—on 506 freshmen at a southeastern university by employing a response time effort (rte), a new procedure to assess examinee test-taking effort. the study used the reported effort subscale of the student opinion scale to measure examinees self-reported effort on the ilt. in addition, the modified caution index developed by harnisch and linn (1981) was used to measure a person fit—identifying aberrantly responding examinees. wise and kong (2001) found that due to lowstake assessment administration, most examinees tended to response questions too validity in computer-based testing: a literature review of comparability issues and examinee perspectives 90 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 quickly (rapid-guessing behavior) for items that had the accuracy not exceeded the chance levels. recent comparability study conducted by wang, jiao, young, brooks, & olson (2008) was to synthesize the administration mode effects of computer-based tests and paper-and-pencil tests on k–12 student reading assessments by applying a meta-analysis on studies conducted from 1980 to 2005. findings indicated that the administration mode had no statistically significant effect on k–12 student reading achievement scores. there were four variables: study design, sample size, computer delivery algorithm, and computer practice, that made statistically significant contributions to predicting effect size. however, such variables as grade level, type of test, and computer delivery method did not affect the differences in reading scores between test modes. table 1 briefly describes six articles being reviewed in this paper that addressed comparability between cbts and p&p tests, and examinees’ perceptions on computerized tests. table 1. summary author (publication year) validity issues paper-and pencil equivalence examinee surveys mead & drasgow (1993) yes (power tests) no (speeded tests) timing problem when reading on the screen wang & kolen (2001) no (score distribution) n/a pomplun et al. (2002) no n/a gallagher et al. (2002) yes encounter difficulty on cbt & p&p preference wise & kong (2005) n/a highly motivated on highstake assessment low motivation on lowstake assessment wang et al. (2008) yes (test administration, type of test, grade level, computer delivery method) no (study design, sample size, computer algorithm, computer practice) n/a discussions the advantages and disadvantages of cbts this paper has limited number of studies being reviewed; however, there are several points that can be identified as the effects of the use of cbts. one clear adika kana trisnawati englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 91 vantage of the cbt administration, particularly in adaptive version (cat), is to reduce testing time while maintaining the test reliability over p&p versions (wang & kolen, 2001). however, suppose the scores in cat are to be used interchangeably with the p&p test scores, then increasing the reliability of cat over p&p test will lead to some inequities. wang & kolen (2001) illustrated that if a score of 18 on the act assessment scale score is used as a cut score for collegiate sports eligibility by the ncaa, there were 71% of the examinees who had p&p scores of 18 or above while there were 68% of the examinees who got cat scores of 18 or above. if the cat scores were used due to the cat reliability over the p&p test, then it would be only 3% fewer examinees in the cat compared to the examinees who took the p&p tests that were eligible for collegiate sports. wise and kingsbury (2000) pointed out several important issues regarding the examinee perspectives, as briefly mentioned previously, on computerized adaptive tests were related to the opportunity to review items as the p&p tests have, due to the fact that when examinees were able to go back to previous items and change their answers, the examinees’ performances mostly increased. the examinees are also believed to have more confidence if they know that they have more control during the test (as shown in these studies: i.e., glass & singer, 1972; blechmann & dannemiller, 1976; perlmuter & monty, 1977). another concern is to develop a reasonable time limit, that is when two different ability groups (e.g., higher vs. lower) have to take equivalent number of items—higher group takes 20 hard items and lower group takes 20 easy items— then, the problem will be how to establish time limit for each test, because we cannot predict whether harder items will make higher group respond in longer time and easier items will apparently help lower group respond quickly, or vice versa. this problem will definitely affect each group performance, and complicate their score interpretation (wise & kingsbury, 2000). the other significant issue is related to equity. for the test to promote fairness and comparability of scores among different types of examinees, equity among examinees should be established. wise and kingsbury (2000) mentioned a study by validity in computer-based testing: a literature review of comparability issues and examinee perspectives 92 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 sutton (1997) that showed poor and minority students have had less access to computer at home and at school. therefore, it can be concluded that less access led to less experience in computer practices, and any time limits given may also contribute to differences for examinees within such background. concerns on the use of cbts in language assessment a special attention should be addressed on the use of cbts in assessing language ability considering that cbts are growing more in language testing, especially in second language assessment (ockey, 2009). as briefly discussed in aforementioned studies by pomplun, frey, & becker (2002) and wang, jiao, young, brooks, & olson (2008), the results interestingly show different issues. scores on reading tests in wang, jiao, young, brooks, & olson (2008) did not have significant differences although the test modes used were of paper and computer. however, in pomplun, frey, & becker (2002), the reading comprehension scores from one form of the computer version outperformed those in the paper version, and more specifically in the vocabulary sections. what caused these results might have related to the response speed of the test takers of the cbts, who found it quicker to move the mouse around to answer. nevertheless, a benefit of the cbt over p&p is that the ability of the cbt to predict the effect size, as in the case of wang, jiao, young, brooks, & olson (2008). from these findings, concerns on using cbts to assess language ability are more to whether the computerized testing is able to allow the test takers to get more familiar to the test medium and properly assess their language ability and whether it is capable to efficiently calculate and score tests with performance-or-productive based skills such as speech and writing since the computer still lacks of resources that are needed to assess those skills effectively (ockey, 2009; parhizgar, 2012). conclusions implications for future research findings from the cbt and p&p comparability studies were not consistent, however, those studies examining a variety of cbt and p&p versions have implied that scores in computerized tests can be equivalent to the scores in p&p tests so long ika kana trisnawati englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 93 as the cbts have its variables well-designed (e.g., study design, computer algorithm), otherwise the scores in cbts will not comparable to scores in p&p tests, as the score equivalence is one of the validity evidences needed in a cbt. therefore, future research should pay more attention on such psychometric issues in cbt, and that test developers should examine their own cbts for having the intended results that fully interpret examinees ‘real’ ability. references american educational research association (aera), american psychological association (apa), & national council on measurement in education (ncme). (1999). standards for educational and psychological testing. washington, dc: author. bennett, r. e., & rock, d. a. (1995). generalizability, validity, and examinee perceptions of a computer-delivered formulating hypothesis test. journal of educational measurement, 32(1), 19–36. gallagher, a., bennett, r. a., cahalan, c., & rock, d. a. (2002). validity and fairness in technology-based assessment: detecting construct-irrelevant variance in an open-ended, computerized mathematics task. educational assessment, 8(1), 27–41. green, b. f., bock, r. d., humphreys, l. g., linn, r. l., & reckase, m. d. (1984). technical guidelines for assessing computerized adaptive tests. journal of educational measurement, 21(4), 347-360. mead, a. d., & drasgow, f. (1993). equivalence of computerized and paper-andpencil cognitive ability tests: a meta-analysis. psychological bulletin, 114(3), 449-458. neuman, g., & baydoun, r. (1998). computerization of paper-and-pencil tests: when are they equivalent? applied psychological measurement, 22(1), 71-83. ockey, g. j. (2009). developments and challenges in the use of computer-based testing for assessing second language ability. the modern language journal, 93, 836-847. olsen, j. b. (2000). guidelines for computer-based testing. retrieved may 17, 2008 from http://www.isoc.org/oti/articles/0500/olsen.html. parhizgar, s. (2012). testing and technology: past, present and future. theory and practice in language studies, 2(1), 174-178. validity in computer-based testing: a literature review of comparability issues and examinee perspectives 94 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 pomplun, m., frey, s., & becker, d. (2002). the score equivalence of paper-andpencil and computerized versions of a speeded test of reading comprehension. educational and psychological measurement, 62(2), 337-35. russell, m., goldberg, a., & o’connor, k. (2003). computer based-testing and validity: a look back and into the future. retrieved may 2, 2008 from http://escholarship.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=intasc. wang, t, & kolen, m. j. (2001). evaluating comparability in computerized adaptive testing: issues, criteria and an example. journal of educational measurement, 38 (1), 19-49. wang, s., jiao, h., young, m. j., brooks, t, & olson, j. (2008). comparability of computer-based and paper-and-pencil testing in k 12 reading assessments: a meta-analysis of testing mode effects. educational and psychological measurement, 28(1), 5-24. wise, s. l., & kingsbury, g. g. (2000). practical issues in developing and maintaining a computerized adaptive testing program. psicológica, 21,135-155. wise, s. l., & kong, x. (2005). response time effort: a new measure of examinee motivation in computer-based tests. applied measurement in education, 18(2), 163–183. zenisky, a. l., & sireci, s. g. (2002). technological innovations in large-scale assessment. applied measurement in education, 15(4), 337-362. englisia november 2014 vol. 2 no.1, 43-59 curriculum innovation of  australian amep­certificate in  spoken and written english (cswe)  rahmat yusny state islamic university of ar-raniry banda aceh abstract this paper is aimed to analyse certificate in spoken and written english (cswe) curriculum framework which is currently implemented for adult migrant english program (amep) in australia. the curriculum framework that i presented in this writing has been implemented in australia for more than two decades and has been researched and evaluated in delivering better output in order to foster better national economic development in the long run through english, job-seeking, and workplace skills courses. the analysis includes brief history of the curriculum, issues that have been resolved in the implementation and how modern sociolinguistic theories related to social-driven educational innovation in second language learning curriculum design has contributed cswe development to meet the national demands. keywords: cswe; language curriculum; curriculum innovation introduction certificate in spoken and written english (cswe) was accredited by the nsw adult migrant english service (ames) in 1992 (nsw ames, 1993). the australian government adopted this curriculum framework as the national adult migrant english program to accommodate adult additional language learning as an integral part of australian settlement program today. the settlement program was initiated after the second world war, after huge waves of migration to australia has become an issue due to the increased foreign investment in the country. the australian government acknowledged that australia has often been called as nation of immigrants and curriculum innovation of australian amep-certificate in spoken and written english (cswe) 44 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 therefore developed comprehensive policies in immigration, competitive tendering, labour-market development, and of course, language (burns & joyce, 2007) in order to instigate better social integration and economic mobility for the newcomers. second language learning for adult immigrants to some extent is regarded to require greater effort as they are not young anymore. there are some assumptions derived from the learner’s critical period hypothesis (lenneberg, 1967) that the learner would learn the additional language better and faster in the younger age, but less effective in the post-critical period. many debates and also studies have concluded that the phenomenon of early language learning would benefit the learner better, without giving an opportunity to see the amount of input given. however, other research revealed that the ‘better’ of a younger learner could achieve is only regarding native-like pronunciation ability. as an example, a research conducted by larson-hall (2008) described that her study found that younger starting age of the language learner makes a little difference to both phonological and basic morphosyntactic abilities, even in a situation of minimal input. difference on how adult second language learning compared to how the younger learner performing is still an ongoing debate regardless that some researchers agree or disagree with the view that the younger the learner is the better. in fact, this is a potential issue that adult esl curriculum should give attention to. there are other aspects that should be included in the teaching-learning process that accommodate variety of differences among language learners such as the adult immigrants themselves in their context. cswe is considered as a learning curriculum from the perspective of the framework it encompasses, which will be elaborated in further discussion in this paper. i am inclined to the definition suggested by stenhouse seeing curriculum as a process (1975, as cited by nunan, 1988, p. 13): “an attempt to communicate the essential principles and features of an educational proposal in such a form that it is open to critical scrutiny and capable of effective translation into practice.” stenhouse’s model in curriculum was developed within the context that integrates political, social and educational aspects consist of parts relating to planning, empirical study and justification. in the framework of language learning, richards (2001, as rahmat yusny englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 45 cited in graves, 2008 p. 149) defines language curriculum development is “an interrelated set of processes that focuses on designing, revising, implementing and evaluating language programs.” however, curriculum can also regarded as a set of product developed by policy makers. education is often seen as technical exercise, which developed under managerial control over all aspects of education. in this model, curriculum is designed to fulfill certain needs, and objectives are set to achieve needs and later taken into classroom to be applied, and the outcomes of education is then measured. view on curriculum as a product receives criticism because it neglects social aspect to guide the process of the curriculum. the focus on only measuring outcomes of the education reflects that the educators are only judged by their product of their performance, and there are very limited opportunities for educators to take the advantage of their interactions with their learners. above all that, the curriculum only exists outside the classroom, whereas the learner’s learning experiences were not taken into account. these two major views on curriculum can be utilised as a standpoint to analyse how certain curriculum framework is developed to account innovation. obviously, having such characteristics that a curriculum is regarded as a product, there will be very limited innovation that can be represented in the development process. on the other hand, having characteristics of curriculum as a process, there would be potential to develop and innovate the curriculum to account different aspects of the needs in order to make the curriculum better in state and more effective in its implementation. therefore, in the following discussion i will analyse how cswe is innovative to some extend by taking a close look on how it was planned, implemented and reviewed. brief history to analyse the current curriculum framework of certificate in spoken and written english (cswe) for adult migrant english learner in australia, i found that it is important to understand how this comes into place in the beginning. as we all know that the fact that australia is comprised of multicultural and multilingual inhabitants is started back as long as 1788, which is recorded as the arrival of the first curriculum innovation of australian amep-certificate in spoken and written english (cswe) 46 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 british settlers in sydney. from that point of time, the settlers’ population grows to more than a million people in the 1860s after the discoveries of gold mining in the east australia. the development of the economy due to huge amount of natural resources requires the government at that time to open huge immigration policy to enable more people to come to australia to support the demand of manpower. later, as more people coming to australia having no english language background, the government revise the regulation to only open migration access to those who are english literate. onward to the enactment, more and more people form europe migrated to australia until it ceased in the beginning of world war 2. however, after the world war 2, due to migration inactivity during the war, the problem of manpower shortage has again come to surface. an immediate action needs to be place in order to increase production of the idle factories and mining and for the reason of defence. hence, agreements with britain and some other countries to find possible sources of migrants across europe made into realization. later in 1945, the australian government launched immigration campaign in a large-scale to building the country’s post-war infrastructure (allender, 1998). migrants with no english background are provided with english language tuition program, which was started in bonegilla in 1948. this is the starting of the adult migrant english program (amep) which in 1951 being formalised by the agreement between the commonwealth and state government. the agreement in december 1951 enables the state education departments to take over all aspects of adult migrant education and requested the commonwealth to reimburse the expenditure incurred. this means that the states are authorized to continue the class activities and provide trainings and supervision. the commonwealth, on the other hand, is providing the textbook and teaching material and teacher trainings through the commonwealth department of education and the commonwealth department of immigration provides the key control and the funding. this language program was later growing in size, scope and expertise in line with the needs of new migrants were understood (martin, 1998). rahmat yusny englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 47 curriculum improvements later in the late 1970s, after having peaks and falls along the way as well as emerging issues due to increasing number of immigrants and shortage of skilled labour for economic advancement in the 1980s, the government conducted changes in migrant selection system. in late 1978, a joint commonwealth/state committee was established to develop on-arrival component of the program encompassing aspect of methodology, assessment and evaluation and to develop and approach to the content of the course (martin, 1998). among the features suggested were; focus on learner, focus on use, focus on social interaction and respond to the learner’s felt analysis. consequently, the australian second language proficiency ratings scale (aslpr) was developed (currently known as the international second language proficiency ratings scale or islpr). this methodology was developed to assessing placement, evaluating progress, setting goals to guide course design and delivery and provide referral and guidance of clients and the setting of longer-term english language objectives within which the amep might operate (martin, 1998 p. 20). finally, based on the amep national plan 1990-1992, adult migration education services (ames) nsw developed a national accredited curriculum framework of certificate of spoken and written english (cswe) which was implemented nationally in 1993 and adopted the framework as the national amep curriculum. cswe was developed to meet the demand of policies from the federal government during the economic restructure in which competency based training focused on outcomes is the solution to make education to be more responsive to demands from the labour markets and more accountable to funding authorities. the curriculum framework of cswe is centralize and out-come driven. it is contrasted with the previous curriculum development practices in the former amep classroom, where teachers are given full access to design and deliver the lesson to meet individual learner needs with very little accountability (burns, 2003). the australian government, in this light, has taken esl program into a very different level. starting as a policy to increase the population, recruiting manpower, to the improvements of language learning service, has made australia very dominant in the field. numerous attempt of revisions setting the teaching-learning framecurriculum innovation of australian amep-certificate in spoken and written english (cswe) 48 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 work to tendering the english program to private providers in 1997 has bring a successful result for the language learning program itself and in return to provide long term economic benefit and savings to the government. a note to be taken is that the long process of amep to cater the needs on new migrants to both learn the language and to settle, as well as to fully participate in the australian society can be seen as a great investment and receive worldwide respect of its success. cswe levels cswe consists of 4 certificate levels which differ in terms of language proficiency. the competencies are described into certificate i, ii, iii, and iv. however, there is also an additional level of language proficiency which is designed for learners with special needs. the level of proficiency is called the pre-certificate level. this level is aimed for learners who are somewhat having enormous difficulty in basic literacy. this special level is mostly intended for the illiterate refugees, whom having not only language problem, but also having certain psychological trauma that requires special treatment. the certificate level is described as competency-based training in which the learners are described in level proficiency starting cswe i as beginner, cswe ii as post-beginner, cswe iii as intermediate, and cswe iv as advance learner. the learner, prior to undertake the lesson in particular level, is assessed using the islpr (formerly called asplr) on different language task across the four macro-skills that reflect the four levels of the certificate tasks. the result of the test will determine what certificate level that the learner is equivalent. beside the certificate level, during the lesson takes place, the learners of certificate level i and ii are differentiated based on three bands of learning pace. learners with slower learning pace are marked with band a, which most of the times indicate limited learning experience in formal settings, low literacy in the l1 and possibly having non-roman l1. learners with standard pace are marked with band b, who indicates having learning strategy and resources, secondary education in the home country and l1 literate. band c is marked for learners that has fast learning pace, whom indicates having high level of learning resources, some post-secondary education or technical skills training, and l1 literate. rahmat yusny englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 49 the learners are also given opportunity to attend the course with their own learning focus. the curriculum framework enables the learners to set their personal goal based on their need of learning english. for certificate level i and ii, the students are only given general learning focus, however, the teachers are able to extend and develop course according to the learners needs. in certificate iii and iv, there are respectively four and three syllabus strands that the learner can choose based on the initial placement test. for certificate iii there are; vocational english designed for learners who want to engage in vocational fields, further study is aimed for learners wanting to attend formal education, community access is designed for learners who do not have specific focus but aiming to learn english to be able to communicate in daily life context (for shopping, making friends, going to church, asking for information, and so on an so forth), mixed focus for learners interested to have all of the aforementioned learning aims. certificate iii also provides opportunity for learners to select optional learning focus through numeracy module (nsw. ames. program support and development services, 1998). underlying approach and theory cswe curriculum is developed based on the need to have english proficient immigrants to cater the development and participate in the economic society of australia. the goal of this program is basically to enable the new arrivals having no background in english to communicate in the language used in the society. the specific need is generated from the understanding of language as a tool to mediate human social interaction. this notion of language emerged from michael halliday’s view that “language and communication as multi-layered, containing at the same time an ideational meaning (topic-based meaning), interpersonal (roleand relationship-based meaning) and textual (meaning about message construction)” (1978, as cited in block, 2003, p. 72). the linguistics approach underlying the frameworks of cswe is from halliday’s (1985) model of linguistics called systemic functional linguistics. according to halliday, people use language to exchange meanings (1985b) and they do not use language merely as set of grammatical syntax. on the contrary, language is used as a form of medium to exchange meanings in the account of the presented socioculcurriculum innovation of australian amep-certificate in spoken and written english (cswe) 50 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 tural contexts. the cswe learning contents presented meanings in different sociocultural contexts. the learners will be able to see how certain social purposes can be communicated through the language they are learning. in line with that, what is supposed to be one of the major features is that the cswe incorporates affective aspect of the learning through the presentations of cross-cultural understandings. besides, texts presented in relation to the actual use of the language, in which communicates about aspect of experience, interpersonal relationships and the role which language performs in the communication. christie (1999) describes language as systemic due to its offering systems of choices in language, in which each is significant for the realisation of meaning. therefore, the aim of this learning set is the learner will be able to use their knowledge about text structures and registers to predict the language with considerable certainty to be used in given situation. christie (1999, p. 759) adds that “language is said to be functional because its organisation quite fundamentally reveals the purposes for which any natural language came into being.” halliday's model emphasizes on the relationship between language and the context, and in broader level, the learners of the language needs to consider the relationship between language and the cultural context (derewianka, 2000). cswe is developed based on genre theory which actually developed in australia using the model of systemic functional linguistics that has made possible to identify the needs of the learners to do with language in order to be successful in education, employment and social community (feez, 2002). this theory accounts the needs of the migrant to develop their english-language and literacy skills under the pressure of rapid increment of unemployment rate and funding issues in an effective and quick manner. systemic functional linguistic provides systematic detail of how the language system is structured according the different social context. the cswe framework provides set of learning material and lesson modules vary in genres in which related to different registers and functions. learners are taught to familiarise themselves with all different text genres, both spoken and written, in order to make them able to rerahmat yusny englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 51 spond in real life communicative interaction. rothery, who is a pioneer in genre pedagogy, summarised the value of the model to literacy pedagogy as follows: a strong and rich model of language description enables us to model the curriculum in terms of its literacy requirements, to map possible paths of development in literacy and learning and to develop criteria for assessment and evaluation. in short, it offers the opportunity to develop a language-based approach learning. (rothery, 1996, p. 87) the underlying principle of cswe is a competency based training that focuses on outcomes of the individual learners rather than focus on the specific methods or periods of the course. the competency based principle concerns more on the learners’ attainment and the demonstration of specific knowledge, skills and the application of the language. assessment are based on the specific criterion rather than based on the group norms. learners are treated as individuals due to their specific abilities and needs. the learning syllabus suggested by the framework focused the communicative competence (hymes, 1972 as cited in paltridge, 2006) that requires a learner to not only having the knowledge about the language, but also to know what to say to whom, and how to say it appropriately in a situated context. the competencies in each certificate level are divided into four domains; learning skills and strategies, speaking and listening skills, reading, and writing. the learning competency is concerning in the learner’s development of learning strategies, development of autonomous learning, understanding the role of assessment in learning and the ability to formulate future language and learning goals. the classroom settings of the cswe enable the teacher and the learner to work and interact closely. through the interaction, the learners are expected to identify their needs of learning english and later the teacher will decide with certain topics. the learning setting can be represented by gass’ iio model (1997; block, 2003), in which a learner will reconstruct their understanding of the text through his/her negotiation for meaning. learners will learn about the different texts and contexts through guided modules and the interaction with the peer and the teacher. teacher in this context is the most dominant source of input. moreover, teachers for curriculum innovation of australian amep-certificate in spoken and written english (cswe) 52 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 cswe program are trained to accommodate the different learning styles and learning paces of their students, and they should be able to provide satisfactory information regarding the different needs of the students. the immediate goal of this classroom setting is that the student must be able to produce and respond to any communicative stimulation, and provide an appropriate output in return, either in written or spoken. syllabus design for cswe is the responsibility of; individual teacher, collaborative group of teachers, or a syllabus designer. cswe does not provide prescriptive syllabus for their clients. the teacher is expected to clearly understand the linguistic ability and the learning purpose of the learners, and able to develop his/her own sets of syllabus in regard to those matters. cswe innovation cswe was developed during the time when pressures on the need are remarkably high. the government of australia was at that point of time looking at amep that has been conducted for some years but having very low visible achievements. curriculum was not specifically defined and teachers are sporadically conducting their teaching in the classroom without any clear guidelines. this condition called for improvements and innovation, which later ames nsw developed a curriculum framework to work solving the issue. from the point onward, clear roles have been assigned to different elements of the framework. the commonwealth governments hold key roles as the adopters of the curriculum. it can be clearly seen that the distribution of roles and responsibility is structured at this level. the immigration department supporting the fund for the enactment of the curriculum claim for better future of the program that has been going on for long period since the beginning. in this light, the immigration department has very great concern to see how the program runs, and how it can be visible in terms of achievements and benefits considering the amount of expenditures that had been injected earlier. the commonwealth department of education is also assigned to have its own role and responsibility in the provision of material and conducting trainings and supervising the enactment of the curriculum. rahmat yusny englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 53 teachers as implementers of the curriculum are required to be responsible to conduct their teaching in the classroom at their best. curriculum cannot be innovative if the implementers have not placed themselves to be in the key role of the enactment. teachers in the cswe framework are required to work on the syllabus themselves. in order to give the highest benefit for the client, the teachers need to be able to closely familiar to the learner’s condition. syllabuses are then constructed to suit with the needs and ability of the clients, by accommodating different need of the learner. the learners in the enactment of this curriculum are not simply regarded as the client who’s receiving only benefit. they are also contributing to the benefit of the national government agenda to empower the people of australia to participate in more globalized economic competition. on one hand, the learners are provided with the knowledge on survival in their new home; and on the other hand, they will represent australia in a more competitive world as today. by looking closely on how the elements of role are relating to one another with specific task and responsibility, amep-cswe has a potential to be regarded as innovative due to the key ‘players’ involved in the framework that contributes their responsible function to develop better curriculum enactment. however, the following elements can provide an extended discussion of innovativeness of cswe. markee (2001) elaborated that adoption has been conceptualised regarding the individuals and the institution engaged in the different phases of decision making process. there are five stages in decision-making process suggested by rogers (1983, as cited in markee, 2001 p. 119): “1) gaining knowledge about an innovation, 2) being persuaded of its value, 3) making a preliminary decision to adopt the innovation, 4) implementing their decision to adopt, and 5) confirming their decision to continue using the innovation. in regard of cswe, the initial phase of adopting cswe was during the difficult economic crisis in the 1990s, in which the government has been pushing hard to solve the problems of high unemployment of the earlier migrants who are not proficient in english due to the job market demands to recruit migrants with both skilful and english proficient. in addition to that, the need to have a national-wide framework able to accommodate amep clients who work moving curriculum innovation of australian amep-certificate in spoken and written english (cswe) 54 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 from state to state is also considered to be an advanced improvement of the system. hence, the government of australia found that the new framework developed by ames nsw (cswe) comprises with those advanced solutions to the time and formalised as well as adopted the framework to be implemented until what we see today. on the whole, the shift from the former to the implementation of cswe is regarded as a total adoption to the innovative curriculum. although it is true that the government has committed to adopt fully, we also need to see to what extend other components involved in the framework implement the new curriculum. teachers adopt this curriculum by conducting their roles in the classroom by designing syllabus for the learners according to the framework. in cswe, the teachers are responsible to develop syllabus that address knowledge needed by the learners. the providers need to fully adopt the framework in their practices. otherwise, there will be likely a failure in the end if there were key components that are declining to fully adopting the framework. cswe was developed from the promising description of language being seen as systemic functional (halliday, 1985). integrating the notion of language as function into the language learning curriculum has shown a quite remarkable success in amep language classrooms. as mentioned earlier, cswe was designed to address english language knowledge to the migrants in order to prepare them to engage in the real australian society, which has given a big success compared to the former approach. the new language learning approach, new pedagogical values, new concept of grammar pedagogy, as well as the new pedagogical materials used in the new framework reflect the adoption intensity of the qualitative change in the curriculum implementation. in addition to that, the concept of values in the new framework caters the sustainability of multiculturalism harmony, such as providing learning materials that advocate fighting against racism and stimulating tolerance of having such diverse society. this was not only newly being integrated in australian context of language learning, but also provides a great innovation regarding social values australians expected as the outcome of the migrant learning program. this is a definite matter that must be integrated into innovative curriculum framework. the framework needs to provide access to integrate all socio-cultural rahmat yusny englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 55 aspects of the world where it is being implemented. multiculturalism for example, as discussed in the previous paragraph was contextualised in the new innovative curriculum of amep in australia. in addition to that, ideological, historical, political, economic, and even institutional aspect must be also regarded as important factors of the innovation. cswe was adopted to suit the context of adult esl learning in australia. the government invested huge amount of fund through learning programs to empower newly arrived migrants to be able to survive in the new home by providing them essential knowledge about the local language. this program, however, was not exclusively to empower the migrants with the survival knowledge, but in return, the migrants can fully participate to help developing the economy of the country. the decision to place massive investment on amep is notably successful. the long process of planning, enactment, and evaluation of the amep since the earliest beginning has fruited profound social change in australia. the national policy on languages oriented to pluralism, multiculturalism, and social equity was released in 1987 was replaced by the australia's language: the australian language and literacy policy (deet 1991) that promoted the government agenda emphasizing on 'producing' skilled australian workforce to compete in a globalized economy (burns & joyce, 2007). in general perspective, the cswe suits the context of the australian government's agenda. to add, the new curriculum was also compatible with the former implementation of the amep. there was not a specific complexity issue during the shift to cswe, however, there are problems as the program grew in many states, ames eventually have to distribute the responsibility of providing the service by tendering to qualified private learning institutions. nevertheless, the observability as well as the advantage of the enactment of cswe has greatly met the expectation. no wonder, the framework is still applicable today. cswe was developed as result of policies from reformist federal government due to demand of economic restructuring at the time. the government sees that the potent of competency-based training that focused on outcomes was respected to create educational climate to be more responsive to the demand of the growing lacurriculum innovation of australian amep-certificate in spoken and written english (cswe) 56 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 bour market as well as to fulfil the demand of funding authorities (burns, 2003). the shift from the former state of the curriculum to the cswe depicts power-coercive innovation strategy that involves political, administrative and economic power to resolve the problem. conclusion by referring to the extensive resources of the history of adult migrant english program in australia as well as the framework that encompasses multi-layered aspects of political needs, economical needs, and socio-cultural needs i come up to conclusion that the framework has been intensively developed. there has been great contribution from the academia providing reviews and evaluations toward the enactment as well as the mechanism of the framework of cswe. macquarie university hosting as the prominent support centre for english language support has been given lots of important reviews on the implementation of amep framework from the early beginning. shifting from the former setting of amep to the national wide amep's cswe curriculum, was considered as a huge innovation in adult migrant second language learning pedagogy domain. cswe was also developed to retain possible improvements in the later future. however, the main structure of the framework has been applied for more than 20 years now and still delivering the needs of the learner and the national objectives. nevertheless, there are some issues that still remain needing improvement, which is to advocate more cultural-diversity sensitivity among new migrants in the curriculum. the expanding population of multi-national and multi-ethnic in the context of australia could have been more harmonious if newly arrived migrants are 'touched' with more affective educational objectives incorporated in the language learning. also, there are other issues addressed by fecca (federation of ethnic communities councils of australia) that perceived refugees received less attention that was reported to exit amep without having gained a functional level of english (fecca, 2008). in addition to that, fecca also submit a commentary that the 510 allocation hours (+100 for refugees) are perceived to not being able to bring competent level of english. on the other hand for professionals, 510 might exceed their rahmat yusny englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 57 needs. to summarize, in overall cswe has given a remarkable success, however, as demands of the implementation contexts are always dynamic; as long as the curriculum reserve channel for improvements and revisions, the framework will likely to progress instead of digress. curriculum innovation of australian amep-certificate in spoken and written english (cswe) 58 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 references allender, s. c. (1998). australia's migrants and refugees: opening the door to lifelong learning. how adults learn a new language. paper presented at the international conference on "how adults learn", washington, dc. http://www.eric.ed.gov/ericwebportal/contentdelivery/servlet/ericservlet?ac cno=ed419434 block, d. (2003). the social turn in second language acquisition. washington, d.c.: georgetown university press. burns, a. (2003 ). esl curriculum development in australia: recent trends and debates. relc journal, vol. 34, no. 3, 261-283. burns, a., & joyce, h. d. s. (2007). adult esl programs in australia. prospect, vol. 22, no. 3, 5-17. christie, f. (1999). genre theory and esl teaching: a systemic functional perspective. tesol quarterly, vol. 33, no. 4, 759-763. derewianka, b. (2000). pedagogical grammars: their role in english language teaching. in a. burns & c. coffin (eds.), analysing english in a global context: a reader (pp. 240-269). florence, ky: routledge. feez, s. (2002). heritage and innovation in second language education. in a. m. johns (ed.), genre in the classroom: multiple perspectives (pp. 43-69). mahwah, n.j. ; london: l. erlbaum. gass, s. (1997). input, interaction and second language learner. mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum. graves, k. (2008). the language curriculum: a social-contextual perspective. language teaching, vol. 41, no. 2, pp. 147-181. halliday, m. a. k. (1985a). an introduction to functional grammar. london: edward arnold. halliday, m. a. k. (1985b). systemic background. in w. s. g. james and d. benson (ed.), systemic perspective on discourse, vol. 1: selected theoretical papers from the ninth international systemic workshop (pp. 1-15). new york: ablex publishing. larson-hall, j. (2008). weighing the benefits of studying a foreign language at a younger starting age in a minimal input situation. second language research, vol. 24, no. 1, 35-63. lenneberg, e. h. (1967). biological foundations of language. new york: wiley. markee, n. (2001). the diffusion of innovation in language teaching. in d. m. hall & a. hewings (eds.), innovation in english language teaching: a reader (pp. rahmat yusny englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 59 119-126). london: routledge in association with macquarie university and the open university. martin, s. (1998). new life new language: the history of adult migrant program. sydney: national centre for english language teaching and research. nsw ames (adult migrant english service). (1993). certificate in spoken and written english. sydney: nsw ames. nsw. ames. program support and development services. (1998). certificates in spoken and written english i & ii (update edition 1998, reprint 1999. ed.). surry hills, n.s.w.: nsw adult migrant english service. nunan, d. (1988). the learner-centred curriculum: a study in second language teaching. cambridge; melbourne: cambridge university press. paltridge, b. (2006). discourse analysis: an introduction. london; new york: continuum. rothery, j. (1996). making changes: developing an educational linguistics. in r. hasan & g. williams (eds.), literacy in society (pp. 86-123). london: longman. rudiana, p. a. (11 january 2010). local languages may become extinct. tempointeractive.com retrieved 12 may, 2011, from http://www.tempo.co.id/hg/nasional/2010/01/11/brk,20100111218442,uk.html englisia november 2014 vol. 2 no.1, 1-19 classroom related talks: conversation  analysis of asian efl learners  nur akmaliyah state islamic university of ar-raniry banda aceh abstract in this paper, the author first records, transcribes, and then analyses a short extract from an english conversation among three graduate students with different cultural backgrounds. it aims to analyse several aspects of conversation analysis; turn-taking, topic change, preference organisation, listing, use of figurative language, face saving, breakdowns and repairs, and dysfluency. the data analysis shows that there is an interesting feature occurs concerning to overlapping during conversation. moreover, dysfluency is also one of noticeable features which exist regularly during the conversation. however, the figurative language that is expected to emerge during talk among different cultural background cannot be figured out because the participants tend to avoid using such complex and idiomatic language structure. keywords: conversation analysis; classroom talks introduction conversation analysis emerged from sack’s study on analysing language use in social interaction. (wooffitt, 2001) he recorded and analysed how people actually converse. many researches have been conducted in this area since the 1960’s. despite this, different concepts and assumptions on conversation analysis (ca) have been used. hutchby and wooffitt have defined ca as ‘the systematic analysis of the talk produced in everyday situations of human interaction: talk-in-interaction’ (1998, p. 13) in the same way, have (1999) points out that ca is generally referred as the analysis of utterances produced in daily communication. ca focuses not only on language produced by people in talk-in-interaction, but also on the understanding classroom related talks: conversation analysis of asian efl learners 2 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 and interpretation of the speakers of each other’s utterances during the talk itself. (hutchby & wooffitt, 1998) in addition, when analysing data, features such as culture, gender and social background have to be considered. regarding data analysis, atkinson and heritage note that analysts are not expected to interpret the participants understanding in utterances or to restrict them during the recording of the data interaction. they are, instead, required to present the data based on their own observation of the participants’ ordinary behaviour throughout the interaction (atkinson & heritage, 1984). the first section looks at the methodology of collecting data such as participants, context, and the recording itself. the second section looks at several points in transcription procedure and system used in analysing the record data and brief definitions of ca elements discussed in the data analysis. moreover, a range of symbols that exist in transcription will be introduced as well. the third section is data analysis of a series of actions within utterances. however, this paper tends to limit the discussion to only several aspects in conversation analysis. the aspects consist of turntaking, topic change, preference organization, listing, use of figurative language, face saving, breakdowns and repairs, and dysfluency. methodology participants the students were all female and aged 25 and 28 who come from asian countries. the conversation is in a friendly, informal style. they talked about the progress of their assignments in a café near their classroom. the conversation reflects their worry in choosing titles for their assignments. some problems in composing the assignments such as choosing a topic and collecting data are also discussed during the conversation. one reason for the conversation is to share their ideas dealing with those problems. context and expectations the type of talk discussed in this paper is a conversation among three graduate students with different cultural backgrounds. before the recording, a number of nur akmaliyah englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 3 expectations were expected to come out from the recorded data. since they come from different cultural backgrounds which have their own style in expressing ideas of using language, the use of figurative language by participants, for instance, was expected to develop during conversation. moreover, cultural and gender backgrounds usually play a crucial role in several elements occurred in a conversation such as topic change, breakdowns and repair, and preference organization. the different ways in reacting each other’s turn-taking are also expected to reveal in the data. dysfluency is also one of the most common things predicted to appear during conversation because they speak english either as second or foreign language. recording a digital camera was used to record the conversation. it was put on the table in front of the participants during the conversation in order to avoid picking up too many outside noises. the quality of the sound recording is not at the highest quality as it was expected. some parts of the conversation cannot be heard clearly because of the low capacity of the equipment itself. furthermore, the noisy environment in the recording location also had a negative impact on producing a high-quality recording. in ethical aspect of getting permission, the participants had been told that their conversation would be recorded. they were very kindly to give permission for these data to be arranged on this paper. there were some difficulties, however, to produce a natural conversation when people recognize that their conversations are being recorded. transcription procedure and system transcribing a recorded data systematically is assumed as the first basic thing generally done by an analyst before doing a ca. as a foundation in analysing conversation, this transcript becomes a crucial part to analyse the utterances of the interaction. as it happens, the process to write a clear and readable transcription is not that simple. this condition occurs because in a recording many people sometimes are talking at the same time, laughing while the others are talking, laughing together, giving such a long pause, expressing their words improperly, etc. (ten have, 1999). classroom related talks: conversation analysis of asian efl learners 4 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 there are several ways that are adopted by analysts in transcribing these data. have (1999) states that while a number of analysts usually put only the clear utterances spoken by participants during interaction in a transcription in order to avoid confusions to the readers, the others not only put any utterances but also how that language was produced by setting any original sounds from recorded data without changing or correcting them. in other words, several analysts emphasize on the content of the conversation by giving only a little interest on how those languages have been said, but the others give details of original record data in the transcription and discuss the process of producing utterances. each of the techniques has plus and minus side actually. in detail transcription, on one hand, the complete and original data in language use for social interaction will be appeared perfectly but it is not always easy to the readers (especially non linguist ones) to understand what the analyst tries to transcribe. the conventional transcription, on the other hand, which is likely to give the clear data by highlighting only the clear utterances and avoiding noticeable mistakes from the conversation (ten have, 1999), is quite readable to the readers but it limits the exploration of using the language in talk-in interaction. it can be done in any techniques because no standard of the highest-quality in constructing a transcription. in addition, some symbolic transcript notations used in transcribing recorded data need to be introduced in order to provide such information to the reader how people were actually speaking in social interaction. in this paper, the record data was transcribed based on dictionary spelling in order to make it readable to the readers. the transcription procedure adopted in this paper is a conventional one. before explaining some examples of sequences in the conversation, i will clarify the transcript convention i have chosen and adopted in my transcription. a range of these symbols is employed from ten have’s book which is devised by gail jefferson and commonly used by analysts in current ca publications. pauses are notated by their length in second that is shown in bracket and the stressed words are underlined. parts of the transcript that are symbolized by single left square bracket indicate the point of overlap. equal sign is the symbol for indicatnur akmaliyah englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 5 ing no gap between two lines. the arrows represent the higher or lower pitches in the utterance parts. some non-verbal features such as laughter are shown within the square bracket. the colon indicates a long sound in a word. the angle bracket is employed to indicate fast speech. moreover, small degree sign is used to indicate the part of which is quieter than other parts in utterances (ten have, 1999). the use of feedback is also added as the transcript notation, for example ‘yeah’, ‘mm’, ‘ok’, and ‘well’. in addition, commas and full stop used in the transcription reflect their normal function in written language only. in order to give a clear view of the elements discussed in this paper, below are a brief explanation of those; turn-taking conversation is operated naturally by turn-taking. based on sacks’s work collaborate with two of his colleagues in 1960s on turn-taking system, beattie categorizes three techniques in indicating turn-taking system in conversation. first, the technique called ‘previous speaker select next’ which happens if the previous speaker addresses question directly to someone to be answered and being a next speaker. it could be either by straight calling his/her name or turning a nonverbal sign such as gaze or gesture toward the person who is selected to be the next speaker. second, the ‘self-select’ technique which means that people gain their own turns by initiating utterance in a talk. lastly, the utterances are continued by the current person because the next speaker is not selected and no one tries to gain the right to speak. (beattie, 1983) have, then, explains that one of these categories comes before another systematically. it means that the select-next speaker is followed by selfselection and self-continuation techniques respectively (ten have, 1999). preference organisation the structure of preference is signed by a first part in utterances that consists of several action sequence pairs such as assessment, invitation, offer, proposal and request. the adjacency pairs discussed in ca is involved within sequences to examine the coherence actions between utterances. in one chapter of the discourse analysis book, wooffitt (2001) states, for example, that it is understood that a question from the previous speaker should be followed by an answer, an offer could be acclassroom related talks: conversation analysis of asian efl learners 6 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 cepted or declined, an invitation could be possible followed by an acceptance or a refusal, etc. use of figurative language only few specific studies have been done on the use of figurative language in conversation (fussel & kreuz, 1998). the common figurative languages used by people in a conversation are idiom, metaphor and irony. topic change the conversation is controlled by changing from one topic to another naturally. it often cannot fully be predicted when the topic will be changed. the topic change, however, appears when one of the speakers introduces a new topic which is then agreed by the interlocutors. face saving and listing face saving is often defined as an action done by people to save theirs or others’ position, idea, or assumption (yun, 2006). this situation occurs commonly when people express their idea and opinion in a different language and culture. face-saving in conversation has a strong relationship with politeness which is categorized in two terms by brown and levinson; positive and negative faces. negative face is defined as a personality of someone who protects and prevents his right and freedom to do something on his own willingness. positive face is an action done by speaker in attempting positive self-image without contrasting with others (1978). as regard listing, it is a common thing occurs in a conversation. it happens very often when the speaker left the last item of the list in the blank way. the listing, however, is more specific when it is used in formal political speech in order to attract people attention (heritage & greatbatch, 1986). breakdown and repair breakdown is linked to misunderstanding, obvious mistake in interaction, or just an expression of doubtfulness. breakdowns are often followed by repairs which are divided into several categories; ‘self-initiated self-repair, other-initiated selfrepair, self-initiated other-repair and other-initiated other-repair’ (hutchby, 1998, p. nur akmaliyah englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 7 61). repair is a crucial part in a conversation in avoiding and correcting misunderstanding. dysfluency dysfluency often takes place in an informal situation in social interaction. more informal the conversation more often it happens. it could be symbolised by providing unfinished sentences, repeating words, or even repeating part of sentences. the dysfluency appears more often in two situations; when someone or a group of people speak in another language and when someone speak to people they close to in their mother tongue language. data analysis the opening sequence in the transcription begins by p’s utterance, ‘record ↑sou:nds or picture?’, asking an explanation about an activity arising at that time (the process of conversation record) which is then answered by s with a respond by choosing one option in p’s question. p takes the turn once more and provides another question by emphasizing the word ‘only’ to ensure that no more activity than what has been mentioned in s’s answer. notice that a replies without any gap, high pitch and stressed word, ‘=↑yea:h’ which indicates a strong re-join to ensure c’s doubtful and is followed by s’s confirmation, ‘ya’. again, a takes the floor using selfselect technique to give the last comment regarding c’s question. the pause in about three second before the next utterance could be positioned as the end of the first topic. the next utterance by s that appears twice in the whole conversation, ‘<now i don’t know what to talk>’, seems as evidence that shows people feeling (nervous) of being recorded. in fact, it builds a difficult situation to create a natural conversation. in the following extract, a recognises this condition and starts another turn by introducing a phenomenon which seems to be a problem. it begins as follows; a so (1) so we have to do it naturally. but how ↑co:me? (1) a how to do it naturally? s because [ classroom related talks: conversation analysis of asian efl learners 8 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 a [it’s ↑difficult [ p [so just keep your machine [↑secretly s [↑aha p yeah p ˚another somewhere˚ a but you will have the [ p [ok, you can record it and (1) afterwards after people (1) ehm…agreement s <because last time > [ a [yes, but the low quality of record itself a ↑right? s ˚right˚ a if i hid (2) for example if i hi:de my camera over here ehm…the (2) i think the..(1) the voice s yeah, maybe (1) maybe we can’t hear the voice clearly, that ↓way a begins her utterance and continues on self-selection turn by reforming the sentence into a direct form. notice that s’s reply overlaps with a’s second half of her turn, which is further overlapped with p’s suggestion; s because [ a [it’s ↑difficult [ p [so just keep your machine [↑secretly s then interrupts p’s utterance by giving short excitement ‘↑aha’, which means that “it clicks my mind!”. c continues her turn but this time in a quieter utterance, ‘˚another somewhere˚ ’, showing her uncertainty with her own sentence. at this time, a tries to argue but fail as c interrupts and continues her turn to complete her previous sentence by giving preface feedback, ‘ok’, to cut off a’s argument. c’s utterance, however, seems as a persuasion to convince a. s then starts another turn but fails to complete as a continues arguing and shows a predisagreement ‘yes, but…’. s gives up her turn with no completion. a performs a polite disagreement by giving justification why c’s suggestion is quite ineffective to be done. a’s sentence seems to offer an account why she disagrees with c. in this case, a tries to minimise the offensiveness of c. holtgraves (1992) notes that the speaker’s positive and negative face will be more encouraged by doing this kind of face-saving than if the speaker uses such an excuse. a’s next utterance is aimed to catch interlocutors’ attention by giving further explanation of her previous argument but she fails with dysfluency at the end. s then responds in the nur akmaliyah englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 9 following turn and shows an agreement by summarising a’s point. notice that in one of utterance, ‘if i hid (2) for example if i hi:de my camera over here ehm…the (2) i think the..(1) the voice’, a recognises that she has mispronounced the word and performs a self-initiated repair by providing the correct pronunciation. the following extract offers a number of adjacency pairs in yes-no question form. a that’s the ↑problem…i don’t ↓know (4) s how about the other assignment? have you done it?= p =no p chris (1) chris kyriacou s no?= p =↑no! p and we do not have the [ a [we have the same with graham class p research question (2) the topic about [ ehm assignment s [ok p (unclear) decide the research question our self a and (1) have you decided? (2) p no s so (3) he he didn’t give any list?= p =↑no! s so you have to find it by your self?= p =↑yes! the pause indicates an end of the current conversation subject. after a four second silence, s provides a topic change and introduces a new topic by addressing a question to p about her assignment progress. p replies to s’s question quickly without any delay as an indicator of her certainty. a question-and-answer adjacency pair then is again embedded in the following turn by the same speakers. it is followed by p’s additional information, which is overlapped by a and s, on the subject discussed. most of this extract set up an adjacency pairs in ca terms, to which the selected next turn speaker is obliged to respond (wooffitt, 2001). the interesting part is when the selected speaker responds to the questions very quickly and does it without any gap. this behaviour could be analysed in two contrasting possibilities; first, the speaker does not want to discuss about her assignment any further so she gives a short and quick answer. second, in reverse, she is really enthusiastic in discussing this topic. the rise pitches in the set of answers not only could be defined as a reflection of emotion, but also as an action of expressing classroom related talks: conversation analysis of asian efl learners 10 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 appreciation and enthusiasm. in this discussion i prefer, however, the second option as a more relevant illustration in expressing p’s behaviour because the rise in pitches of her answer are continued by further explanation on the subject that is often related to enthusiasm. s’s reaction in the next turn shows her interest in p’s statement, ‘oh..that’s ↑fun!’, which is again indicated by rise pitch. p responds with a question. notice that a’s assessment afterward is preference of agreement,’ i think it’s not that fun, because you have no clue (1) what [ you have no limit, right? what should you write’. the assessment is then endorsed by p in her self-selected turn, ‘[↓yeah yeah ‘. s then takes the floor and claims that she has a reason about what she has been said by giving a further explanation, ‘but you can write from your own experience,[ you ↓know’. it can be seen that s tries to offer a solution which then is overlapped by p’s pessimistic comment that she has no idea on doing what s has been suggested, ‘[but i don’t know how to create idea of the (1) about it’. analysing on p’s overlap before s completes her turn, it seems that p has already thought about it and she found difficult to solve the problem. the sequence continues by s’s utterance, ‘mm..well (2) is it…? what’s exactly the course? what exactly the..the course?’, beginning by a feedback in ca term, which contains a self-initiated repair. p employs a second part of adjacency pair in question-answer sequence by providing an informational answer. s again continues another turn in self-selected technique and gives a pre-sequence in ca term, ‘and then how (.) how about the topics? is it ehm..the (1)[‘, which is then overlap by a’s completion, ‘ [the module itself=’, after one second delay in s’s utterance. as a selected speaker, p responds the question spontaneously without pause by providing a list of topics projected in her assignment subject, ‘=teaching skills? or ehm..students’ differences? yeah..something like that’. having succeeded in her pre-sequence, specified as pre-figuring in ca, s begins her another turn and provides a suggestion based on listing by p in the previous turn, ‘you can write about effective language teacher [‘, which is then overlapped by another suggestion by a, ‘[or or one method applied in a classroom=’. this pre-sequence comes as an adjusted action done before the projected action nur akmaliyah englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 11 appeared in the next utterance. (levinson, 1983) in other word, this pre-sequence is considered as a sign for interlocutors of what actions will come out in the next turn. s then replies a’s idea without gap with a feedback, ‘=yeah’, which seems to be an agreement. the interesting part comes afterward when a continues her sentence in quite speech, ‘something like that˚’, which seems as another listing between utterances. it is noticeable that quite difficult to analyse the meaning of s’s laughter (nonverbal feature) between two pauses. it might be an action to warm up the situation after such a long pause in order to keep the conversation goes on. it also might be functioned as a preparation part by s before starting the next turn. after a long pause, s keeps the conversation going on by starting the next turn still in the same topic. she again tries to offer another alternative ‘or something like (1) or maybe you can take ehm (.)↑reading, the effective reading in teaching or ˚something like that˚=’. the dysfluency are conspicuously in s’s turn. a replies quickly without delay after the completion of s’s assessment ‘=but i think it should be an empirical study=’, which seems to give another view on the point discussed. a’s utterance again is replied with s’s comment ‘=yeah because (2) how about he (1) he want to do like what?’, in an elliptical question. p as a selected speaker gives no response at all. it frequently happens in a conversation when a question as the first part of adjacency pair is not always followed by an expected answer or even no answer at all. (seedhouse, 2004) a repeats the previous utterance to attract p’s attention which is then continued by s doing the same behavior. it is successful as p takes the next turn and gives a comment which overlaps with s’s reply and further overlaps by a’s ,’ [↑freedom’. the next several utterances are repetitions and nonverbal languages (laughter), which is end by p’s statement, ‘to be or not to be’. s’s next turn in fast and quiet speech, ‘well…˚<now i don’t know what to talk>˚, oh my god’ seems as a preclosing sequence. this type of pre-sequence is an indication for other speakers of closing sequence. the other participants take one second pause before responding the pre-sequence given by s. there are two possibilities, however, comes after the pre-closing either speakers continue the conversation in a new topic (related to the classroom related talks: conversation analysis of asian efl learners 12 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 previous topic or a totally new one) or close the conversation (m. frohlich & luff, 1989). p problem’s everywhere= a =and problems of everyone s you are waiting for your friend? p ya, i’m waiting for my friend s okay in this case, s’s utterance sounds that she are getting bored and have no interest to continue the conversation. in her response to s’s turn, p tries to sum up their conversation which is then added by a’s additional comment. s once more takes her self-selected turn and changes the atmosphere of conversation by addressing p a question on what she is really doing at that moment. she questions in a little mistake in english grammar which is replied by p in a correct pattern. the closing utterance is indicated by s’s closing word, ‘okay’, which is indicated as her strong word to close the conversation. conclusion ca is a method for studying and understanding human interaction in a social context. two major points done by analysts in a systematic and analytic way in conversation analysis; language produced in talk-in-interaction and the process of turn by turn utterances. regarding collection and data analysis, ca does not limit each analyst to have a critical view on it. it is not constrained by high-quality standard of analysis. the recording is a friendly and informal conversation among three female students sharing ideas about their assignment. i had difficulty in recording natural conversation because the participants are aware of being recorded. they tend to avoid speaking freely in order to minimize the grammatical mistakes. the result of analysing data can be concluded by the following points; 1. an interesting feature occurs concerning to overlapping during conversation. it is noticeable that interruption commonly happens during each other turns. in reality, mostly asian people are taught not to interrupt other people talk in their culture. they will feel guilty and impolite when they try to intervene someone else talk especially elderly people. as larry has stated, ‘asians tend not to interrupt another or push to make their point’. (davis, 1984, p. 30) nur akmaliyah englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 13 this concept seems to happen only in the formal situation. in this case, however, since they are talking in a friendly informal conversation among the same sex background, the interruptions take place very frequently. 2. the figurative language that is supposed to develop in asian culture talk does not visible during conversation. it is supposed to happen because they are talking in english as their foreign language. the result might be different if they speak in their mother tongue. 3. the dominance of one speaker in changing the topic is non-natural feature of asian talk. asian talk is commonly not controlled by one speaker only in topic change. 4. dysfluency is one of noticeable features which exist regularly during the conversation. one possibility reason for this condition is their lack of confidence in speaking english. more they attempt to speak in correct grammar more often they hesitate in producing utterances. moreover, it is difficult to have a fluent and natural conversation when they are aware of being recorded. 5. figurative language that is expected to emerge during talk among different cultural background cannot be figured out as speakers tend to use the simple and formal sentence in their conversation and avoid using such complex and idiomatic language structure. classroom related talks: conversation analysis of asian efl learners 14 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 references atkinson, m and heritage, j. (1984) structures of social action: studies in conversation analysis. cambridge: cambridge university press beattie, g. (1983) talk: an analysis of speech and non-verbal behavior in conversation. london: open university press brown, p and levinson, s.c. (1978) politeness: some universals in language use. cambridge: cambridge university press davis, l.e. (1984) ethnicity in social group work practice. new york: haworth press frohlich, d.m and luff, p. (1989) conversational resources for situated action. in wings for the mind. proceeding of the sighi conference on human factors in computing system, (pp. 253-258). doi: 10.1145/67449.67498 fussel, s.r and kreuz, r.j. (1998) social and cognitive approaches to interpersonal communication. mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum associates have, p.t. (1999) doing conversation analysis (a practical guide). london: sage publications heritage, j and greatbatch, d. (1986) generating applause : a study of rhetoric and response at party political conferences, american journal of sociology, 92 (1), 110-157 holtgraves, t. (1992) language and face-work, social psychology quartely, 5 (2), 141-159 hutchby, i and wooffitt, r. (1998) conversation analysis (principles, practices and application). cambridge: polity press in association with blackwell levinson, c.s. (1983) pragmatics (cambridge textbook in linguistics). cambridge: cambridge university press seedhouse, p. (2004) the interactional architecture of the language classroom: a conversation analysis perspective. malden, mass: blackwell wooffitt, r. (2001) discourse as data: a guide for analysis. london: sage publications yun, c.c. (2006) preserving students’ face in foreign language teaching, sino us english teaching, 3 (12), 45-47 nur akmaliyah englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 15 appendices appendix 1 transcription symbols (.) short pause (second) longer pause sounds stressed words [ overlap (point when the next utterance interrupts) = no gap between two utterances ↑↓ higher or lower pitch [laugh] nonverbal feature n: long sound <speech> fast speech ˚speech˚ quiet speech classroom related talks: conversation analysis of asian efl learners 16 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 appendix 2 p record ↑sou:nds or picture? s sounds p ↑only sounds= a =↑yea:h= s ya a so just limit the sound (1) that’s all (3) s <now i don’t know what to talk> p yeah [laugh] s yeah (.) yeah [laugh] a that’s the ↑problem [laugh] together [laugh] (2) a so (1) so we have to do it naturally. but how ↑co:me? (1) a how to do it naturally? s because [ a [it’s ↑difficult [ p [so just keep your machine [↑secretly s [↑aha p yeah p ˚another somewhere˚ a but you will have the [ p [ok, you can record it and (1) afterwards after people (1) ehm…agreement s <because last time > [ a [yes, but the low quality of record itself a ↑right? s ˚right˚ nur akmaliyah englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 17 a if i hid (2) for example if i hi:de my camera over here ehm…the (2) i think the..(1) the voice s yeah, maybe (1) maybe we can’t hear the voice clearly, that’s ↓way a that’s the ↑problem…i don’t ↓know (4) s how about the other assignment? have you done it?= p =no p chris (1) chris kyriacou s no?= p =↑no! p and we do not have the [ a [we have the same with graham class p research question (2) the topic about [ ehm assignment s [ok p (unclear) decide the research question our self a and (1) have you decided? (2) p no s so (3) he he didn’t give any list?= p =↑no! s so you have to find it by your self?= p =↑yes! s oh..that’s ↑fun! p is it fu:n? a i think it’s not that fun, because you have no clue (1) what [ you have no limit, right? what should you write p [↓yeah yeah p i know s but you can write from your own experience,[ you ↓know classroom related talks: conversation analysis of asian efl learners 18 | englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 p [but i don’t know how to create idea of the (1) about it s mm..well (2) is it…? what’s exactly the course? what exactly the..the course? p effective teaching in schoo:lls s and then how (.) how about the topics? is it ehm..the (1)[ a [the module itself= p =teaching skills? or ehm..students’ differences? yeah..something like that s you can write about effective language teacher [ a [or or one method applied in a classroom= s =yeah a ˚something like that˚ (3) s [laugh] (2) s or something like (1) or maybe you can take ehm (1)↑reading, the effective reading in teaching or ˚something like that˚= a =but i think it should be an empirical study= s =yeah because (2) how about he (1) he want to do like what? a should be an empirical research or or s ˚research based˚ or (1) or just ehm p <he told us nothing> about (2) nothing [ about ˚the assignment˚ s [so its (2) you don’t think the [ the assignment a [↑freedom p freedom [laugh] s [laugh] ↑interesting p yeah [end of laugh] freedom nur akmaliyah englisia vol. 2 no. 1, november 2014 | 19 a ↑freedom p to be or not to be together [laugh] s well…˚<now i don’t know what to talk>˚, oh my god (1) p problem’s everywhere= a =and problems of everyone s you are waiting for your friend? p ya, i’m waiting for my friend s okay englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2020. vol. 7, no. 2, 195-210 an analysis of speech act of omar mukhtar's utterances in lion of the desert movie syukri rizki * johann wolfgang goethe-universität frankfurt am main, germany syukririzki@gmail.com jelena golubović univerziteta u beogradu, serbia jekacgol@yahoo.com manuscript received february 11, 2020, revised april 10, 2020, first published may 18, 2020, and available online may 21, 2020. doi: 10.22373/ej.v7i2.6358 recommended apa citation rizki, s., & golubović, j. (2020). an analysis of speech act of omar mukhtar‘s utterances in lion of the desert movie. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 7(2), 195-210. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v7i2.6358 abstract movies are brilliant choices to be subjects of discourse analysis since they bear resemblance to real-life phenomena. lion of the desert is one of the movies that actualizes the use of the english language as the dialogue and presents islamic historical values as its content. among a myriad of sub-disciplines of discourse analysis, this paper attempts to investigate speech act phenomena in the utterances of omar mukhtar, the main character of the movie. the discourse analysis is conducted on his utterances in order to extract the types of speech acts he employs. primary data sources include the movie video file and its script. we execute several procedural steps of extracting the data, commencing with watching the movie while reading its script; re-watching it to identify the aspects like voice, intonation, and mimics; interpreting, and classifying the types of speech acts in accordance with the classification procedure of john r. searle‘s speech act theory. the findings revealed four types of speech acts, namely, representative, directive, commissive, and expressive, being identified and classified in mukhtar‘s utterances. the most frequently used type of speech act was representative, which is performed in 56 utterances, followed by a directive act which appears in 53 utterances. commissive and expressive speech acts emerge in 9 and 7 utterances respectively. keywords: speech act; omar mukhtar; lion of the desert movie * corresponding author mailto:syukririzki@gmail.com mailto:jekacgol@yahoo.com https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v7i2.6358 an analysis of speech act of omar mukhtar’s utterances in lion of the desert movie 196 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 1. introduction that the use of language in human communication is determined by the condition of society premises is what pragmatics, in general, is about (mey, 2001). pragmatics is highly indispensable since it is a study of the various ways by which humans communicate. it has relatively much to do with how speakers and hearers negotiate their intention and meaning when using a language. the involvement of various contexts e.g. culture, concept, belief, perspective, etc. when analyzing human discourse on a certain occasion or situation also stresses the significance of pragmatics. in general, there are two kinds of contexts that influence the interpretation of what humans speak, namely, linguistic and physical contexts (yule, 2017). the former is attributed to a set of other words used in the same phrases or sentences. this sort of context would most likely determine what we should consider of word meaning. for instance, the homonym bank is open to be understood in more than one meaning. should the word be accompanied by other words that one says the bank is very steep or the bank has now overgrown with weeds, both sentences are automatically interpreted as a riverbank or an abyss bank. in the same token, in case one says ―i need to go to indonesian bank to check my balance, it is also obvious what bank is in his intention to go to. meanwhile, physical context influences one‘s understanding of words when they are associated with certain locations. for instance, if we behold the word ‗bank‘ written on a building wall in a town, of course, it has nothing to do with a river or abyss. such instances and the like confirm the significance of the context as the quintessence of pragmatics. an inherent and significant sub-discipline of pragmatics concerning the activity of construing sentences is what linguists call speech act. speech act works through universal pragmatic principles (austin & urmson, 1962). in other words, the principles of the act are not merely derived or adapted from one exact language; but rather, the speech act‘s operation exists and applies across various cultures and languages around the globe. hence, a plethora of studies conducted on speech acts found in numerous languages besides english. a plethora of sociolinguistic studies has been performed to analyze speech act phenomena in various fields e.g. daily communication, movies, books, newspaper, online collaborative chats, etc. more precisely, there are several prior studies of analysis on speech act in movies conducted by some researchers. first, ―a study on the use of speech acts‖ was performed by bayat (2013), which attempted to determine the strategies of 150 participants who were continuing their education in the preschool teacher education program regarding apologizing, complaining, refusing, and thanking. the data was obtained through the analysis of short memories written by the participants. ten apologies, six refusals, and six thanking strategies were identified in the findings. while the three types of the act were expressed explicitly, the act of complaining was most frequently expressed implicitly. syukri rizki & jelena golubović englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 197 second, a study on speech act, specifically on apology and compliment acts, used by persian speakers was conducted by ghanbaran, rahimi, and rasekh (2014). the study aimed to investigate the proportion of intensifiers used by persian speakers in two speech acts of apology and compliment. more precisely, the study attempted to examine whether using intensifiers ensures desirable appropriateness of persian speakers and to investigate the reasons they use them. additionally, gender was also analyzed in order to see whether it determines any degree of the use of intensifiers. the findings yielded that persian speakers use intensifiers extensively in both apology and compliment speech acts. in respect of gender, female speakers tend to employ intensifiers more than male speakers do. another study on speech act was carried out by tabar dan malek (2013) targeting certain iranian turkish informants. the study attempted to investigate the notion of indirectness in the speech act of requests among native speakers of iranian turkish. the acts were then analyzed pursuantly to the directness categories proposed by blum-kulka and olshtain (1984) and politeness strategies suggested by brown and levinson (1987). the findings revealed that blum-kulka's scale and brown and levinson's classification could not successfully measure all the responses made by this study informants. there it seems that many informants have deliberately chosen strategies which do not belong to the classification of blum-kulka and olshtain (1984) and brown and levinson (1987). in indonesia, the mastery of speech act receives serious concern as it is included in the latest national curriculum, kurikulum 2013 or k13, where it is termed in indonesian as tindak tutur. for example, one of the basic competences (kompetensi dasar) of english language subject in the k13 for junior high school students of the first year overtly stipulates: merespon makna dalam percakapan transaksional (to get things done) dan interpersonal (bersosialisasi) pendek sederhana secara akurat, lancar dan berterima untuk berinteraksi dalam konteks kehidupan sehari hari yang melibatkan tindak tutur: meminta dan memberi kepastian, serta mengungkapkan dan mananggapi keraguan. this can be translated into english as: to respond meanings in short transactional conversation (to get things done) and interpersonal conversation (to socialize) accurately, fluently, and be able to interact in daily life context which involves speech act: to request and to ensure, as well as to express and respond to uncertainty. this speech act competence should therefore receive serious attention from foreign language educators in indonesia. this is so because the pragmatic feature is inextricably linked with social-cultural knowledge that allows foreign language learners, particularly elf learners, to use language as appropriate means of communication (cohen & olshtain, 1993; nuridin, 2018). an analysis of speech act of omar mukhtar’s utterances in lion of the desert movie 198 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 for this reason, this paper raises the questions ‗what are the speech acts types employed by omar mukhtar in lion of the desert movie?‘, and ‗what is the most frequent type appearing throughout the scenes of the movie?‘ to answer the questions, the nature of speech act along with its features are firstly elucidated, followed by the explanation about the speech in the movie, and a brief synopsis of the lion of the desert movie. the classification of speech act will follow afterward, and finally, the conclusion will close the discussion. 2. literature review 2.1. speech act: an overview among linguists, john langshaw austin repeatedly receives mentions as the one who firstly posited the analysis on speech act. since speech acts are verbal actions that occur in the world (mey, 2001), they can bring about changes in existing conditions, even if they are performed unintentionally. in order for that to happen as well as for the acts to be recognized one should consider three layers of acts. first, one simply needs an activity of saying something, which is called the locutionary act (habiburrahim, rahmiati, muluk, akmal, & aziz, 2020). this act basically, as proposed by austin, includes phonetic and phatic acts; the former constitutes the act of merely voicing certain noises while the latter is the uttering of certain words that belong to certain vocabulary and grammar. yet austin‘s student, john r. searle, did simplify these two acts as only a locutionary act (kemptner, 2017). we in this study prefer to employ this simplified version. second, one may say how hot this room is. the fact that he does vocalize such a sentence in the very form of it (stating, not wishing, directing, or promising) is known as illocutionary act. in this respect, austin and urmson (1962) mentioned the concept of conventionality to differentiate feature of illocutionary acts, we must notice that the illocutionary act is a conventional act: an act done as conforming to a convention. and third, sometimes, by verbalizing such an utterance, one may stimulate the hearers around him to switch on the fan or open the window or to do any other responding actions. those possible activities that hearers carry out after hearing the subjective statement (how hot this room is) are the consequential effects which are dubbed perlocutionary acts. perlocutionary acts collect both intended and unintended effects and consequences considering a particular situation when the issuance of utterances takes place (simona & dejica-cartis, 2015). in actuality, people often – either they realize it or not – utter a number of similar expressions that harbor speech act. awareness of speech act‘s existence enables speakers to anticipate success or failure of saying something. speakers, in this case, need to consider the relationship between words they say and the force they may have. in addition, the speech act will only happen felicitously if it meets the required conditions which are dubbed felicity conditions. the felicity conditions are called so since they must be satisfied before a speech act can be performed. if traced, the terminology is derived from the latin word ―felix‖ syukri rizki & jelena golubović englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 199 that literally can be rendered into english as ―happy‖ (rahman, 2004; glare, 2012). these conditions, as mey (2001) pointed out in his book, pragmatics: an introduction, have to be satisfied prior to a speech act being performed in order for it to have a particular illocutionary force (a particular speech act). besides, they are significant for a speech act to happen felicitously or happily and to avoid misfiring and failure. to illustrate the felicity condition, we can see what happens in an islamic marriage ‘aqd in aceh, whereby someone who is not a wali or naib wali in the present of audiences (witnesses) tries to marry a groom to a bride and states in the ijab utterance: ―brother ali, i marry the girl named fatimah binti muhammad to you, with the mahr consisting of ten mayams of gold, paid in cash‖ † . the mahr in such a ritual is a highly recommended component, or what is so-called a condition of execution and the presence of the witnesses is determined as a sincerity condition since it maintains the quality of the commitment of the marriage. yet, the speaker who verbalizes the sentence, albeit technically and officially using the formal one, is an unauthorized person because his status is not the bride‘s wali who has the power to do so; this required status is what has come to as preparatory condition. in this wise, the declaration of the unauthorized person cannot be taken as a legitimized matrimonial contract but rather it is null and void since he violates, or does not meet, one of nikah requirements. in other words, the person‘s utterance is infelicitous. further, to produce a sentence that contains speech act, one should basically consider the use of verbs that sound as if they play actions; these verbs are named performatives. performativity is a function of language pragmatics that shows that all the utterances consummate an action. it is related to the verbs that indicate performing an action, as to what austin (1962) called ‗performatives‘. meanwhile, some other verbs that sound like ‗stating‘ verbs are called ‗constative‘, since they solely deal with describing a situation or producing false and true statements (mey, 2001). for instance, in a formal ceremony in aceh whereby a person says: ―i declare this conference to be opened‖, there will be some sort of performance like striking rapa’i (percussion instrument) that marks the opening. this statement is valid by itself only if the one who issues the utterance is a licenced person with the proper authority to do so, related to the constative function. however, in order for an utterance to sound performative, sadock (1974) insists on the usage of the present form which conveys the intended force, as in the above-mentioned sentence. one way to examine whether or not an utterance is performative is by executing a ‗hereby‘ test. rahman (2004) exemplified the test based on the method of inserting the word ‗hereby‘ between the subject and the verb. many theoreticians have practiced this † wali, in terms of islamic jurisprudence, denotes someone – normally the father or brother of the bride – possessing legitimized authority to marry a girl to man, while naib wali is someone who acts as a substituent in case there is no wali among the bride‘s relatives; both are rightful to declare the special, official utterance of ijab, stating that bride is handed to the groom. mahr is an obligatory dowry normally given in the form of gold quantified with mayam, a traditional acehnese standard of measurement. an analysis of speech act of omar mukhtar’s utterances in lion of the desert movie 200 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 procedure in order to evaluate the performativity of the verb. related to our examples, the result would be: ―i hereby pronounce you man and wife‖, or ―i hereby declare this conference to be opened‖. accordingly, the sentence would be considered as performative utterance, if after inserting the word ‗hereby‘ before the verb the sentence would still make sense. notwithstanding, we may infer that performativity is not precisely linked with speech act verbs as they are institutionalized e.g. ‗to baptize‘, but also includes everyday verbs that occasionally can take on the performative character (mey, 2001). searle (1976) offered four dimensions as criteria to be the foundations for a classificatory procedure. the criteria are the illocutionary point, the direction of fit, the expressed psychological state, and the propositional content. the illocutionary point addresses that some illocutions have forces to make the words fit with the world or vice versa. one brilliant instance of this is what anscombe (1957) illustrated. the illustration features a man carrying a list of items he needs to buy in a supermarket. thereafter he searches for all the things one by one. at the same time, there is a detective who spies on the man‘s activity and writes down the entire items the man is buying. in this example, the shopping man attempts to match the world (his action) with the words (the list of the items) whereas the detective works to fit the words (his note) with the world (the man‘s action of shopping). shortly, the shopping man does the world-to-word direction of fit since the list requests him to buy the items. the detective has a word-to-world direction of fit because his notes try to match the truth of the shopping man‘s action. the list of the items itself carries the propositional content of the illocution. illocutionary force determines how the content is supposed to relate to the world. so, it is possible to say that the same content may have various illocutionary forces. in regard to the psychological state, one who performs a certain illocutionary act with a propositional content shows his attitude (state) to the content. for instance, a speaker who expresses something he is certain to be accurate or true shows his attitude to his propositional content regardless of his sincerity or unpleasant when producing the expression. this is because the sincerity condition of an act is marked linguistically by his performance of an illocutionary act. therefore, it is possible to classify illocutionary acts based on speakers‘ different psychological states. this, as mentioned by searle (1976), emphasizes that people‘s belief covers not only statements, assertions, remarks, and explanations, but also postulations, declarations, deductions, and arguments. their intention includes promises, vows, threats, and pledges. their desire encompasses requests, orders, commands, asking, prayers, pleadings, begging, and entreaties. and, their pleasure collects congratulations, felicitations, and welcomes. eventually, based on the four criteria of the classifying procedure, searle (1976) established five speech act categories. the first category would be representatives. this category regards an assertion of the world‘s state of affairs. this assertion which bears syukri rizki & jelena golubović englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 201 the value of truth or falsehood is intended to match the world with a subjective state of mind. and, this belief has a different level of force as what we say is postulating something or solely assuming. this category in some sources is termed as constative. kissine (2013) emphasized that in order for an utterance to be constative, it should have necessarily attemocontent and entail a conversational background. the conversational background denotes a set of ‗worlds‘ that may be compatible and accepted by those engaged in a conversation. second, directives, as the name suggests, is a category concerned with an effort made by the addresser to drive the addressee to do something. the addressee is directed to fit the ‗words‘ (what is vocalized by the addresser). however, (kissine, 2013) argued that directive speech acts are not necessarily an attempt to drive the addressee to act or move, yet reasons for him to do so in harmony with a conversational background. the ‗world‘ uttered is then adapted by the addresser to be his wish and indicate the addressee to fulfil it (mey, 2001). this class encompasses verbs viz. ask, order, command, request, beg, plead, pray, entreat, invite, permit, and advise. verbs like dare, defy, and challenge, which austin considered as behabitives are also included. questions are taken into account in this group for they are attempts of speakers to make hearers answer. additionally, even though most of the verbs belonging to this category sound imperative, in practice some utterances may be performed using non-imperative verbs. the third category covers commissives. slightly similar to directives, commissives also cause a change. the difference is that the change is created by obligating something in the speaker‘s responsibility, not in the hearer‘s. the speaker, in this respect, adapts something to be his ‗world‘ and commits himself to fit it by performing some future course of action. any utterances counting as a promise which positions someone under an obligation to fulfil, for example, can be said to belong to this category, although not using verbs like ‗promise‘ or ‗swear‘. fourth, expressives, are utterances expressed to reflect the inner state of the speaker. yet, those utterances do not make any change to the world e.g. a ‗sorry‘ for the one we step on his toe unintentionally. in this connection, the term ‗fit the world‘ does not take any part since both the stepper and the one who‘s foot has been stepped on have to live with the ‗world‘ represented by the stepped toe (mey, 2001).in social life, one is expected to recognize contexts in which he ought to say certain expressions such as appreciation, favourable evaluation contrition, and sympathy (alston, 2000). accordingly, utterances using verbs like ‗thank‘, ‗compliment‘, ‗apologize‘, and ‗commiserate‘ are common to find. fifth and final speech acts, declaratives, bring about alternation to the prior condition of something or somebody. in this respect, the speaker utters his word to change the state of affairs in the world. for example, in some naval communities, ship launching ceremony usually includes the naming of the ship. suppose a rightful person in the ceremony says i name this ship ‘the tragedy’, followed by the ship‘s name being an analysis of speech act of omar mukhtar’s utterances in lion of the desert movie 202 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 revealed in front of the invited audience. the fact that the ship previously bears no name is in turn being altered by the officially articulated word. 2.2. speech acts in movies phenomena of speech act can be witnessed in actual inter-human discourse. this suggests that the realization of the speech act in daily communication can be approached with discourse analysis. speech act in its practice can be easily analyzed in many types of discourse media. the media could be the sequences of recorded images displayed on a screen like a movie. movie resembles everyday-life conditions and portrays daily actions that make them seem as if a reflection of the real-world phenomena. in light of this, the existence of a speech act is inevitably observable just like in daily societal dialogues. although conversations in a movie are directed or arranged in particular situations, the fact is that every situation and the way people talk are adapted from daily actualities. in as much as movies become one symbolic representation of real-life phenomena in that they provide authentic and natural language practice, they can have a significant influence on the level of learners‘ comprehension, particularly english listening comprehension (hatakeyama, 2011). this paper intends to unravel speech act phenomena in one paradigmatic example—lion of the desert movie. 3. method this study is a qualitative study, as it addresses research problems where the variables are unknown and require exploration (creswell, 2012). key concept, idea or process studied in this type of research is a central phenomenon. this type of research views something as a central phenomenon that is required to be explored and understood (creswell, 2012). for the main source of data, the file of lion of the desert movie, discourse analysis is conducted. discourse analysis is part of ―a family of contemporary approaches that emphasises human language as a socially contextual performance‖ (wertz et al., 2011). to scrutinize the use of language in order to accomplish interpersonal and social interaction is the function of this sort of analysis (shanti, lee, & lajium, 2017). this analysis addresses the existence of context in which a language is used so that one can develop hypotheses about the actual meaning of it (gee, 2011). stated another way, in conducting a discourse analysis, one is spurred to ask himself about how the context is instilled in a language and how it should be aptly construed. in this study, the analysis is carried out by executing several steps. the first step is watching the movie while profoundly reading the script which has been already printed. more attention is paid to omar mukhtar‘s conversation with other characters. then, utterances that contain speech act performance are highlighted. next, to obtain deeper and profound understanding, the movie is re-watched and rigorous attention is syukri rizki & jelena golubović englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 203 also paid to the data like voice, intonation, and mimic at the given situation. these data are supposedly essential to infer the intended message of the speech acts employed. furthermore, the highlighted utterances are processed through interpretation which considers the context of where and when they are uttered to figure out illocutionary acts they carry. the interpretation is performed on the utterances piecemeal. finding the intents of each mukhtar‘s utterance leads to the categorization of the utterances based on the searlean speech act categories. lastly, the most frequent type of the speech act that appears is determined, followed by the reasoning of why the most dominant illocutionary act may occur and how it is correlated with the role omar mukhtar plays in the story of lion of the desert movie. 4. findings and discussion 4.1. lion of the desert movie lion of the desert movie was directed and produced by mustapha akkad and was primarily released in 1981, starring anthony quinn as omar mukhtar, the leading character. the movie, which was financially supported by the libyan president, muammar qaddafi, with 35 million dollars (hafner, 2018), portrays a stern rebellion of libyan nation against the oppression of italian military force during the time of regime of mussolini, the first europe‘s fascist dictator. the movie is quite interesting since it displays the bravery of the local muslim population engaged in warfare against the vicious invaders who come to subdue them. importantly, for the muslim population the conflict and the battle itself carry out particular religious and ethical dimensions and values, which are widely present in mukhtar‘s utterances. besides being rated 8.4 out of 10 at internet movie database (imdb, www.imdb.com) (accessed on march 24, 2020) which usually suggests famousness and popularity, this movie is selected after considering its educative historical plot which conforms to the values of islamic tarbiyah ‡ . additionally, in respect of historical accuracy, all the scenes in the movie are considered to effectively show oppressors and the oppressed as they were (canby, 1981; tunzelmann, 2011). following the movie outline, in the fascist epoch of mussolini one of the generals well known for his cruelty, rodolfo graziani, was assigned to fight in the colonial war in libya to vanquish the arab population. however, his troops experienced a wealth of failure. they were defeated by the head of the libyan local forces, omar mukhtar, and his men. tragically, to subdue mukhtar, the general applied unscrupulous methods. he ordered his troops to slaughter children, women, and old people. in addition, he burned their homes and confiscated their lands. mukhtar led his troops in many wars that resulted in huge martyrdom of the local population. besides, he dealt with various experiences during his rebellion such as ‡ tarbiyah is an islamic term for education or upbringing. while in medieval islam it suggests a proper education for the upper classes encompassing both religious and humanistic discipline, in the contemporary world, it means child rearing, education, and pedagogy (esposito, 2003). an analysis of speech act of omar mukhtar’s utterances in lion of the desert movie 204 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 the negotiation with colonel diodiecei in search of justice, desperate situations of lack of supplies, and the betrayal of his old companion. he was caught in a battle with a weapon in his hand. eventually, the story of his resistance ended in year 1931 when he was sentenced by the court president with capital punishment. he was hung in front of his people, the day after the trial day. the analysis is specifically carried out on omar mukhtar‘s (the main character) speech. mukhtar was professionally a religious teacher educating children in his parish. italian‘s invasion of his country, libya, spurred him to lead a fight against the oppressors defending his people‘s spirit, properties, and lands. the oppressors waged many wars to capture him, yet it took a quite long time (20 years) of massive mortalities and blood-sheds of the people who followed him. it was thrilling how mukhtar illuminated and set his people not to ever surrender to the colonizers until they regain their freedom. 4.2. classification of the speech act of omar mukhtar’s utterance in lion of the desert movie in this section, we shall display and analyze the data on the use of speech act in omar mukhtar‘s utterances. before the data are presented and analyzed, a glimpse of the synopsis of lion of the desert movie is worth brief elucidating. the analysis to find out the speech act types in the movie entails not only the exact forms of utterances mukhtar performs, but also aspects like his intonation, mimic, gesture, and particular context. mukhtar is involved in various dialogues throughout the scenes of the movie. in performing his utterances, he converses with other characters e.g. his students, companions, children, women, and his opponents. by analyzing his speech, we have perceived various illocutionary acts instilled. after analyzing those acts, we attempted to interpret the phenomena of speech act occurring in the ways the main character manipulates his language. finally, we differentiated the classes of the acts referring to the classificatory procedure that is proposed by john r. searle (1979). among the five classes of speech act (representative, directive, commisive, expressive, and declararive) only the declarative one was not found in utterances of mukhtar. this is because there was no condition that prepares the ground for him to perform this particular type of speech act. the condition for this type would be mukhtar‘s power to alter any existing status of someone by making an utterance. the following excerpts, along with the exact time code (following the format: hours: minutes: seconds) when they appear on the screen, are collected from omar mukhtar‘s dialogue in the movie. each excerpt holds at least one of mukhtar‘s utterances that harbor speech act. the utterances were then interpreted and grouped based on the speech act classification procedure. briefly, we shall present one instance for each of the four types of speech act, as follows: syukri rizki & jelena golubović englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 205 [1] directive act excerpt: mukhtar : stop right there. why do we think we begin every chapter of the qur’an with god, the merciful? (00:10:58) student 1: because, one of the names of god is mercy (00:11:04) ismail is reading the translation of the qur‘an, mukhtar commands him to stop reading. he utters directly the locution that has a directive illocutionary act of commanding. the perlocutionary act arises since ismail instantly stops reading, as he complies with mukhtar‘s order. then, mukhtar continues making another utterance that sounds with an asking tone, but the primary locutionary act seems to be an ordering one, since the perlocutionary act that emerges is that some of his students raise their hands to answer the question. one of the students‘ answers correctly by saying that because one of the names of god is mercy, every chapter of the qur‘an commences with those words. according to mey‘s (2001) method, the condition of mukhtar‘s status of being a teacher in this situation makes his utterance felicitous. [2] representative act excerpt: mukhtar to his students: boys... boys...why did god set the balance? because.. without the balance everything would fall. here, let me see that much you read. (00:11:54) mukhtar is construing the interpretation of some qur‘anic verses to his pupils. when all the students do not answer his question of why god sets balance, he informs them that without the balance everything would fall. by stating this utterance, mukhtar shows his creed on what he understands from the ayah (quranic verse) and shares it with his students. [3] expressive act excerpt: mukhtar: stop right there. why do we think we begin every chapter of the qur‘an with god the merciful? (00:10:48) student 1: because, one of the names of god is mercy. (00:11:01) mukhtar: that's right. and how… how does god show his mercy? (00:11:05) mukhtar orders ismail to stop reciting after the 7th ayah. he asks all of his students why every chapter in the qur‘an starts with the word ‗god the merciful‘. instantly, one of the students raises his hand and answers by saying ‗because one of the names of god is mercy. since mukhtar knows that the answer is correct, he praises the an analysis of speech act of omar mukhtar’s utterances in lion of the desert movie 206 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 student by making this utterance. this utterance carries the gratitude of mukhtar to the student who answers smartly. the illocutionary force is that mukhtar wants to convey his pleasure to the boy. [4] commissive act excerpt: bu matari: it will mean a new offensive. (00:16:02) mukhtar: my father used to say: blows that don't break your back, strengthen it. we will show graziani some spine. they tell me that graziani loves blood? i don't like to believe those stories. and yet i do. when is he expected? (00:16:18) bu matari says that the coming of the new general can mean a new offensive against them and the entire italian nation. responding to this, mukhtar states the highlighted utterance as a commissive illocutionary act. he says that he and his men will show the general some spine. this sentence is related to the previous sentence of him about the ‗blows that don‘t break your back‘. it is understandable that the spine is a type of bone in the human back. so, if mukhtar states previously that the blows do not break their backs but strengthen it, he automatically means that the italian attacks, in fact, only have been making them stronger instead of enfeebling them. and, by saying the boldfaced utterance, he commits to fight the enemies. shortly, mukhtar obligates himself to set the world in order to fit the words of his decision. after presenting the classification of the speech act of omar mukhtar utterances in lion of the desert movie, we may discuss the findings and how they answer the research questions proposed in the first chapter. there are two research questions that are concerned respectively with the types of speech acts; and the most frequent type and its reasoning. the first question concerning the interpretation has been answered earlier in the section of the classification of the speech act of omar mukhtar‘s utterance in lion of the desert movie. as an answer to the second research question about the types of speech act found in omar mukhtar‘s utterances in lion of the desert movie, based on searle‘s (1979) speech act theory, there are four out of five classes identified. the four types are respectively directive, representative, expressive, and commissive. the declarative class alone does not appear in mukhtar‘s utterances throughout the scenes of the movie due to the absence of any conditions that enable the main character to perform it. regarding the second research question, the findings answer that the most frequent type of speech act is representative. this type is found in 56 utterances of the main actor. omar mukhtar mostly performs this type directly in the very form of it as once he says ―because… without the balance everything would fall.‖ but, sometimes he states it indirectly e.g. ―who can fight such a war?‖ the following class of speech act is syukri rizki & jelena golubović englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 207 directive. slightly different from the first one, this type appears in 53 utterances of the lead character. mukhtar verbalizes several elements of this type such as questioning, requesting, ordering, and suggesting. commissive is the third type of speech act identified in mukhtar‘s utterances. this type emerges in 9 of his utterances. performing this type, mukhtar seems to be committed to making or doing everything he believes is possible. on another occasion, he employs this type of speech act to convey refusal to his interlocutors. the last and the least appeared type is expressive. mukhtar performs it in 7 of his utterances. the performance of this type of the speech act can be seen in some scenes in which mukhtar extols, gratitudes, and welcomes his addressees. interesting enough is that the most appeared type mentioned above, representative, could be intimately associated with the role of mukhtar in the movie, since he is technically the head of the movement against the invaders, and a leader needs to own a strong belief in every step he makes. mukhtar delivers every word with an attitude that resembles an expression of universal truth. the stern condition of life in a colonized country may have shaped him to be sensitive in responding to the states of the surroundings. by frequently performing representative utterances, he seems to have the characteristic of optimism that reflects his status as a leader. he shows nothing but determination in every word he breathes. 5. conclusion lion of the desert movie, on the whole, displays a sequence of epic actions of the resistance of libyan inhabitants against the italian colonizers who attempt to annex their land. omar mukhtar, the chief of libyan forces and the main movie protagonist, becomes the subject of this study. we analyzed his utterances by using speech act theory propounded by john r. searle (1979). the analysis revealed some core findings regarding the interpretation of mukhtar‘s utterances, classification of the speech act, and the most frequent category that appears. through the interpretation, we were enabled to classify mukhtar‘s utterances into speech act categories. we identified four categories of his utterances in this study: representative, directive, commissive, and expressive. among those four categories, representative ranks as the most appeared category. it is performed by the main character in 56 utterances. by vocalizing this category, he attempts to match the surrounding world with his words. the degree of his belief in producing this type of speech act varies. it is identified in the scenes where he speaks to convey his faith in allah, to inform, predict, explain, or merely state. a strong belief which is inculcated inside him shapes him as a forceful figure of a leader. this representative category, therefore, advocates the truthfulness of his propositions. directive is the following category that appears in the main actor‘s remarks. mukhtar employs this category of speech act when he orders, instructs, directs, requests, advises, and suggests. the number of utterances containing this type is 53. additionally, an analysis of speech act of omar mukhtar’s utterances in lion of the desert movie 208 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 the status of mukhtar as the head of his team and a gallant opponent to the invaders enables him to perform this category in various manners to various types of addressees. the third category found in his utterances is commissive. by vocalizing utterances of this category, mukhtar is heard to place himself on the positions of obligations that require actualization. he performs this category in 9 utterances. the least category performed by mukhtar is expressive, found in 7 utterances. in several scenes, mukhtar is proved to use this category of speech act when thanking and showing his respect to his interlocutors. by and large, since the speech act phenomenon can be observed in actual discourse, a movie is perceived as an identical-to-real-life media. speech act utterances throughout the lion of the desert movie scenes are interpreted so that they could be classified sequentially starting from the most appeared category to the fewest one. common readers whose exposure to activities of analyzing discourse, speech act in particular, is jejune, can benefit from this study to strengthen their understanding of it. furthermore, for second language learners who are not really aware of the pragmatic feature, this study can pave their ways to raise their awareness in their target language, english in this case. and finally, pursuant to several basic competences of the newest curriculum of indonesian national education, kurikulum 2013, english teachers, especially the ones who teach english to junior and senior high school students, may also make use of mukhtar‘s utterances when it comes to teaching speech act (tindak tutur). having said that, despite a number of speech act theories that have so far been developed by linguists, this study sticks in using speech act theory initiated by austin and developed by searle, which is one of the earliest speech act theories. it is very likely that the findings of this study would be more exhaustive and critical had this study based on any newest speech act theories. we cordially suggest that other researchers whose concern is over speech act phenomena widen their scopes of analysis and base their theoretical framework on relevant speech act theories. citing some examples, in computer science one may consider developed speech act theory discussed by terry winograd and fernando flores (1986); in political science, the copenhagen school has a speech act theory developed by ole wæver (1989); in sociology, one can refer to nicolas brisset (2018) and in finance, one can refer to christian walter (2016). lastly, we would like to recommend the researchers to keep investigating speech act phenomena as they denote something unavoidably happens in naturally set-up human discourse. references alston, w. p. 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(2017). the study of language (6th ed.). new york: cambridge university press. englisia may 2019 vol. 6, no. 2, 75-87 students’ motivation and responsive pedagogy in language classroom syarifah dahliana universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia syarifah.dahliana@ar-raniry.ac.id manuscript received april 18, 2019, revised may 26, 2019, first published may 31, 2019, and available online june 19, 2019. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.22373/ej.v6i2.4601 abstract students’ motivation contributes to the successful teaching learning process as it determines self-engagement and participations in the classroom. encouraging students’ motivation, then, becomes important for the teacher to achieve the teaching goal and to provide a meaningful learning process for the students. this research is aimed to discuss responsive pedagogy in encouraging students’ motivation to learn and participate in classroom learning process. one english speaking class becomes the object of the observation. the interviews with the teacher and some students were also part of data collection in order to obtain information about the students’ motivation in learning english speaking, teacher’s teaching strategy, and classroom interactions. the findings indicate that classroom activities are crucial in motivating students’ responsive learning. in addition, the teacher’s competency in creating a conducive environment and leading an interactive communication are the ways of the teacher influence students’ motivation in learning process. keywords: students’ motivation; responsive pedagogy; language classroom introduction having a motivation is a key to be engaged in learning activities. gorman (2004) states, “motivation is a complex process or driving force of everyone to reach the goal or target through actions” (p.2). through motivation, a person creates an energy to actively act in order to produce a goal-oriented result. in teaching-learning activities, motivation is considered as one of important aspects that can engage a student to pay attention to the subject taught in class. motivation will force the http://dx.doi.org/10.22373/ej.v6i2.4601 students’ motivation and responsive pedagogy in language classroom 76 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 students to actively participate and contribute in activities provided by the teacher. without good motivation, the goals of learning cannot be optimally reached although the students may have an exceptional capability (guilloteaux & dörnyei, 2008). although there are some factors influencing motivation, both internal and external factors, the role of a teacher in the class cannot be put aside. the position of the teacher is very important in teaching-learning process. the way of the teacher in transferring the knowledge to the students will influence the achievement of educational goals because the teacher is directly involved with the students in the class. this condition has required the teacher to have some particular capabilities in doing their roles as an instructor, motivator, facilitator, and manager; a comprehensive knowledge and skill is necessary to play these roles appropriately in the classroom teaching-learning activities. in other words, a teacher needs to have skill in instructional techniques, teaching behaviors and other essential skills which can accommodate the needs of their students (mcewan, 2002). in classroom teaching-learning process, the teachers are demanded to provide the students with the knowledge and skills, not only theoretical but also practical. in this light, understanding subject content is not enough to be an expert teacher as there are other factors that influence the success of transferring knowledge to sudents, such as classroom management, teaching strategy, learning materials, and students (woolfolk, 2007). as the students in the classroom have different characteristics, backgrounds and intellectual ability, a careful preparation in order to accommodate the needs of all students is necessary. this is important to provide an engaging environment for the students; thus, they can have a meaningful teaching-learning process. nevertheless, providing an engaging and meaningful teaching-learning process is not easy. it is common that the students do not always focus their attention on the course subject. while they are studying, they may think about something else that may be more interesting for them than subject taught in the class. for this reason, the teachers need to find a suitable method, material and attractive situation syarifah dahliana englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 77 that will engage students’ interest to the class. the teachers need to create a situation that leads the students to have the spirit and motivation to learn. motivation to learn a foreign language may produce a more complex situation as it is related to new language system, culture, and psychology. it considers not only knowledge and skills but also sociocultural aspects (dörnyei, 1998). thus, an appropriate teaching strategy and classroom management are crucial to help students be motivated to learn the language in order to reach proficiency. circumstances inside and outside the classroom may affect the students’ motivation, but the ways of the teacher handles the classroom and interacts with the students also have a great impact to motivate the students’ engagement in learning. motivation in learning motivation can be defined as making choices of “goals to pursue and the effort devoted to that pursuit” (brown, 2007, p.85). these goals cause a person “to engage and to persist in action” (ushioda, 2008, p.19). in other words, motivation is related to the purpose of human life, and the interest and motive which lead people to hold their attention of something, including in learning. the above understanding has placed motivation as one of important factors in successful accomplishment. nevertheless, to maintain energy and behaviour in order to stay motivated in particular actions may need hard effort as some factors can affect human’s motivation and these can be unpredictable. internal or personal factors, such as needs, interests, and curiousity, and external or environmental factors, such as rewards, social pressure, punishment are seen as two factors that influence human motivation (woolfolk, 2007, p.373). the types of motivation are divided based on those factors; they are intrinsic and extrinsic. intrinsic motivation refers to the motives that come directly from inside the person, not because of pressures from others or the environment. it leads us more directly to the behavior that we desire. ryan and deci (2000, p.57) state that “intrinsically motivated activities were said to be ones for which the reward was in the students’ motivation and responsive pedagogy in language classroom 78 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 activity itself”. people engage in the activities for fun and self-expression instead of extrinsic pressures. meanwhile, extrinsic motivation is the motivation which is influenced by external factors, such as parents, friends, teachers, rewards and so forth. we are interested only in earning something from our effort or activities not because we are really excited about the activities. extrinsic motivation place the rewards, such as money, prizes, grades, positive feedback, punishment avoidance, and other reasons that have no or a little connection with the assigned task, as a motive to do some actions and maximize some efforts (brown, 2007, p.88; woolfolk, 2007, p.373). both of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations may have their own position in human life, but which one is more important or powerful and which factors that influence motivation may create different answers as different theorists emphasize different perspectives on human behaviour, which in turn affects their perspective on motivation theory. it is not impossible that our motivation come from both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. sometimes, people accept external causes to be part of them which, then, stimulate an internal cause (woolfolk, 2007). some researches indicate that extrinsic reward may influence on intrinsic motivation. for instance, positive feedback from the teacher may create or increase intrinsic motivation to do better in doing their task as the students feel their critical thinking, autonomy and self-fulfillment receive an approval (brown, 2007). thus, intrinsic motivation need to be encouraged and extrinsic motivation can be used to support learning process (woolfolk, 2007). for students, motivation is needed to engage their attention to the lesson and activities in class, thus, they can have a meaningful teaching learning process. in this case, a teacher has to understand that there are different motives among students following their personal experiences at home and neighborhood environment. these needs and motives lead to different level of attention. for this reason, the teacher needs to have a great effort to win students’ attention, not only cognitively and physically but also emotionally. the challenging of students’ engagement on the classroom activities has led a learning environment play an important role in providing a meaningful learning syarifah dahliana englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 79 process. in this light, the involvement of the teacher in teaching-learning process is crucial by considering that she/he is the one who is responsible in teaching, managing, facilitating, and directing the classroom in order to reach particular goals of subject matters and social behaviors. the activities provided by the teacher in class determine the students’ effort in doing their best in order to reach an optimal outcome of their studying. the role of activities in motivating students become bigger when it comes to language learning classroom which usually emphasizes communicative skill as its learning goal. this study is an attempt to provide classroom phenomena related to the interaction between students and teachers in order to discover students’ enthusiasm in studying and teacher’s actions in encouraging students’ participation. thus, the information about students’ motivation and their perspective of classroom preferences on classroom activities and teachers’ characteristics will be revealed. method as previously mentioned, this paper focuses on students’ motivation and responsive pedagogy in language classroom. the students’ action and their perspective on the teacher, classroom strategy, and motivation to learn is part of an investigation in this study. for this reason, this study falls into the qualitative research as it provides a wide opportunity for the researcher to explore the classroom phenomena in context, thus enabling a more understanding of the teacher’s role in encouraging students’ motivation. qualitative research is concerned with exploring of meaning in context in order to understand phenomena (denzin & lincoln, 2013). a case study approach is used in this study. yin (2003) states that a case study is “an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between the phenomenon and context are not clearly evident” (p.13). for this study, the use of case study is intended to reveal the information related to responsive pedagogy in the classroom and the position of the teacher in motivating students’ engagement in teachinglearning process. students’ motivation and responsive pedagogy in language classroom 80 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 this study is conducted at english department, the faculty of teacher training and education of uin ar-raniry, banda aceh, indonesia. the main research setting in this study is one of the english speaking class. the unit 3, class of conversation 2, was selected to be the participants after the teacher and the students agree to participate when the researcher presented her research to them in their classroom. twenty six students, then, became part of the classroom observation. however, the primary source of the data came from four students, as the case study participants; they are duta, lina, sahir, and tini (pseudonym name), who were chosen as representative of gender, personality, and social-cultural background. the teacher in the chosen speaking class, mrs. hana (pseudonym), was the other participant. the data for this study was collected through interviews and five times observation. the first interview was conducted to recruit four case study participants; meanwhile the second interview was conducted after the classroom observations to access the information about the learners’ perspectives of the learning process in the observation class. mrs. hana, the teacher, was also interviewed in order to find out case study participants’ characteristics as the learners and to discover her teaching strategy in english speaking class. meanwhile, the observations were directed towards students’ engagement in learning spoken english and their interaction with teacher and classmates. the data analysis included coding schemes, data displays, and interpretation mechanism. the first step of the data analysis was classifying the data from interviews and classroom observations into several themes. the field notes during the classroom observations emphasize some points, they are: participation and engagement. all of these points were reflected in a behaviour checklist which was prepared for each student and also for the teacher. the students’ actions and responses were noted in detail which then were classified into several themes. finally, these actions were analyzed and interpreted by connecting them with the data from interviews. syarifah dahliana englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 81 language learners in the classroom: the findings based on some observations and interviews with the students and the teacher, the teacher’s communication style and strategy in designing classroom activities place the major points that raise students’ enthusiasm to learn and participate in the classroom. 1. classroom activities and students’ enthusiasm to participate the teacher in the observed english speaking class, mrs. hana, mostly emphasized collaborative works for her teaching strategy. these included group work, working in pairs, lecture, and scaffolding. the students have different perspectives and responses of the teacher’s teaching strategy. a. collaborative work is not always fun for students, particularly if the teacher has no specific rules how each group member should play their role in the group. one student, duta, thinks that collaborative work may lead some students lazy. he said: ...there are some friends who are lazy and do not work at all…i prefer personal work… this situation leads duta to choose question and answer session as his favorite activities. b. personal performance may put some students in uncomfortable situations which may lead them hesitate to participate. different with duta, lina does not enjoy classroom activities that involve personal performance or express personal ideas because of her shy and quiet characteristics that make her uncomfortable performing or speaking in front of the class. she says: ...if i am not in class, i am more active. if my friends speak to me in english, i reply in english, but this does not happen in class. tini may share a similar situation with lina in term of her passive contribution in the class. however, tini is actually not afraid to perform or to express her ideas if students’ motivation and responsive pedagogy in language classroom 82 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 she understands what she has to do in her performance or know what she has to say. the problem is that she has no confidence in her english language skills. she says: i have no confidence... because i don’t know much about english words. most of the time, tini only keeps silent in the class, particularly, when she has to speak or express her ideas in english. c. various activities and environments help to overcome students’ boredom as well as to accommodate students’ different characteristics. sahir has different point of view about the classroom learning process. he really enjoys various activities in the class. however, sahir admits that he sometimes feels bored with learning inside the classroom. he says: sometimes, i want the teaching-learning process conducted outside class... because i feel that studying in class every day is quite boring. sahir lessens his boredom by talking to friends sitting next to him or looking at his phone. the differences of perspectives on teacher’s teaching strategy discussed above shows students’ different expectation and favourable activities. each activity may provide different responses, depending on what their preferable activity. thus, their respond will vary from one day to another as the strategy in applying activities is not the only factor that make the students engaged and motivated in teachinglearning process. 2. teacher’s communication style and classroom atmosphere effective teaching is not only understanding teaching principles and content knowledge but also involving other important aspects (stronge & xu, 2012). a teacher plays an important role in designing classroom activities and transferring knowledge as well as in creating a conducive environment for students to study. the interaction between the students and the teacher determine the outcomes of the classroom. syarifah dahliana englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 83 a. the way of the teacher responds to the students’ participation create a particular impression on them which affect their interaction. the participants give mrs. hana a high point for her friendly behaviour which make them comfortable to interact with her and feel secure with their present in the classroom. as duta said: mrs. hana is easy to interact with...the way she teaches is very good for me. mrs. hana also often directed the students to appreciate their peers’ performance and responses by clapping hands or giving positive appraisal and gestures. this is good to lead the students know that they have support from their peers. b. involving students in decision making leads students to become more active in expressing their opinions the fact that mrs. hana often asks students’ opinion of the preferable discussion topic or activity for the day leads the students feel more involved rather than passive waiting the material or the topic from the lecturer. duta comments: sometimes, miss hana comes into the class and asks ‘what should we learn today?’ the classroom atmosphere in which the lecturer supports the students to express their ideas freely in responding the task at hand motivate the students to participate and are not afraid of being different from their classmates in term of both point of view and the way in communicating the ideas. c. support from the teacher and peers encourage students to engage and participate in classroom activities. everyone in the current class seems to feel comfortable with the present of peers and the lecturer. as sahir says: ...in this speaking class, i do not keep image... but for other class, i just keep silent sahir words reflect his behaviour in this speaking class is different with other classes. he admits that he feels confident to express himself in the current class since everybody supports his expressive behaviour. a supportive behaviour from the students’ motivation and responsive pedagogy in language classroom 84 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 teacher and the peers is also felt by tini who is different with sahir in level of activeness. she admits that her classmates and the teacher help her to deal with her problems in english. tini comments: my friends and teacher really help me to study...if i do not understand, they tell me the words... a conducive and comfortable environment in the classroom that motivate the students have a willingness to engage and participate in various activities may, at last, develop the students’ confident to speak english which means help the class to reach the goals of the teaching-learning process. students’ motivation and responsive pedagogy: an analysis as presented in previous section, there are two aspects bringing students to engage and participate in learning activities, namely classroom activities and teacher’s communicative style. although other factors may also influence students’ motivation to learn, outside and inside the classroom, learning activities and teacher’s communicative style encourage students to participate in tasks at hand. based on the findings, some strategies to motivate language learners to engage in classroom learning activities can be revealed. for one thing, the use of various activities and environments needs to be maximized not only to accommodate the differences of students’ learning preferences and personality but also to lessen the boredom. the students are usually easy to pay attention to something that is interesting or unusual. to accommodate this thing, the teacher should provide interesting and fun learning tasks. the tasks that are related to real life situations and stimulate students’ curiousity are some of good strategies that can be used to attract students’ attention and motivation to learn (woolfolk, 2007). activities and courses that bring the students to be more involved with meaning and purposes lead them to be intrinsically motivated to engage with classroom (brown, 2007). in this light, collaborative works and personal performance should be appropriately used based on the tasks at hand. moreover, teacher’s communication style also influences students’ willingness to participate in classroom activities. supportive, open-minded, creative, warm and friendly behavior becomes some teacher’s characteristics that need to be developed syarifah dahliana englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 85 in the classroom. the teacher’s enthusiasm and commitment in teaching influence students’ motivation to learn (dornyei, 1998, p.130). the way of the teacher interact with the students leads to secured or insecured feeling with their presence and participation in the classroom. secured feeling brings the students become more active and have an interest toward a course subject or activity (stronge, 2002). a good interactive communication may lead the students to look at the teacher not only as the instructor but also as a friend who can help them learning on the subject matter. thus, the interaction between the teacher and the students can run well and the teacher can play her roles in a great term. also, it is important for the teacher to guide the students to appreciate their peer’s performance through positive appraisal and gestures; this is useful to raise students’ confidence to participate in each task at hand. the right feedback will affect the students’ motivation. smiling face and certain gestures are some examples of the feedback needed by the students. all of this kind of feedback should be put on the appropriate proportion because the right feedback will motivate the students to show their real ability and lead to improvement. in lesson approaches, providing opportunity for the students to be involved in taking decision related to the classroom activities and discussion topics needs to be maximized as it can encourage students to be engaged in the classroom discussions and activities. sharing ideas of students’ learning preference leads to find the activities that are suit to their characteristics and needs, thus they have more enthusiasm to participate. furthermore, a comfortable classroom environment is also very important to encourage students’ motivation to participate. a teacher has to create a positive classroom climate which produces a conducive environment for learning (stronge, 2002). a conducive environment allows the students to think and share their ideas. to support that condition, the class must provide a secure emotional climate to every student. the teacher has to make sure that no one in the class has an unsafe feeling when she/he steps in to the class. if the students feel comfortable with themselves and people around them, they will have high motivation. in other words, a good classroom environment encourages students’ engagement and participation students’ motivation and responsive pedagogy in language classroom 86 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 and at the same time it lessens anxiety and develops self-confident (clement, dörnyei, & noel, 1994). the result of this condition is the students will be able to produce the best achievement from their own intellectual capacity. as rost (2006, p.2) states, “motivation affects effort, effort affect results, positive results lead to an increase in ability”. conclusion the teacher’s teaching style and strategy creates a particular image for students which influence their motivation to participate in each classroom activities. a good communication becomes an important aspect to build an understanding between the teacher and the students. the activities provided in the classroom may not meet the expectation of the students as each of them is unique, but a good interaction with the students can encourage them to give a responsive actions in learning process which, then, affect their speaking practice and improve their fluency. the results in this study indicate that the learning activities provided by the teacher and the teacher’s way of interaction with the students are some aspects that are acknowledged by the participants in this research to facilitate the students’ learning and encourage motivation to learn. in brief, having competency in knowledge is not enough for the teacher; teaching strategy, learning environment, and teacher’s communication style also have crucial impact to students’ motivation. references brown, 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(2008). motivating language learners: a classroom-oriented investigation of the effects of motivational strategies on student motivation. tesol quarterly, 42 (1), 55-75. mcewan, e. k. (2002). 10 traits of highly effective teachers. thousand oaks, ca: corwin press,inc. rost, m. (2006). generating student motivation. series editor of worldview, pearson education, inc., 1-4. ryan, r.m., & deci, e.l. (2000). intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: classic definitions and new directions. contemporary educational psychology, 25, 54-67. stronge, j. h., & xu, x. (2012). what makes effective teachers effective?. cse, 16(1), 1-11. stronge, j. h. (2002). qualities of effective teachers. alexandria, va: association for supervision and curriculum development. ushioda, e. (2008). motivation and good language learners. in carol griffiths (ed.), lesson from good language learners. cambridge: cambridge university press. woolfolk, a. (2007). educational psychology. boston: allyn and bacon. yin, r. k. (2003). case study research: design and methods. thousand oaks, ca: sage publication englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2023. vol.10, no.2, 92-104 elements of critical reading in efl teachers’ instructions hamzah puadi ilyas universitas muhammadiyah prof. dr. hamka jakarta, indonesia hamzahpuadi@uhamka.ac.id manuscript received february 7, 2023, revised april 4, 2023, accepted april 15, 2023, and published online may 7, 2023. recommended apa citation ilyas, h. p. (2023). elements of critical reading in efl teachers’ instructions . englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(2), 92-104. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.17142 abstract reading instructions should go a bit beyond ‘explicit question’ to facilitate students’ critical thinking. what it means by ‘explicit question’ is question whose answer can be found in the text explicitly. this research, therefore, aimed to investigate efl teachers’ reading instructions to find out to what extend the instructions contained the elements of critical reading. twenty-seven efl teachers participated by listing all the activities they had given to students throughout their teaching career. all the activities were collected, and similar activities were combined. there were a total of ninety-nine instructions. the activities were then compared to critical reading framework to find out which elements they belonged to. findings showed that teachers’ reading instructions only belonged to such categories as identifying, analyzing, summarizing, and guessing. aside from that, the instructions for the four categories were the same. it appeared that efl teachers lacked creativity and innovative ideas. there were still elements or categories of critical reading that had not yet been utilized or explored. these findings prompted the inclusion of critical reading instruction design skills in teacher education. after all, critical thinking has long been emphasized in national education as a means of developing responsible citizens and avoiding becoming a victim of false information. keywords: critical reading; efl teachers; reading instructions; elements of critical reading 1. introduction reading activities cannot be separated from human lives. for students, reading is an integral part of educational journey to grab knowledge. therefore, reading skills, apart from study skills, should be taught to them. this should include reading in a foreign mailto:hamzahpuadi@uhamka.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.1 hamzah puadi ilyas englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 93 language. there are various reading approaches/techniques/strategies in the efl contexts. the famous ones, which have recently been presented and investigated by efl practitioners with aiming to varied research objectives, belong to bottom-up and topdown models (e.g. kakvand, aliasin, & mohammadi, 2022; soomro, khan, & younus, 2019; suraprajit, 2019; yang, tsai, & hikaru, 2019), extensive reading (e.g. park, 2015; suk, 2016; wanzek, et al.; 2013; yamashita, 2013), a concept referred to as pleasure reading (e.g. ovilia & asfina, 2022; ross, 2021; sullivan & brown, 2015), cognitive and metacognitive (e.g. dabarera, renandya, & zhang, 2014; kendeou, van den broek, helder, & karlsson, 2014; linderholm, virtue, tzeng, & van den broek, 2018; zhussupova & kazbekova, 2016), and technology-based reading strategies (e.g. alkalefawi & al-amrani, 2021; hassan taj, ali, sipra, & ahmad, 2017; kim, 2020; mohammadian, saed, & shahi, 2018). the abovementioned studies have surely shed a light on teaching reading with the main purposes of encouraging reading comprehension. however, reading activities are not merely understanding the content of the reading texts. there should be efforts to find out things beyond the texts such as their agenda and propaganda, as expressed in critical reading (carillo, 2019; masoud & mostafa, 2020; wexler, swanson, kurz, shelton, & vaughn, 2020). this is because misinformation, whether done on purpose or not, has always been bombarding human life that can lead to fatal consequences: human can be the victim of false information. therefore, critical reading, which is an integral part of critical thinking, needs to be taught to students, be it primary or secondary level. over the past decade, studies have shown that critical thinking can be taught to school kids (e.g. florea & hurjui, 2015; marie-france & mathieu, 2012; nilson, fetherston, mcmurray, fetherston, 2013; qizi & qizi, 2021) and even pre-school children (karadağ, demirtaş, & yıldız, 2017). to date, several studies on critical reading in educational, including in the efl, contexts, having been conducted in indonesia (e.g. arifin, 2020; kusumaningputri, 2019; utami, amalia, prayitno, & ain, 2020; widowati & kurniasih, 2018) and outside indonesia (e.g. ahmad, 2019; akın, koray, & tavukçu, 2015; albeckay, 2014; fatemeh, mahmoud, & roman, 2020) have shown promising effects with regard to reading critically: there is possibility for students to develop their criticality. of course, teachers cannot expect students to be critical automatically after having critical reading instructions; however, such instructions need to be infused in reading activities in the classroom with the hope that students will be accustomed to questioning everything coming to their life. encouraging students’ critical reading skills, especially in primary and secondary level of education, cannot be separated from the role of teachers. this is because students cannot be suddenly critical if they are not taught how to be so. unfortunately, few studies have investigated how teachers give instruction in reading classroom. there should be studies investigating teachers’ reading instructions which promote critical reading, leading to students’ ability to think critically. therefore, this research attempts to find out elements of critical reading in efl teachers’ instructions 94 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 to what extent reading instructions given by efl teachers promote students’ criticality. this research analyze the instructions, which are then connected, compared, and contrasted to the critical reading framework to find the elements or categories of critical thinking. 2. literature review this research, as mentioned, explored efl teachers’ reading instructions to primarily find out the elements of critical reading, which eventually promoted critical thinking. to do so, firstly, the literature informing efl teachers’ strategies was critically reviewed; the result was the list elaborating teaching strategies which could promote criticality. secondly, findings from previous studies and existing critical reading framework were combined to create a new framework of critical reading used in this research. 2.1. efl teachers’ critical reading strategies there have been some studies, in the past decade, investigating strategies in teaching critical reading in the efl context in indonesia and outside indonesia (albeckay, 2014; fadhillah, 2017; khabiri & pakzad, 2012; rajabi & tabatabaee, 2015). the studies showed that teaching critical reading strategies in efl had some other benefits, apart from encouraging students’ criticality. khabiri and pakzad (2012), for example, showed that teaching critical reading strategies could improve efl students’ vocabulary retention. this was proven by the mean score of the experimental group which was higher that control group only receiving common comprehension-based approach, not critical reading strategies. even though this research didn’t specifically focus on improving students’ critical reading, it showed another positive effect of teaching critical reading strategies infused in efl. the critical reading strategies which were used by khabiri and pakzad (2012) adopted sousa’s framework in 2004, and the strategies were “previewing, contextualizing, questioning, reflecting, outlining and summarizing, evaluating an argument, and comparing and contrasting” (p. 79). different from khabiri and pakzad (2012) who proved critical reading strategies’ contribution to vocabulary retention, albeckay (2014) showed critical reading could also promote reading comprehension. in doing the research, he designed critical reading program and showed that “the majority of the participants improved their scores in the reading sub-skills” (p. 180). unfortunately, albeckay’s designed critical reading program used in his study was not thoroughly elaborated; however, it consisted of the following elements: identifying facts and opinions, identifying author purpose, making inferences, making evaluation, and analyzing the text. another study was conducted by rajabi and tabatabaee (2015). they carried out an experimental study to investigate the development of efl students’ critical reading using critical reading strategies. while the control group was taught comprehension-based approach, the experimental group was hamzah puadi ilyas englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 95 taught such strategies to promote criticality as previewing, annotating, questioning, outlining, summarizing, inferencing, analyzing, and responding. rajabi and tabatabaee (2015) informed that students in the group receiving critical reading strategies could develop their critical reading ability. in indonesia, studies investigating critical reading strategies specifically in the efl context in the past decade were very few. one of them was conducted by fadhillah (2017) who showed positive effects of infusing critical reading in efl. even though the study did not attempt to especially increase efl students’ critical reading, the teaching of critical reading strategies could increase efl students' level of critical thinking. the critical reading strategies implemented in the study took the following points: previewing, outlining and summarizing, questioning, reflecting, and evaluating. a study almost similar to the current research was conducted by sunggingwati and nguyen (2013). they investigated questioning practice by secondary teachers in kalimantan with the underlying belief that questions given by teachers potentially encouraged students’ criticality; however, the study did not specifically investigate to what extent the teachers’ questions contain critical reading. the study also examined the questions provided in the teaching materials (textbooks) to find out whether the questions facilitate higher order thinking. unfortunately, there was no clear information with regard to the textbooks, whether they were official english textbooks from the ministry of education, culture, research, and technology or commercial textbooks for complementary materials published by private publishers. through interview, observation, and textbook examination, the authors found that the questions from textbooks and teachers posed mainly low-level questions, apart from teachers’ dependence on questions from the textbook. this motivated further research to explore efl teachers’ questions in different parts of indonesia connected to critical reading and to investigate wider scope of textbooks used by secondary school students in indonesia. 2.2. critical reading framework the abovementioned research revealed critical reading strategies conducted by teachers. the strategies were then connected to critical reading framework the literature offered. the teachers’ strategies and the existing frameworks were examined, compared, synthesized, and combined to find out the elements of critical reading in order to create a new framework used in this research. considering some critical reading frameworks in the literature, this research limited to the publication over the last decade and found two frameworks (diyanni, 2017; marschall & davis, 2012). diyanni (2017) proposed a critical reading framework consisting of five stages: making observations, establishing connections, making inferences, drawing conclusions, and considering values, and guessing. while observation could make students have ability to judge, diyanni (2017) argues that students could make “connections among the details” (p. 9) to prepare them to infer before finally drawing a conclusion. elements of critical reading in efl teachers’ instructions 96 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 marschall and davis (2012), on the other hand, proposed what they called as a “critical reading technique” (p. 67). the technique consisted of several strategies implemented in reading stages: pre-reading, experiential reading, post-reading. the strategies were activating, connecting, envisioning (pre-reading), questioning, visualizing, inferring, extending (experiential reading), summarizing and synthesizing, and developing (post-reading). examining the combination of strategies and frameworks, the researcher found several common elements of critical reading. the most recognized element was previewing (fadhillah, 2017; khabiri & pakzad, 2012; rajabi & tabatabaee, 2015), followed by questioning, evaluating, and summarizing, which are also shared by most authors. with regard to summarizing, almost all authors joined it up with outlining. that was why in this research outlining & summarizing was considered as one critical reading element. other elements shared in common were reflecting, concluding, and analyzing. the next element was inferring, which was shared by four authors (albeckay, 2014; diyanni, 2017; marschall & davis, 2012; rajabi & tabatabaee, 2015). apart from the elements shared in common, there were also elements not shared which potentially encouraged critical reading. the first element was comparing & contrasting by khabiri and pakzad (2012). khabiri and pakzad (2012) proposed identifying facts & opinions and identifying author purpose. principally, both activities have the same purpose, namely identifying, so it was used to cover all things related to identifying activities. final element was responding by rajabi and tabatabaee (2015). all the elements of critical reading which were the result of synthesizing strategies and framework can be found in the table below. table 1 framework of critical reading. no elements 1 previewing: describing things before officially discussed 2 questioning: asking questions about everything 3 evaluating: calculating the importance and quality of things 4 outlining and summarizing: drawing the main shape and main idea 5 reflecting: thinking carefully about possibilities 6 concluding: making conclusion after careful thought 7 analyzing: studying carefully about things 8 inferring: making an opinion based on information 9 comparing and contrasting: examining differences and similarities 10 identifying: finding and describing things 11 responding: commenting on things 12 guessing: thinking on things with intelligent judgement hamzah puadi ilyas englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 97 3. method this research adopted qualitative research, with the content analysis partly being employed. content analysis required analytic category, and the category used was the framework of critical reading above, which was the result of synthesizing critical reading framework and teachers’ critical reading strategies. as mentioned, the aim of this research was to find out the element of critical reading in teachers’ reading instructions. therefore, analytic categories were used as a guide to find out teacher’s reading instruction whether their instruction contained the elements of critical reading, and if they did, what kind of critical reading was dominant and what kind the least used. twenty-seven english teachers participated in this research, with their age ranging from 27 to 49 years old. they came from jakarta and bogor, bekasi, depok, and banten province such as tangerang, tangerang selatan, cilegon, and serang. they were randomly selected to participate in the study. as long as they were active teachers and were willing to participate, they were eligible for the study. this was because study were interested in efl teachers’ reading instructions only, without considering gender, teaching experience, educational background, and place of work. their teaching experience was from three years to more than ten years, with ten males and seventeen females. the participants were given questionnaire and asked to list all activities or instructions they had given to students in reading lesson, starting from the first time they became the teacher until now. the problem was sometimes they did not remember the reading instructions given to the students and were not sure whether an activity belonged to reading. to solve this problem, they were asked to write down all activities they had taught during teaching reading skill, including follow-up activities. after the data were obtained, they were all read thoroughly and compared each other. the purpose was to find similarly connected instructions which were then considered as the same instruction. as a result, the researcher got a list containing all teachers’ instructions. the list of instructions was connected, compared, contrasted, and evaluated based on the analytic categories above (table 1). the result of this study was the information about categories of critical reading from teachers’ reading instructions. thus, the study answered to what extent efl teacher’s reading instruction could facilitate students’ criticality in reading. 4. findings and discussion the study found there were 99 activities written by english teachers. there were some 60 instructions that could potentially be able to promote critical reading. 39 activities did not potentially promote critical reading such as “students are asked to read aloud the texts,” “students asked to pronounce the words aloud,” and “asking students to read biography books based on their own choice.” these activities did not seem to be able to promote students’ critical reading; however, these activities could be used as a bridge to the next activities that promote critical reading. elements of critical reading in efl teachers’ instructions 98 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 with regard to the critical thinking instructions, there were activities which were different in wording but actually they had the same message. for example, one participant wrote “asking students to underline the difficult word and then guess the meaning of the words,” while another participant mentioned “asking students to write the meaning of words by guessing them.” this could be considered one type. after the careful reading and consideration, the study grouped the reading instructions by english teachers which belonged to critical reading into a list as follows: table 2 teachers’ reading instructions. no instructions 1 analyzing language features of texts 2 analyzing structure of texts 3 answering questions provided by texts 4 doing free reading 5 doing question and answer based on texts 6 finding implied meaning of texts 7 finding meaning of difficult words 8 guessing meaning from context 9 guessing title of texts 10 identifying fact and opinion of texts 11 identifying figurative language used in texts 12 identifying function of texts 13 identifying key words of text 14 identifying tenses in texts 15 identifying topic of texts 16 identifying types of texts (narrative, descriptive, argumentative, or exposition) 17 making a dialog based on texts 18 performing drama based on texts 19 reading aloud for pronunciation 20 retelling texts 21 summarizing texts the table showed the most dominant element of critical reading was identifying. as mentioned, identification belonged the element of critical reading (khabiri & pakzad, 2012). from the table, the teachers’ reading instructions related to “identifying” were six elements: identifying fact and opinion of texts, identifying figurative language used in texts, identifying function of texts, identifying key words of text, identifying tenses in texts, topic of texts, and identifying types of texts (narrative, descriptive, argumentative, or exposition). hamzah puadi ilyas englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 99 even though “identifying” was categorized as critical reading activities, we had to see the characteristic of the activity; there was the degree of difficulty. for example, “identifying tenses in text” could be activities that least promoted critical reading, because it was easy to do and did not use critical reading skill, except done by very basic level of students. if it was done by intermediate level of students, it would be done with ease. however, it was considered critical activities, if it asked finding a very complex tenses because students needed to use their knowledge and to think. texts used in reading materials for senior high school students, let alone junior high school students, did not contain very complex tenses. the activities that promoted critical reading under category of “identifying” could be “identifying fact and opinions,” “identifying figurative language used in the texts,” and “identifying topic of texts.” in “identifying fact and opinion” for example, students had to understand which one belonged to opinions of the author and which one supported the opinion. it needed a thinking process which was indeed more difficult if the text was long and complicated. “identifying topic of text” could be the perfect example of critical reading. such an activity required students to firstly read the whole text, then understand the text, and finally determine what the topic was. there were some thinking stages students had to do, and this was a good example for critical reading. from the list of teachers’ reading instructions above, there were such instructions as “finding implied meaning of texts” and “finding meaning of difficult words.” these activities were similar to identifying. we could say, for example, “identifying implied meaning of texts,” which actually asked students to look for the implied meaning of text. therefore, the researcher didn’t create new element of critical reading. the next element of critical reading was analyzing. two activities found in teachers’ reading instructions were “analyzing language features of texts,” and “analyzing structure of texts.” unfortunately, teachers did not explore this category more deeply; therefore, they seemed to lack creativity. in fact, there were a lot of things they could develop from this category. for example, teachers could ask students to analyze the characters of the story, analyze the relationship among the characters, and analyze text propaganda. as a result, the text could be more explorable, and students’ critical reading could be optimized. another element of critical reading found in the efl teachers’ instructions was guessing. the examples of this elements were “guessing meaning from context” and “guessing title of text.” the former asked students to read the context and understand it before finally guessing the word, while the latter students had to read the whole passage, try to understand it, and make a logical guess about the title of the text. in both processes there was a thinking process that students had to undergo. sometimes the process was difficult, depending on the text. so, it was not wrong if guessing was categorized as one of critical reading elements. the elements of guessing actually could be more varied, so efl teachers should have not only restricted to guessing title and meaning only. teachers could ask students elements of critical reading in efl teachers’ instructions 100 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 to guess the missing vocabularies, for example. this could enable students to read and think about the context. in so doing, they could guess the suitable words to fill the blanks. another example was teachers could ask students to guess the continuation of the story if the text was about fiction. this could also promote students’ creative thinking, apart from their criticality. the list of teachers’ reading instruction mentioned “summarizing the texts.” summarizing was one of critical reading elements which was included by some authors (fadhillah, 2017; khabiri & pakzad, 2012; marschall and davis, 2012; rajabi & tabatabaee, 2015). there was a thinking process when students made summary. in summarizing, students had to read the whole passage, to find the gist of it, and to rewrite in different wording. every stage was not easy for students to do, and every stage involved a thinking activity. so, summarizing could be used by efl teachers to practice their students’ critical reading. the elements of critical reading that could be found in efl reading instructions were identifying, analyzing, guessing, and summarizing. efl teachers had to be more creative in developing reading instructions to facilitate students’ development of critical thinking. other reading instructions found from the list did not encourage criticality, for example, “doing free reading,” “performing drama based on texts,” “reading aloud for pronunciation,” and “reading aloud for pronunciation.” it didn’t mean the activities useless and unimportant. still, it was good to do for other purposes, for example, practicing pronunciation. those activities could be given as pre-reading activities and post-reading activities, or the activities could be used as a bridge to more critical activities. it was impossible to suddenly start reading activities with critical reading questions. there had to something like “warming-up” activities, starting from easy activities. there were still other elements of critical reading that were not yet explored by efl teachers. the study did not find such elements as questioning, evaluating, reflecting, concluding, comparing and contrasting, and responding. questioning, for example, was good to practice students’ criticality. teachers could ask students to question the purpose of writer’s writing the text or the message behind the text. this could raise the awareness of text propaganda and of political text. while in evaluating teachers could ask students to evaluate writer’ argument whether it was strong or weak, in responding teachers could ask students to respond to the text whether they believed or not, or whether the text was convincing or not. of course, this could be done in higher level of students; however, this could be done using easy texts in lower level of students to promote their critical reading since early age. 5. conclusion the findings of this study showed that efl teachers’ reading instructions contained few elements of critical reading. there were only four elements (identifying, analyzing, guessing, summarizing) given to students with limited variety of activities. hamzah puadi ilyas englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 101 there were still eight categories (previewing, questioning, evaluating, reflecting, concluding, inferring, comparing and contrasting, responding) which were not yet explored by efl teachers. there could be two factors causing this. firstly, this could be due to a lack of creativity or teachers’ ignorance about critical reading. they needed to be made aware of the importance of critical reading to promote students’ critical thinking. so, students were expected to be more responsible citizen in the future and could not be a victim of propaganda in the middle of fast flow of information. secondly, teachers were still confused how to create activities which promoted critical reading. to solve this problem, there should have been training in this regard. teachers had to be equipped with necessary knowledge and tools to teach critical reading. finally, this research was not comprehensive, only researching 27 efl teachers from several areas. further research needed to cover wider areas, and even it could cover teachers teaching different school subjects. acknowledgement the writer thanks lemlitbang uhamka for funding this research. references ahmad, s. z. 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(2016). metacognitive strategies as points in teaching reading comprehension. procedia-social and behavioral sciences, 228, 593-600. englisia may 2015 vol. 2, no. 2, 95-107 language development in study  abroad (sa) context and relationship  with input and interaction in sla  suryani universitas abulyatama, aceh, indonesia soer6484@yahoo.com abstract language learning can occur anytime and anywhere (context). in terms of context, language learning can take place whether at home context or at a study abroad context. this article presents the necessary background to existing literature and previous research about language development in various contexts, more specifically in a study abroad (sa) context. language learners who are studying abroad can lead to language development from a number of perspectives. research findings revealed that language development can take a variety of forms including grammar, vocabulary, fluency, communicative skill, etc. these research findings will be reviewed in order to have a clear understanding about this issue. then, this article continues to give a brief explanation on the role of input and interaction in sla with some views on it. keywords: language development; study abroad; input; interaction; second language acquisition introduction it is fundamental to understand the nature of a native or l2. one should have knowledge about some areas or aspects in that language. there are a number of aspects of language that can be described systematically. linguists have divided language into different areas of knowledge including lexicon (vocabulary), phonology, syntax (grammar), morphology, discourse, semantics, pragmatics of language and fluency. almost all of the language aspects have been the focus of the research language development in study abroad (sa) context and relationship with input and interaction in sla 96 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 in second language acquisition (sla) and its connection to various language learning contexts. most of the research is concerned with how esl learners’ proficiency of spoken skills, vocabulary, syntax or grammatical structure, morphology, discourse, and pragmatics may have or have not been improved and developed by particular learning contexts. there have been many previous studies that have been performed with varying scopes of measurement variables typically within and across various contexts of learning, comparing between learners who are studying at home (ah) and in a study abroad (sa) contexts on language gains. every year, thousands of students worldwide leave home to study abroad. there are a variety of reasons for students to study abroad, for example to improve their foreign language skills; to gain cultural knowledge; to pursue academic qualifications and so forth. with growing interest of sa for language purposes, there has also been growing interest among researchers in studying and investigating the language benefits from a sa context. however, it is still unknown what linguistic benefits increase to learners as a result of spending time in contact with the target community in an education program. according to ferguson (1995), there is a ‘myth’ that there must be exposure to natural setting to successfully acquire a l2; however it has not been explored systematically. for many people, the experience of residing in a country other than their own country may result in their learning the language of that country. to what extent they learn, the accuracy with which they use this language and the style and dialect they acquire depend on numerous variables. according to freed (1995), who provided the first collection of studies on sa experience, the context of learning has been identified as one of the crucial variables in second language learning. much of this research has identified the similarities and differences in l2 acquisition between those who are learning a target language in an at-home formal instructional setting as opposed to those learning l2 in a target language community, either in an immersion program or in a study abroad context. it has long been assumed that the combination of immersion or sa context integrated with formal classroom learning creates the best environment for learning a second language. the strength of this statement according to freed (1995, p.5) is suryani englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 97 related to some belief shared by students and teachers, parents and administrators, that students who study abroad will attain an ultimate proficiency and specialization in a l2. however, there have been relatively few empirical studies which have addressed the linguistic impact of study abroad in a carefully controlled and in an indepth manner. it is worth noting that some studies have discussed the general benefits from sa such as the study by coleman and rouxeville 1993; freed, segalowitz et al 2004; collentine 2004; segalowitz and freed 2004. these studies (as cited in freed, 1995, p. 5) examined issues such as preparation for the study abroad experience, program assessment, student evaluations, general policy issues, and the benefits from a study abroad experience. furthermore, do adult second language learners benefit when they use a lot of time to interact with native speakers compared to others? recently, there have been a number of empirical studies and investigations on the effects of language learning context on second language acquisition. surprisingly, however, the question remains unanswered as to what specific evidence there is for interlanguage development in the study abroad context. the studies by i.e. collentine & freed (2004), collentine, (2004), tanaka (2004), diaz-campos (2004) and magnan and back (2007) are amongst the few investigations that explore the linguistic benefits of a sa context. for example, the study by collentine (2004) identified the effects of learning contexts on morphosyntactic and lexical development. he compared and investigated two groups of learners studying spanish in a formal classroom or at home (ah) setting and in a study abroad (sa) context on their developing grammatical and lexical abilities. in order to get the data, he used an oral proficiency interview (opi) before and after the experimental period. the results indicated that the ah group of students were better at the acquisition of grammatical and lexical features. in contrast, a sa context showed a great improvement in narrative abilities in comparison to the ah group. he assumed it may be that daily interactions within the target community allow sa learners to practice speaking more in narrative way. another worthwhile investigation involves identifying the factors that might influence the development of l2 proficiency. tanaka’s (2004) study, for instance, revealed that proficiency gains during studying abroad was affected by learners’ belief language development in study abroad (sa) context and relationship with input and interaction in sla 98 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 about language learning and opportunities that helped them transform the beliefs to the actual learning behaviours. when learners are in a context where interaction occurs with a more expert speaker, they notice new or correct structures and utterances produced by native speakers of a language (donato, 1994). he also adds the notion of “scaffolding” in order to describe the process by which the l2 learners develop their interlanguage through interaction. in other words, scaffolding allows learners to notice a mismatch between what they know about the language and what native speakers produce. by and large, there is a considerable variation in the language learning experiences in a study abroad context. on the surface, study abroad offers learners with plenty of opportunities for interaction, to notice the gap and to engage in scaffolding (isabelli 2006, p. 232). in addition, schumann (1976) claims that ‘the environment in which the learners interact, the opportunities to use the language, learners’ motivation and attitude positively influence their successful in sla’ (schumann 1976, as cited in isabelli 2006, pp. 232-233). therefore, language opportunities such as interaction together with learning differences in a learner’s personality will give a better gain in language learning. it is worth noting that the amount of language contact and interaction play a crucial role in language gain. language contact is one aspect of learning a target language as it offers opportunities to interact with native speakers or competent users. in addition, opportunities to interact and to observe everyday life interactions help learners notice the differences between their own output and that of native speakers, so they can modify their language according to the native speakers’ utterances. the researchers whose research interest is in sla including dewey (2004), freed (1995), freed, segalowitz & dewey (2004), segalowitz & freed (2004) have informed us about the direct correlation between the amount of language contact and language gains. they analyzed some areas of language gains including oral fluency, speaking ability, reading, listening, grammar, and vocabulary acquisition. in order to get the data, they used a questionnaire called a ‘language contact profile (lcp)’ to document various aspects of learners’ language contact and use. lcp is a self-reported questionnaire to measure language contact outside the classroom suryani englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 99 (freed 1990, p.463) those aspects such as the amount of time per week learners spend using four basic language skills namely speaking, listening, writing and reading is then related to language gains. in line with this, some studies revealed that learners in a sa context benefit more at an overall enhanced fluency (freed, 1995) and greatly enhanced communicative skills (lafford, 1995). they speak more fluently with fewer gaps and pauses. moreover, a study by milton and meara (1995) and davidson and ginsberg (1995) also provided some evidences that the sa context may be an important aspect in the vocabulary acquisition. this is partly because students attended several programs and skills enhancement during their study. additionally, freed, segalowitz and dewey (2004) compared the development of oral proficiency gains among three groups of learners studying french as their l2; those remaining at home; those enrolled in a domestic immersion program; and those in a study abroad context. the results showed that the immersion students improved most on oral fluency and reported significantly more l2 contact hours. similarly, there are two other previous studies that have been conducted to measure second language acquisition and fluency in l2 learners. freed & segalowitz (2004) studied the role of context of learning in oral performance gains in second language acquisition. they compared two contexts namely learners of spanish in a study abroad context and learners in an “at home” context. in addition, oral proficiency interviews (opi) were used with both groups of learners before and after the program. the results revealed that learners who studied abroad made a significant improvement in oral fluency than “at-home” learners. this result was measured by the speed rate and lexical access (word recognition) and automaticity of lexical access. however, the results obtained from lcp (language contact profile) do not provide a positive correlation between language contact and language gains. in another study, dewey (2004) compared the relationship between reading development and the amount of language contact between two japanese groups of l2 learners; those who were in a study-abroad context and those who were in a domestic immersion context. he used self-assessed reading to measure any group differences in both pre-test and post-test reading gains. this study reported that sa students spent much more time reading and interacting with others in l2 japanese language development in study abroad (sa) context and relationship with input and interaction in sla 100 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 than those in the immersion contexts. however, based on self-assessment score and correlation data, there were no links between the amount of l2 contact and reading gains. perdue and klein (1992) have investigated and provided data about the effects of the types of the discourse in which learners were engaged in naturalistic and uninstructed conditions of grammatical and lexical acquisition. they examined two subjects learning english in the united kingdom over two years. they reported that one of the learners had great progress in subordinating and the emergence of verbal inflection because of his desire to be expressive. moreover, the learner was able to employ complex morphosyntactic strategies to achieve certain topicalization effects. whereas, the other learner did not develop his morphosyntactic abilities because he/she was oriented to speech acts, for example in requesting food, direction and so on. the fact that the experience of language learners who are studying abroad can lead to language acquisition can be seen from a number of perspectives. this is similar to what churchill and dufon (2006) pointed out from their study that abroad experience leads to language acquisition. their study revealed that student’ grammatical development shows less gain from study abroad than from an intensive program, however there was a great improvement in oral proficiency and pragmatic abilities. moreover, freed (1998, as cited in collentine & freed, 2004. p.158) suggested that “the linguistic benefits for these learners included ability to speak with greater ease and confidence, expressed in part by a greater abundance of speech, spoken at a faster rate and characterized by fewer dysfluency-sounding pauses. [such students]…display a wider range of communicative strategies and a broader repertoire of styles…and their linguistic identities extend beyond the expected acquisition of oral skills to a new self-realization in the social world of literacy”. researchers have continued to examine the effects of the sa context on grammatical and lexical development (e.g., collentine 2004). dekeyser (1991) and regan (1995) failed to show any advantage for gains in syntactic control for students in the sa context. by contrast, isabelli (2000) identified grammatical features that appear to benefit significantly from the sa experiences, such as tense, aspect, and a suryani englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 101 certain degree of agreement features. additional research (schell, 2000) suggested that the learner experiences a significant period of time when various inflectional features compete in apparent free variation during the initial stages of acquisition abroad and that lexical development helps to consolidate such variation. vocabulary is the most important area of l2 knowledge to be acquired by second language learners. according to saville-troike (2006), vocabulary knowledge can be acquired through many different stages and degree. first of all, learners may recognize any words they hear or see. then, those words can be produced in limited context. eventually, they can control their accurate and appropriate use of words. residence in an l2 environment is thought to contribute favourably to l2 learning in general and to l2 vocabulary learning in particular. it provides learners with massive input and with ample opportunities for challenging their linguistic resources through everyday use of the language. however, researchers do not know what length of residence indeed makes a difference in the activation of a learner’s passive vocabulary (laufer & paribakht, 1998). grammar or mainly speaking is known as syntax refers to the knowledge we have of the elements in a sentence. according to tallerman (2005, p.1), linguists use the term of grammar to refer to all its organizing principles such as information about sound system, form of words, how to adjust language according to context and so on. much of the work on grammatical acquisition has been done recently by some linguists and researchers. several methods also have been used to collect grammatical data to examine the acquisition of features such as subject verb agreement, tense and aspect. it is widely accepted that language development normally occurs during a study abroad. the study conducted by carroll (1967) was the pioneer study in analyzing the benefits of study abroad. the data shows that time spent abroad is one of the predictors of success in target language proficiency (meara, 1994; carroll, 1967). the work of brecht and robinson (1993) and brecht, davidson and ginsberg (1993) covered the broader view of the language process. they statistically analyzed the relationship between learners’ characteristics and pre and post program assessment on speaking, listening and reading abilities. they discovered that language development in study abroad (sa) context and relationship with input and interaction in sla 102 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 study abroad is an effective context for improving speaking and listening skills. in contrast, dekeyser (1991) stated that the results of some studies (moehle, 1984 & raupach, 1984) indicate that grammar did not change in any significant way as a result of several months spent in the target language speaking community. regan’s (1995) investigation does provide information with respect to the improvement of the linguistic aspect of negation in french. the study indicates that the subjects, who spent an academic year in france and brussels, not only acquired the use of negation in french but also acquired the sociolinguistic of native speakers’ norm of variable negation use. segalowitz and freed (2004) stated that interaction with native speakers improves acquisition. nonetheless, researcher such as teichler (1991) argues that interaction with native speakers unlikely to improve proficiency. he mentions that too much time spent interacting with native speakers will hinder the proficiency development (teichler, 1991, as cited in back & magnan, 2007, p. 44). this statement was supported by ball (2000) and allen and herron (2003) that l2 learners tend to be dependent on other english speakers because of the high linguistics demands during their studies and anxiety that may limit their interaction with ns (ball, 2000; allen & herron, 2003, as cited in back & magnan, 2007, p. 44). however, according to collentine (2004, p. 228), the research on grammatical and vocabulary development in different learning contexts has only captured few available data. he has identified some problems why we know little about grammatical and lexical development in different learning contexts. those problems are due to the lack of data precision and small sample sizes which then lead to not being able to generalize the available data. based on those problems, the further precise research needs to carry on shedding light and generalizing the findings. in summary, research to date has contributed data towards understanding many aspects of sla in the sa context. in the following, i will discuss the effect of input and interaction in the second language acquisition. suryani englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 103 input and interaction in sla second language acquisition (sla) is a complex field where researchers try hard to understand the learning process. sla can be affected by many factors. isabelli (2001) mentions that sla is affected by many external factors, such as, social variables, input, interaction and internal factors such as, language transfer from learners’ l1, cognitive variables and linguistic universals. it is widely recognized that input is essential for language acquisition. input constitutes the language to which the learner is exposed. it can be spoken or written (ellis, 1986). in addition to input, interaction also plays a crucial role in the process of learning a second language. ellis (1986) defines interaction as the discourse jointly constructed by the learner and his interlocutors. there is a relationship between these two conceptual factors of sla. since the early 1980s, the roles of input and interaction have been recognized as important in understanding how an l2 is learned. it is worth noting that no one can learn a second language without some sort of input, such as second language grammar, vocabulary, speech sound and so forth. input has been characterized differently in different theories of second language acquisition ranging from krashen’s monitor model, input as a major form of comprehensible input and so on (krashen, 1980; 1982; 1985, as cited in gass, 1997). accordingly, second language acquisition is a complex and complicated area to be discussed even among the researchers. according to gass (1997), in order to be able to understand how one learns a language is to understand how various theories relate one to another. some nativism researchers claim that the learners comes to the language task with structural knowledge in their mind or innateness which allow learners to construct a grammar of the language being learned based on the limited data. similarly, a universal grammar (ug) approach views input from a different perspective. input is regarded as an internal linguistic system and new syntactic knowledge grows up rather than being learned (schwartz, 1993). on the other hand, ellis (2002) strongly argues for the importance of input. he relies heavily on input that learners extract from frequency of input. another view, an interactionist perspective, states that language acquisition and social interaction language development in study abroad (sa) context and relationship with input and interaction in sla 104 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 is mutually interdependent, they cannot be separated. someone cannot understand the development of grammatical knowledge unless one focuses on the way the knowledge itself interacts with other aspect of the learning situation. moreover, the main point concern of this view is interaction. interaction through negotiation of the meaning helps learners to get additional information about the language and focus their attention on particular parts of the language. although the theories differ as to its views, both have its merit in l2 learning. communicative competence is everything the learners need to know in order to communicate appropriately within a particular community. this knowledge consists of the knowledge of language which defines as linguistic competence and communication skill (ellis, 1985). in addition, saville-troike (2006, p. 135) states that this knowledge can be achieved by learners’ previous cognitive development and social experience. l2 competence is typically much more restricted when sla take places in a foreign language setting. for most students and people who are learning a l2 language need an extra effort to acquire the l2 structures and how to communicate with ns. there are many reasons for learning a l2 or foreign language. in considering the purpose for which people learn second and foreign language, saville-troike (2006, p.135) has divided two fundamental types of communicative competence that is academic competence and interpersonal competence. according to tallerman (2005, p.2), it is much easier to learn language that are closely related or similar to our own language and share the common features, such as greek, swahili or mohawk. but, this becomes a really hard for those whose languages have different features or word order with the target language. in this case, the learners need to do extra efforts to learn it. their acquisition of l2 or foreign language grammatical points might be influenced by their first language (l1) or their variety of linguistic learning background. not only classroom language instruction is needed but also the exposure to the target language and involve in the interaction with native speakers or fluent speakers. klein and perdue (1993: 30) suggest that “learners develop a particular way of structuring their utterances which seems to represent a natural equilibrium” (klein & suryani englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 105 perdue 1993, cited in huebner, 1995, p. 173). they also mention that, for example, learners whose first language uses zero anaphora might take longer to maintain topics with pronouns, while some learners from pronouns language would have to struggle to learn to use a zero anaphora. thus, the interaction explanation suggests that learners who have more opportunities for meaningful interaction would learn the target language patterns more readily than those in classroom instruction. it can be concluded that interaction may help learners to acquire l2 grammar patterns, and other sorts of linguistic, pragmatic, sociolinguistic areas, communication skills and so forth. conclusion to sum up, learning a second or foreign language is not an easy task. the learners need extra effort to succeed or to achieve proficiency in that language. many factors may contribute to language development. one of them is learning language in the country where the language is being spoken or in study abroad (sa) context. this of course may give a plenty of meaningful input and interaction with the native speakers or fluent speakers. however, there is no agreement amongst researchers to what extent and what linguistic aspects develop during study abroad. references adams, r. (2006). language learning strategies in the study abroad context. in m. a. duffon, and e. churchill (eds) language learners in a study abroad contexts. buffalo, ny: multilingual matters. 259-292. back. m & magnan, s. s. (2007). social interaction and linguistic gain during study abroad. foreign language annals 40 (1). 43-61. brecht, r., d & j. l. robinson. (1993). qualitative analysis of second language acquisition in study abroad: the actr/nflc project. washington d. c.: national foreign language center. brecht, r., d. davidson & r. ginsberg. (1995). predictor of foreign language gain during study abroad. in b. f. freed (ed). second language acquisition in a study abroad context (pp. 37-66). amsterdam: benjamins. coleman, j. & a. rouxeville (eds.). (1993). integrating new approaches. london: association for french studies in association with the center for information on language teaching and research. bedfordbury. language development in study abroad (sa) context and relationship with input and interaction in sla 106 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 collentine, j. (2004). the effect of learning contexts on morphosyntactic and lexical development. studies in second language acquisition, 26(2), pp. 227-248. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0272263104262040 dekeyser, r. (1991). foreign language development during a semester abroad. in b. freed (ed.) foreign language acquisition research and the classroom. (pp. 104-119) lexington: mass: d. c. health. dewey, d. (2004). a comparison of reading development by learners of japanese in intensive domestic immersion and study abroad contexts. studies in second language acquisition, 26, 303-327. donato, r. (1994). collective scaffolding in second language learning. in j. lantofl and g. appel (eds) vygotskian approaches to second language research. (pp. 33-56). norwood, nj: ablex. dufon, m., & churchill, e. (2006). language learners in study abroad contexts. buffalo, ny: multilingual matters. pp. 1-27. ellis, r. (1985). understanding second language acquisition. oxford university press ferguson, c. a (1995). foreword. in freed, b. f (ed.). second language acquisition in a study abroad context. amsterdam: benjamins. freed, b. f. (1990). language learning in a study abroad context: the effects of interactive and non-interactive out-of-class contact on grammatical and achievement and oral proficiency. in j. e. alatis (ed.), georgetown university round table on language and linguistics: linguistics, language teaching, and language acquisition: the interdependence of theory, practice, and research. washington, dc: georgetown university press. pp. 459-477. freed, b. f. (1995). what makes us think that students who study abroad become fluent? in b. f. freed (ed). second language acquisition in a study abroad context (pp. 123–148). amsterdam: benjamins. freed, b. f. (ed.). (1995a). second language acquisition in a study abroad context. amsterdam: benjamins. freed, b. f. (1998). an overview of issues and research in language learning in a study abroad setting. frontiers, 4, 31–60. freed, b., segalowitz, n., & dewey, d. (2004). context of learning and second language fluency in french. studies in second language acquisition, 26(2). 277303. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0272263104262064 gass, s. m. (1997). input, interaction, and the second language learner. marwah, new jersey: lawrence erlbaum associates. suryani englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 107 isabelli (2006). study abroad social networks, motivation and attitudes: implication for second language acquisition. in m. a. dufon & e. churchill (eds), language learners in study abroad contexts (pp. 231-258). buffalo, ny: multilingual matters. krashen, s. d. (1995). the input hypothesis: issues and implications. london: longman. mcmeekin, a. (2006). negotiation in a japanese study abroad setting. in m. a. duffon, and e. churchill (eds) language learners in a study abroad contexts (pp.177-202). buffalo, ny: multilingual matters. milton, j., & meara, p. (1995) how periods abroad affect vocabulary growth in a foreign language. review of applied linguistics, pp.107-108, 17-34. perdue, c., and klein, w. (1992). why does the production of some learners not grammaticalize?. studies in second language acquisition, 14, 259-272. doi:10.1017/s0272263100011116 regan, v. (1995). the acquisition of sociolinguistic native speech norms: effects of a year abroad on second language learners of french. in b. f. freed (ed). second language acquisition in a study abroad context (pp. 245–268). amsterdam: benjamins. saville-troike muriel. (2006). introducing second language acquisition. cambridge: cambridge university press. segalowitz, n. & freed, b. f. (2004). context, contact, and cognition in oral fluency acquisition: learning spanish in at home and study abroad context. studies in second language acquisition, 26(2).173-199. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0272263104262027 zimmerman, d. h. (1998). identity, context and interaction. in a. charles, s. widdicombe, (eds.), identities in talk (pp. 87-106). london: sage publications ltd. englisia may 2018 vol. 5, no. 2, 113-128 improving architecture students’ english vocabulary through the use of architectural drawings fidyati universitas malikussaleh, lhokseumawe, indonesia fidyati@unimal.ac.id abstract this study aims to find out the effectiveness of architectural drawings in teaching english vocabulary at first-semester college students of architecture, malikussaleh university, lhokseumawe, aceh, indonesia. the media applied in the research worked in both improving architecture-major students’ ability to learn the target language and motivating them in the teaching-learning process. a likert questionnaires analysis was used to determine factors affecting students’ lack of english vocabulary. the quasi-experimental method was applied to acquire the test data needed. the t-test formula was then used to find out the differences between conventional teaching technique and using-architectural-drawings technique through the pre-test and post-test scores. based on the analysis, the findings showed that there was a significant success on improving the students’ vocabulary mastery. however, as the architectural drawings used in the research were limited on the presentation type of drawing, other kinds of architectural drawings may not result in the similar way. keywords: esp; architectural drawings; vocabulary introduction esp, called as english for specific purposes is a quite new approach to teaching and learning english. the esp's teaching materials are specialized to meet the needs of english language proficiency and professions of certain fields and improving architecture students’ english vocabulary through the use of architectural drawings 114 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 studies, for example, english for medical science, mechanical engineering, economics, or other fields of study. as the esp teaching aims to enable students to master english in the field they are studying, students of architectural engineering are expected to know english in the field of architecture. however, english for architecture seems to be the most neglected areas in esp. this is marked by the lack of english reading on esp for architecture that can be used as a reference in learning. in addition, published studies on teaching esp for architecture both in national and international journals are still limited. in fact, both undergraduate and graduate students in architecture who later become architects require english mastery infinitely. talking to clients, suppliers, partners, colleagues as well as delivering speech demands a good speaking ability. reading and writing the rules and requirements, emails, proposals, reports, and papers are other skills which need to be mastered. considering the importance of esp for architecture, teachers’ preparation of materials should become a concern. it has to be interestingly organized and wellprepared. for instance, case (2013) in his paper suggests that teacher who teaches speaking or reading can select interesting topics related to architecture subject such as; the celebrity architects, the most beautiful and ugliest buildings in one city, the positive and negative impact of the protecting old buildings and towns, and other interesting topics. for a general vocabulary teaching class, expert designers and researchers have proposed some interesting options of learning materials. for example, taslim (2014) demonstrates several media that can be used to support teaching esp, including games, flashcards, picture stories, and magic discs. these learning materials are applicative as needed. as architecture students’ need for drawings is enormous, it seems applicable for esp learning especially in improving vocabulary mastery. elly and gerlach (2007) argue that the media are people, materials, or anything that results in conditions that can assist students in acquiring knowledge, skills, and behavior. in regard to benefits of media images, ernestova (1981) mentioned that the use of images in teaching foreign languages varies to attracting students and increasing motivation. the fact that esp for architecture is indispensable to the students’ english proficiency and the benefits of drawings as a fidyati englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 115 learning media is various, the theme of this research, therefore, is to improve the mastery of the vocabulary of architecture students through architectural drawings. the purpose of this study was to find out whether the use of architectural drawing improves students’ vocabulary mastery, how effective the use of architectural drawings in improving the students’ vocabulary mastery, and what factors causing the students’ lack of vocabulary. literature review vocabulary and teaching vocabulary the oxford dictionary defines vocabulary as “all words that a person knows and uses, or all words in a language, or a series of words with their meanings, as in a book to learn a foreign language”. richard and renandya (2002) interpret vocabulary as “a core component of language acquisition and is a benchmark of how well a language learner speaks, hears, reads, and writes”. in a more complex, vocabulary is defined as knowledge of words and meanings of words. in regard to the 'words', it consists of spoken words and written words (council of europe and european commission, 2000). spoken words refer to a word that is known and used in listening and speaking, while the written word is a word that is known and used in reading and writing. from some definitions of experts above can be concluded that the skills to learn a language writing, reading, listening and speaking are highly depended on the vocabulary ruling. vocabulary is divided into four language skills namely listening, writing, reading, and speaking. in general, a language learner may easily remember the vocabulary in listening and speaking. but the process can change, especially in teaching foreign languages. vocabulary in reading can be a first-degree mastery before vocabulary in speaking and listening. so, the more one reads in a particular language, the more vocabulary one gets mastered. simultaneously, vocabulary mastery then becomes the most influential factor in comprehending readings as it proved in hayati’s (2016) research on the correlation between indonesian students’ vocabulary mastery and their reading comprehension. referring to the number of vocabulary, nation (1994) divides vocabulary into two types based on their frequency of use, those are: improving architecture students’ english vocabulary through the use of architectural drawings 116 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 1. high-frequency vocabulary, consisting of words very often used in normal languages of four skills and in various situations. this vocabulary includes 2000word groups, of which about 87% of these words are used in formal written tests and more than 95% are used in informal oral tests. 2. low-frequency vocabulary is used only in a very small proportion and is rarely used in general english activities. these words include 100,000-word groups. high-frequency word groups are called active vocabulary where they are often used in everyday life or words that must/have been learned and are expected to be properly used. in contrast, a group of low frequency words is called passive vocabulary. passive vocabulary can mean a vocabulary that is only understood by some or is not known publicly. this vocabulary is also known as popular words but rarely used or not at all. since mastery of vocabulary is considered important, schmitt (1997), who defines vocabulary as the basis of a language, promotes vocabulary mastery in learning languages before others. schmitt adds that one cannot speak well and understand written texts unless he knows the vocabulary. even as good as sounds of a foreigner’s pronunciation, without words to be expressed broadly and meaningfully will not work perfectly (schmitt, 1997). the importance of english vocabulary mastery, however, is not fully realized by students who do not major in english language. architecture engineering students, for example, possessed little vocabulary in the field of architecture. of the many constraints that hinder students to master vocabulary, the researcher summarizes some fundamental factors that seem to be the most attributed. 1. lack of reading excessively, articles on improving vocabulary mastery suggest reading as one of the best way to improve vocabulary. the more reading one attends to, the more vocabulary he gets. reading also adds to the knowledge of how sentence formation and simultaneously facilitates correct reciprocity. but the culture of reading is hardly owned by all students. 2. being passive without special time to repeat new vocabularies fidyati englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 117 learning languages is learning skills which need to be actively practiced both in writing and orally. to actively master vocabulary can be done by memorizing new words that are heard, and searching for their meaning in the dictionary. an active practice also means having the desire to provide a certain time like an hour every day for practice. in addition, repetition of vocabulary and english sentences can stream pronunciation and improve english proficiency. 3. dependence on online and offline translator media nowadays, a large number of english dictionary are available in either offline or online versions. on one hand, it helps learners in learning new vocabulary easily. on the other hand, learners’ over-dependence on it hinders them from learning. karso (2013) asserts that depending on dictionaries tend to cause someone frustated and stop learning if he cannot find such medium. 4. less of personal effective way of learning certain method, moreover, may fit to someone but may not fit to someone else. this shows that each person has his own way of learning. however, karso (2013) also found that applying a certain way without trying to combine and practice different ways of various effective approach may confront boredom. creative learners usually find ways to memorize vocabulary depending on how they learn, eitherr autonomously or in groups. a few are writing one day one vocabulary, finding certain gams like puzzles, anagrams, scrabble, random words, and boggles, and many other effective means of vocabulary mastery. the above factors are antipodes to the idea of positioning the mastery of english vocabulary as a highly prominent aspect in which a variety of concept emerges to promote easy, addictive, and interesting techniques in learning vocabulary. the ideas turn up either in the form of strategies for autonomous or personal scope or in groups mode. in addition, much research has been done in the realm of vocabulary learning that indicates a strong reason for implementing a systematic approach to teaching the vocabulary itself. a well-known definition of teaching is the process of transferring knowledge and other materials to students by using appropriate methods. although traditionally language teaching often improving architecture students’ english vocabulary through the use of architectural drawings 118 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 emphasizes mastery of other language aspects such as grammar, speaking, and reading, attention to vocabulary learning methods is increasingly prevalent. however, there are also things that teachers should consider in relation to the learner. it is also suggested that a language teacher has to consider about the language, culture and knows the students, who they are, and what to do to help them learn (larsen 2000, freeman, 2000). they further contend that it is important for a teacher to be aware of all those aspects in order to guide their steps in the classroom. this shows that the approaches and teaching methods not only need to be interesting but also must be in accordance with the needs of the students. for example, a student majoring in economics requires knowledge of english related to economics. likewise with architecture students who expect to master english related to their own field of study. more details, richard and renandya (2002) mention three ways a teacher can do to motivate students to master vocabulary, namely: 1. prioritize active words active and passive vocabulary have been introduced previously. this technique points out that is is necessary to choose which vocabulary to be prioritized depending on teaching context. for a basic class, for example, active vocabulary can be taught by creating several sets of vocabulary that should be learned. however, for upper or higher level students, their active and passive vocabulary words need to be tailored to the needs or areas they are studying. 2. interact with words associating a vocabulary with something that will be easy to remember and hard to forget is one way of interacting with words. other forms of interaction can be done by searching for synonyms or antonyms, changing the word class from noun to adjective or verb, and so forth. at the end, the more vocabularies can be connected in the mind of the learner, the longer the words are attached and remembered. 3. search techniques this technique has more emphasis on the students’ own efforts to find meaning and other rules such as why and how the vocabulary is used. teachers can fidyati englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 119 assume that students already have enough vocabulary, so that learning vocabulary is not by introducing new vocabulary words but by giving new material reading, and asking the students to interpret new vocabulary words by connecting them with the knowledge they have already had. drawings and architectural drawings in teaching vocabularies webster (2017) defines drawings as “ ernestova (1981) divided the types of drawing based on its functions to a language teaching including drawing one person or single object, pictures of people involved in certain activities, images of the environment (roads, buildings, factories, etc.), and a series of drawings that refer to a theme of conversation (food, work activities, etc.). images, a part of the drawing, can be used to give students a chance to practice the language in a real context or situation where they can communicate their ideas (larsen, 2000). kemp, an associate professor of education and media production coordinator also emphasizes some of the drawing functions in teaching, namely to improve the subject's topics, to increase interest in learning, to extend memories of information, and to teach skills effectively (kemp, 1994). looking at all years of publications of the previous references (ernestova, 1981) and kemp (1994)), it shows that the media images have begun to have a major effect in language learning classes from last decades. recent studies, interestingly, also show the contribution of drawings in the english learning process. james (2010) argues that drawings, which include photos, graphics, images, maps, models, and artifacts can create a visual impression of students, attract attention and help concentration; so that students can describe the meaning directly and quickly into a verbal explanation. a classroom action research conducted by nurlaili et al (2012) also asserts that drawings can improve the process of enriching the vocabulary of 6th graders in bogor. sari (2013) also demonstrates that the use of drawings has increased students’ learning motivation. in short, visual effects of drawings can allow the language to be seen more impressive. the color and shape of drawings can also stimulate students’ quick response and avoid boredom. improving architecture students’ english vocabulary through the use of architectural drawings 120 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 as learning media, drawings usage vary widely depending on needs. the selection of drawings as a medium in this research is because drawings can be a communication medium in the field of architecture. fauzi (2014) argues that the role of the drawing in understanding the architecture is very important. according to its function and purpose, fauzi (2014) divides drawings into two types, the presentation drawing and engineering drawing. the first type of drawing refers to an informative and exquisite architectural drawing that gets a dramatic effect to make it look more impressive and fascinating as it aims to showcase. the second type of drawing is called a construction drawing which contains detailed technical information about a building, such as the material used, connection construction, column-beam position, plumbing (piping), and electricity. the difference between the two is that if the presentation drawings put the beauty, the engineering drawings strongly emphasize the accuracy and completeness of the picture. considering the importance of the role of drawings in architecture, this is one of the reasons for the use of drawings in the teaching of esp for architecture students. all above considerations are due to the architecture students unarguably need of mastery of english, especially vocabulary. case (2002) describes several reasons why architects require english language proficiency in general, including talking with candidates or clients, suppliers, partners and colleagues, reading the rules and requirements, catalogs, journals and books, writing emails, proposals, reports, and papers, attending or deliver material at conference, and presenting, both oral and written. in another research project, case (2013) also adds a number of necessary vocabulary in the field of architecture, such as building types, building parts, building materials, and building decoration materials. some others include what an architect does and what tools architects need to work. those vocabularies may be delivered by general teaching approaches as well as other interactive and innovative approaches. in fact, the approach through the use of drawings will give a perfect effect. fiorito (2005) states that "being able to use the vocabulary and grammar they (esp learners) learn in meaningful contexts will improve learning outcomes and increase motivation.” fidyati englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 121 method to obtain the data on the use of drawings media in improving vocabulary mastery of the students of architecture, an experimental research was conducted. it used quantitative method by applying test (pre-test and post-test) and questionnaires data. the four-week-implementation procedure with 4 meetings in each control class and experimental class were arranged. both classes were given the similar type of test for pre-test and post-test. the difference was that the teaching treatment was only conducted to the experimental class, not to the control class. treatment was in the form of vocabulary teaching through the use of architectural drawing media. meanwhile, the teaching process in the control class used conventional technique. to find the answers to research problem on what factors cause the students’ lack of vocabulary, the use of collection of likert scale questionnaires was adopted. results and discussion table 2. descriptive statistics of pre-test results interval fi xi fi.xi xi² fi.xi² interval fi xi fi.xi xi² fi.xi² 45-49 7 46,5 325,5 2162.25 15135,75 45-51 10 48 480 2304 23040 50-54 3 51,5 154,5 2652.25 7956,75 52-58 8 55 440 3025 24200 55-59 11 56,5 621,5 3192.25 35114,75 59-65 6 62 372 3844 23064 60-64 6 61,5 369 3782,25 22693,5 66-72 2 69 138 4761 9522 65-69 2 76,5 113 4422,25 8844,5 73-79 1 76 76 5776 5776 70-74 0 71,5 0 5112,25 0 80-86 1 83 83 6889 6889 75-79 1 76,5 76,5 5852,25 5852,25 30 1680 ∑fixi²= 95597,5 28 1589 ∑fixi= 92491 table 3. descriptive statistics of post test results interval fi xi fi.xi xi² fi.xi² interval fi xi fi.xi xi² fi.xi² 44-51 1 47,5 47,5 2256,25 2256,25 50-54 3 51,5 154,5 2652,25 7956,75 52-59 1 55,5 55,5 3080,25 3080,25 55-59 1 56,5 56,5 3192,25 3192,25 61-68 6 64,5 387 4160,25 24961,5 60-64 6 61,5 369 3782,25 22693,5 69-76 5 72,5 362,5 5256,25 26281,25 65-69 8 66,5 532 4422,25 35378 77-84 5 80,5 402,5 6480,25 32401,25 70-74 3 71,5 214,5 5112,25 15336.75 85-92 9 88,5 796,5 7832,25 70490,25 75-79 5 76,5 382,5 5852,25 29261,25 93-100 3 96,5 289,5 9312,25 27936,75 80-84 2 81,5 163 6642,25 13284,5 30 2341 ∑fixi²= 187407,5 28 1872 ∑fixi= 127103 from the result of pre-test, means score of both classes shows differently. the experimental group is 56, and the control group is 56,75. variances and deviation standard of two class are 52,32 and 7,23 for the experimental class and 85,75 and improving architecture students’ english vocabulary through the use of architectural drawings 122 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 9, 26 for the control class. the t-score of pre-test is 0,8. the result of post-test is what determines this research finding to have impact or not to future esp learning outcomes. the data show significant differences between experimental group (78) and control group (66,85). the variances and deviation standard for experimental group are 163 and 12,8, while the control group at 73 and 8,49. the t-score for post-test of two group is 12,81. that deviation standard score is 56, the critical value of degrees of freedom in this study was then determined. it is 1.68 at a significant level of 0.05 for educational research. this score is finally compared to the t-score which previously found (12,81). furthermore, the likert scale analysis shows the items expressed in some alternative responses: strongly agree (ss), agree (s), neutral (n), disagree (ts), and strongly disagree (sts). table 4. students’ total responses to questionaires no responses total response ss s n ts sts a. vocabulary 1 mastering vocabulary is prominent in learning english language. 25 3 2 mastering architecture-related vocabulary is significant for english subject and other subjects. 17 13 b. architectural drawings 1 architectural drawings help me improving my architecture-related vocabularies. 17 9 4 2 the use of architectural drawings has increased my interest and motivation in improving my english vocabuary. 15 14 1 c. mastery of architecture-related vocaulary 1 i master active architecture-related vocabulary very well. 2 18 10 2 i do not master active architecture-related vocabulary. 13 10 5 2 a. i never read those vocabularies before. 5 2 b. i do not prepare particular time to repeat new vocabularies. 9 10 c. i have dependence on dictionary (printed/online) 10 d. i do not have any effective ways in learning vocabularies 6 e. others (............................. ) fidyati englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 123 as mentioned earlier, the purpose of this study is to prove the hypothesis if the use of drawings media can improve vocabulary mastery of the students of architecture department of engineering faculty, malikussaleh university. from the calculation, it was found that the means scores for the pre-test of the experimental class was 56, slightly differed from 56,75 of the control class. this may indicates that both classes have quite similar initial average of ability in their english proficiency. however, the post-test showed differently as the experimental class reached 78 while the control class got 66,85. the deviation standard of pre-test for the experimental class was 7.23, and 9.26 for the control class. for the post-test, deviation standard of the experimental class was 163, and 73 for the control class. this high score of deviation standard signifies the high sample variety this research has (pengayaan.com, 2015). having found the means and deviation standard scores, the t-score could be calculated. it was 12,81. as the t-score helps researchers determining hypothesis, the rejected or accepted hypothesis of this study was then revealed. it refers to the formula given by sugiyono (2010:276) that alternative hypothesis is accepted if t value is higher than t-table value. based on the result, it can be summarized that t-test value at post-test between the experimental class and the control class that is 12,81, higher than the t-table value (1,68) at a significant level of 0.05. hence, it can be concluded that alternative hypothesis (ha) drawings can improve the mastery of architecture-related vocabulary of architecture-major students, faculty of engineering malikussaleh university is accepted, and null hypothesis (ho) is rejected. in other words, this study has proven that the drawing media gives a better influence on students' ability in improving the proficiency of english vocabulary. in addition to the results of the test analysis showing the effectiveness of the use of image media, the questionnaire analysis also significantly supports the previous results the students strongly agree (98 %) that mastering vocabulary is prominent in learning the english language. they also strongly agree (91%) that mastering architecture-related vocabulary is prominent for english subject and other subjects. 88,7 % responses to that architectural drawings help in improving architecture-related vocabularies. furthermore, 89,4 % of responses to the use of improving architecture students’ english vocabulary through the use of architectural drawings 124 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 architectural drawings has increased interest and motivation in improving english vocabulary. the result is certainly in line with what albano (2013) has suggested in the above literature to utilize the drawings if it is to help the learner remember a word/object. this study proved the effectiveness of drawings in remembering the vocabulary in the field of architecture by the students of architecture. however, only 33,3 % of students’ responded to their level of mastery of active architecture-related vocabulary. besides, the presence of neutral responses to this statement indicates that some students were unsure of their vocabulary mastery. simultanoeusly, they disagreed if they mastered sufficient vocabulary. in line with this, 81,3 % responses appeared showing that the students do not master architecture-related vocabularies. it is clear that only a small percentage of the samples actually mastered the vocabulary well. the factors behind the lack of vocabulary mastery were then revealed from the percentage of students' responses, of which 45.2% of the students’ total answer did not provide a special time to repeat the new vocabulary. 23.8% responsed that they had a dependency on the online dictionary or dictionary. 16.7% had never read the tested vocabulary before, and 14.3% of students did not have effective means of improving vocabulary. conclusion variety of techniques and approaches reveals in teaching vocabulary. in the field of esp for architecture, this study proved that one of them can be accomplished via architectural drawings. through a successive process of pre-test, teaching treatment of drawings application, post-test, the data were obtained and analysed. the findings show that the students improve their ability in mastering new vocabulary words. questionnaires analysis results also show that this practical technique helps students improve their interest and motivation in learning english vocabulary. the small percentage (33,3) of student’s response to their mastery of architecture-related vocabulary further shows that the highly-influenced factor is the students’ limited time repeating new vocabulary words. fidyati englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 | 125 references albano, l. (2013). how english language teachers can use pictures in class. retrieved from https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/how-englishlanguage-teachers-use-pictures-class. case, a. (2002). how to teach english for architects. retrieved from http://edition.tefl.net/articles/teacher/how-to-teach-english-for-architects/. case, a (2013). teaching technical english. retrieved from https://tefltastic.wordpress.com/worksheets/technical-english/. council of europe and european commission (2000). methodology in language teaching t-kit. strasbourg codex: council of europe publishing. elly, b. & gerlach. (2007). media in language learning. the internet tesl journal, vii (18). http:/itesli.org/cambridge university press ernestova, m. (1981). how to use ready-made pictures. english teaching forum. xix (4). washington dc. fauzi, r. (2014). pengetahuan gambar dalam arsitektur. retrieved from http://arsitektung.blogspot.co.id/2013/07/pengetahuan-gambardalamarsitektur.html. fiorito, l. (2005). teaching english for spesific purposes. retrieved from http://www.usingenglish.com/articles/teaching-esp/. freeman, d. (2000). sampling. berkeley: university of california. hayati, a. (2016). the correlation between indonesian students’ vocabulary mastery and their reading comprehension. al-ta’lim journal, 23 (2). doi: http://dx.doi,org/10.15548/jt.v23i2.217. james (2010). types of media used in teaching and learning for its conducive environment. retrieved from http://zuavanhu.mywapblog.com/types-of-mediaused-in-teachingand-lear.xhtml. karso, m. (2013). 5 penyebab mengalami kesulitan belajar bahasa asing. retrieved from https://belajarmenjadilebih.wordpress.com/2013/02/16/5-penyebabmengalami-kesulitan-belajar-bahasa-asing/. kemp, j. e. (1994). planning for efective technical training: a guide for instructors and trainers. educational technology publications, inc. englewood cliffs, new jersey. larsen, d. (2000). techniques and principles in language teaching. washington, d.c: oxford university press. nation, p (1994). new ways in teaching vocabulary (tesol), alexandria: tesol. improving architecture students’ english vocabulary through the use of architectural drawings 126 | englisia vol. 5, no. 2, may 2018 nurlaeli, e. et.al (2012). improving students vocabulary enrichment through picture and picture. english education study program. faculty of teacher training and educational sciences. pakuan university. pengayaan.com. (2015). fungsi standar deviasi dan perhitungannya. retrieved from: http://pengayaan.com/fungsi-standar-deviasi-dan-perhitungannya/ richards, j.c. & renandya, w.a. (2002). methodology in language teaching. new york: cambridge university press. sari, ni putu. i.k.s (2013). improving vocabulary mastery through pictures based memory words game of the fourth grade students of sdn 17 dauh puri denpasar in academic year 2012/2013. retrieved from http://unmaslibrary.ac.id/wpcontent/uploads/2014/04/pdf-skripsi1.pdf. schmitt, n (1997). teaching english to children. new york cambridge university press (cup). taslim, f (2014). an experiental study of teaching vocabulary by using hyponymy games on the seventh grader of mts syech ibrahim payakumbuh. al-ta’lim journal, 21(3). doi: http://dx.doi,org/10.15548/jt.v2li3.103. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2020. vol. 7, no. 2, 132-142 the analysis of flouting maxim in good morning america (gma) talkshow rofa marlisa universitas islam negeri syarif hidayatullah jakarta, indonesia rofamarlisa23@gmail.com didin nuruddin hidayat * universitas islam negeri syarif hidayatullah jakarta, indonesia didin.nuruddin@uinjkt.ac.id manuscript received march 24, 2020 revised april 15, 2020, first published may 18, 2020, and available online may 21, 2020. doi: 10.22373/ej.v7i2.6630 recommended apa citation marlisa, r., & hidayat, d. n. (2020). the analysis of flouting maxim in good morning america (gma) talkshow. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 7(2), 132-142. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v7i2.6630 abstract the present study is an analysis of the flouting maxim in good morning america (gma) talk show in which jackie chan was invited as the guest star. the goals of this research are to find out the performed flouted maxim(s) by the hosts and the guest and to reveal the reason(s) behind the occurrence of the maxim(s). in this study, the researchers employed the qualitative method and data were collected from a video. the transcript text of the utterances between the hosts and jackie chan as a guest consisting of flouting maxim was the instrument of this research. then, to find and analyze the flouting maxim showed in the video, the researchers used grice’s theory, the cooperative principles consisting of four maxim types: quality, quantity, relation, and manner. the result showed that all four types of maxim flouting were committed by both jackie chan and the two hosts of the gma talk show. the highest flouting maxims found were flouting the maxim of quantity and manner. further, the study also revealed the rationales behind maxims flouting which were beneficial to build fun communication and to elaborate more explanations. keywords: cooperative principles; flouting maxim; good morning america (gma) talkshow * corresponding author mailto:rofamarlisa23@gmail.com mailto:nuruddin@uinjkt.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v7i2.6630 rofa marlisa & didin nuruddin hidayat |englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 133 1. introduction language can be used in many forms of people’s life, such as in written or spoken forms. according to ekah and akpan (2018), language is an essential tool for both written and spoken communication. as human beings, people usually use the spoken form when they want to interact directly with other people to build good communication. however, building good communication is not easy; it needs an equivalent understanding and a higher comprehension of the information given by the speaker or the listener. if the speaker and listener do not have a good comprehension of the information, it will undeniably cause a communication breakdown. therefore, to avoid the occurrence of communication breakdown, we could apply the cooperative principles introduced by grice (1975) which was further developed by other prominent linguists (e.g. leech, 1983; levinson, 1983; thomas, 1995; yule, 1996; vergis, 2017). to elaborate his principle, grice provided four maxims which should not be violated to generate good communication. the first maxim is the maxim of a quantity which primarily deals with how much information we should provide in a conversation. grice (as cited in yule, 1996, p. 37) elaborates two points as follows: a) make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange), and; b) do not make your contribution more informative than is required. the second maxim is the maxim of quality, which was further elaborated that we “do not say what you[we] believe to be false and do not say that for which you[we] lack adequate evidence” (thomas, 1995, p. 63). the third maxim is the maxim of relation which deals with whether the contents are relevant; yule (1996) further renamed this maxim to be the maxim of relevance. the last maxim is the maxim of manner which deals with the delivery of information. grice (as cited in thomas, 1995) elaborated the guidelines that to have good communication, people need to: “a) avoid obscurity of expression; b) avoid ambiguity; c) be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity), and; d) be orderly (p. 64)”. the rules of cooperative principles usually describe the basic principles of people interacting with others to reach mutual communication. however, as human beings, people will make some misunderstandings during communication due to some factors, such as different cultures, languages, perspectives, and so forth. flouting is a condition when speakers are unable to apply certain maxims in their conversation and lead to misunderstanding in their conversation (sembiring & ghozali, 2017). thomas (1995) stated that the most important category of failing to observe a maxim is flouting. flouting the maxim is one of the ways in observing the failure of the maxim. the flouting of the maxim covers the real meanings of the speech and it arranges the listener in finding the implied meaning from the maxim flouting (lestari, 2019). however, usually, most people did the flouting maxim to make their speaking partners find and understand the hidden meaning of their speaking. in this modern era, we can find many flouting maxims occurred, such as in tv talk show, interview, movie script (ayasreh & razali, 2018; maqsood, waqar, & khalil, 2018; nuringtyas, 2018). the analysis of flouting maxim in good morning america (gma) talkshow 134 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 referring to the explanations above, the researchers were interested in carrying out a research study related to flouting maxim based on the video of america’s good morning talk show with jackie chan as a guest star. jackie chan is a popular artist who is a non-native speaker of english with a strong accent of mandarin. jackie chan was an old actor who is still popular until now because of his talent in mastering kungfu. one of the reasons why people love to watch his movie is because he performed all his actions by himself or in other words, he does not use any stuntman to change him in every action. during the talk show, he answered all the questions with long answers, unimportant explanation, and a lot of various ambiguous words. in that video, two foreign hosts, a female, and a male spoke english very fluently while interviewing him. these situations, of course, will cause some problems in the communication process during the talk show such as flouting maxim. due to this problem, the researchers formulate two main research questions to seek potential answers about the flouting maxim showed in the talk show: (1) what types of the maxim are flouted during the gma talk show?; (2) what are the reasons for flouting maxim performance by the hosts and jackie chan in the gma talk show? 2. literature review building successfully delivered information during the process of interaction is not easy; the speaker and listener will face some mistakes or misunderstandings. the mistakes usually occur in speaking are known as the flouting maxim and sometimes this flouting maxim can happen unconsciously. according to grice (as cited in cutting, 2002), flouting maxim occurs when the speakers, intentionally or not, want their counterpart to understand or to look for the intended meaning. yet, the situation becomes either the listeners fail to make an inference (gumperz, 1982) or the speaker fails to observe certain maxims required in the interaction (cutting, 2008). those four rules maxim of grice were: a) flouting the maxim of quantity, occurs when the speaker gives more information than what is required (leech, 1983); b) flouting the maxim of quality, occurs when the speaker says something untrue or contrary to the facts (thomas, 1995); c) flouting the maxim of relevance, occurs when the speaker talks about something unconnected with the concept of speaking at that time (cutting, 2002), and; d) flouting the maxim of manner, occurs when the speaker says something that has multiple meanings (cutting, 2008). grice gave some suggestions for a conversation to be successful so that there were no misunderstandings between the speaker and the listener. as for what people must fulfill or observe, that is about these principles and do not violate the principle of cooperation of any principles; in other words, grice proposes that obeying the maxim is respecting the authenticity, the amount, relevance, and the way information are given at each turn of conversation. rofa marlisa & didin nuruddin hidayat |englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 135 there were a number of previous studies conducted in finding those rules that happen during the speaking interaction. the first is the study by aziz, mustafa, and a’la (2019) which discovered many flouting maxims in a sense of humor in indonesian speech acts. approximately 30 % of humour speech contains the flouting maxim wherein the flouting maxim of manner tends to be the highest one. then, a study by wahyuni, arifin, and lubis (2019) found that flouting of maxims performed by the main characters in la la land movie also happens even it was not the daily conversation used. in other words, the flouting maxim can occur in every speaking interaction within a formal or informal conversation. an investigation into the reasons behind violating maxims with different characters was also carried out by tupan and natalia (2008) in their study of various violations by the characters in the tv series desperate housewives. they found that the main reason to revile the maxims was to eliminate the possibility of the speaker’s responses. khosravizadeh and sadehvandi (2012) analyzed violations or denounce quantity maxim by the main character in the film entitled dinner for schmuck. the process of the conversation must be smooth for the listener and speaker, but there are still people trying to violate the maxims to achieve certain goals. according to jacobs and shapiro (2000), their study also revealed how politicians choose to collect their words to produce certain colors of meaning that are not always understood by everyone. politicians frequently try to obtain people’s support or to gain social power by using the technique of playing with words by violating the principles of cooperation. 3. method in getting the data of the research, the researchers used qualitative research as the methodology. the instrument of this research was a written text from the script of the dialogue from two hosts and the guest in the downloaded video. then, after getting the script of this video, the researchers started transcribing it into a written form, then analyzing and grouping it into what kind of maxim type was flouted and describing the reason as for why it happened based on the guest and the host’ utterance. finally, the data were then analyzed through three steps. the first was finding out the maxims flouting. the second was explaining the reason why the host and the guest star flouted the maxims. the third was presenting the discussions and ending it with the conclusion as the answers to the problem formulation. this study also helps people to achieve successful communication understanding the purpose of someone’s utterances and avoiding misunderstanding. someone might flout maxims during a conversation; however, by understanding the type and the reasons behind the flouting maxims, a conversation is expected to happen smoothly. the analysis of flouting maxim in good morning america (gma) talkshow 136 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 4. findings and discussion fifteen utterances were found based on the conversation between the hosts of the gma talk show and jackie chan. the researchers then categorized the utterances following grice's (1975) cooperative principles, as follows: table 1 types of flouting maxim. types of flouting maxim percentage quantity flouting maxim of quantity 33% 5 flouting maxim of quality 14% 2 flouting maxim of relation 20% 3 flouting maxim of manner 33% 5 the table above shows that fifteen data of maxim were obtained from flouting both of jackie chan and during the hosts of the talk show. the study found 5 utterances (33%) representing the flouting of the maxim of quantity, 2 utterances (14%) representing the flouting of the maxim of quality, 3 utterance (20%) representing the flouting of the maxim of relation, and 5 utterances (33%) representing the flouting of the maxim of manner. a. types of maxim occur in “good morning america (gma) talk show” here are the maxim flouting in a conversation between jackie chan and the hosts of good morning america (gma) talk show. a. flouting maxim of quantity host 1 : hmmm aaa and aaa you you are love bruce lee, you are like bruce lee. has a chance to work with him but does it goes smoothly when you there? guest : at that time he was star...aa i low class stuntman, i remember that was fight fight .. and he pick me up as the last one /and he has to chew stick pa..pa..pa and he hit me and fall down. that’s oke, we hurt so.pa..papa. i come on and bhummm...okey. by the time he coming and rolling action, you everybody so very exciting. what i was waiting... waiting pa..pa.. at the end come on and bumpp pa... i just feel so many stars... b. flouting maxim of quality host 2 : bright light? guest : aa the crew...i was in that said when the crew member around, they stood they cannot still see me, and i see the light aaa the lifeguard... lifeguard please tell everyone.. i down the water.. am down the water. c. flouting maxim of relation rofa marlisa & didin nuruddin hidayat |englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 137 host : what you suppose to lay down was your head? guest : see...thatt.. aa we luck..lucky, we don’t have... just aaa just aaa what how do you say the sound? aa recording aa the same time without played. d. flouting maxim of manner host 2 : owhh that was you have worth it? guest : ummmm so was so nice hit by bruce lee 1. reasons behind maxim flouting happens in “ good morning america (gma) talk show” in this section, the researchers explain the reason behind maxim flouting happens between the hosts of good morning america (gma) talk show and jackie chan. a. flouting maxim of quantity host 1 : hmmm aaa and aaa you you are love bruce lee , you are like bruce lee. has a chance to work with him but does it goes smoothly when you there? guest : at that time he was star...aa i low class stuntman, i remember that was fight fight .. and he pick me up as the last one /and hehas to chew stick pa..pa..pa and he hit me and fall down. that’s oke, we hurt so.pa..papa. i come on and bhummm...okey. by the time he coming and rolling action, you everybody so very exciting. what i was waiting... waiting pa..pa.. at the end come on and bumpp pa... i just feel so many stars… based on the utterance above, jackie chan flouted the maxim of quantity since he gave more information than what was needed. he only needed to answer the question with simple and yes/no answers only, but he added more information by telling the hosts about his story of the first meeting with bruce lee. moreover, jackie chan gave more information to the host’s question because he thought that the host asked him to explain the process of meeting bruce lee until he could work together. hence, it can be concluded that jackie chan gave more information because he was excited to express his effort to get the chance to show his ability as an actor and he wanted to tell the host that he liked bruce lee. by providing that information, it also helped the host to build fun communication and asked more questions to him to investigate further about his life story. b. flouting maxim of quality host 2 : bright light? the analysis of flouting maxim in good morning america (gma) talkshow 138 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 here, jackie chan flouted the maxim of quality because he answered the question as he imagined that he saw something hole light like a lifeguard who can inform the people around him to help him. he only imagined that because there was no lifeguard there, he just saw the whole light that maybe comes from the sun or other things which he gave a chance for saving his own life. moreover, he also knew that he saved his life because he touched some side of jet sky that he drove before but he said about lifeguard only to share to hosts that his situation at that story was very dangerous and needed some help. host : what you suppose to lay down was your head? guest : see...thatt.. aa we luck..lucky, we don’t have... just aaa just aaa what how do you say the sound? aa recording aa the same time without played. a. flouting maxim of relation in this section, jackie chan flouted the maxim of relation since he said something that was not relevant to the host's question in which the house asked something about his action but he said about another part of the video that they watched together. jackie felt very excited to tell the hosts and audience about the story behind creating his movie until he did not aware that the hosts actually asked further regarding his performance on that video. moreover, the hosts did not ask more and just continued to listen to jackie's experiences when performing in that movie. b. flouting maxim of manner host 2 : owhh that was you have worth it? guest : ummmm so was so nice hit by bruce lee jackie chan flouted the maxim of manner because he answered the question by winking his eyes to create some jokes there. in his explanation before he explained that he got a lot of pain and spent a lot of effort to become one of the stuntmen chosen by bruce lee. then, when he said that “was so nice that hit by bruce lee” it showed that he attempted to make some ambiguous meaning of his speech. his reason to flout the guest : aa the crew...i was in that said when the crew member around, they stood they cannot still see me, and i see the light aaa the lifeguard... lifeguard please tell everyone.. i down the water.. am down the water. rofa marlisa & didin nuruddin hidayat |englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 139 maxim of manner was only to make some jokes which can make the communication with hosts of good morning america to be easier and fun. guest : interesting life. host 1 : what’s interesting life, what’s a crazy life host 2 : i don’t event no to say this, when finish you study your said, what you do if not this.. aa i just feel like to take swim class .. or something. there is something you could be doing. this second utterance of flouting the maxim of manner was flouted by the second host of good morning america talk show. she tried to suggest jackie's story by adding some examples if that situation happened to her that she would do something. she uses some presupposition containing more than one meaning and she thought that her partner of speech would understand it, without needing more explanation. based on the finding we noticed that several flouting maxims happen during the interview between jackie chan and the hosts of the gma talk show. there were fifteen times of flouting maxim happening during the talk show, in which the highest maxim occurred were the maxim of quantity and maxim of manner. then, it was followed by the maxim of relation 3 times and the last is the maxim of quality 2 times. this finding conformed to several previous studies (aziz et al., 2019; hong, 2007; zebua, rukmini, & saleh, 2017) that many flouting maxims occur in a sense of humor in indonesian speech acts; it is approximately 30 % of humour speech contains the flouting maxim were in the flouting maxim of manner tend to be the highest one. from those findings, we can assume that this study found similar maxim flouting that is the maxim of manner meaning that they usually use many ambiguous words. this can make their speaking partners feel confused to understand the speaker’s intention. the causes of similar finding happen may also be delivered because the subject of these research are a non-native english speaker which makes the percentage of flout the maxim manner happen higher during their communication. furthermore, many people did the flouting of maxim manner for various reasons. for example, the guest in the gma talk show flouted the maxim of manner because he wanted to make some jokes. most comedy films produced by indonesians are often harassed excessively to create a funny effect from the film. nuringtyas' (2018) research also linked with the finding of the present study in which the quantity maxim was found 25 times and it is the maxim most frequently appear. this result is also quite similar to the result of the present study in which maxim of manner stands to be one of the highest floutings. then, the reason for jackie chan’s flouting maxim is also the same as the nuringtyas’ study the analysis of flouting maxim in good morning america (gma) talkshow 140 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 which had found the most reason used to flout the maxim of quantity is building one’s belief and cheering the listeners. the maxim of relation was the third higher maxim flouts by jackie chan and the hosts of the gma talk show which occurred 3 times. one of the reasons why this flouting maxim happens is because jackie chan was excited to tell his story until he answers the question from the host with a different and unconnected answer and he thinks that most of the listeners understand his answers. sometimes, that situation naturally happens due to the active speaker. al-qaderi and alduais (2019) believed that one reason that people flout the maxim of a relation is that because they want to tease the listeners. the reason why someone flouts the relation maxim is not only for teasing someone, but also for mocking the listeners. this statement is also supported by other previous studies (al-qaderi & alduais, 2019; ibrahim, arifin, & setyowati, 2018; khosravizadeh & sadehvandi, 2012; sembiring & ghozali, 2017) that there are two reasons someone flouts the maxim; the first reason is mocking the listeners which can be found in flouting the maxim of quantity and flouting the maxim of relation. the maxim quality is the lowest maxim flout found in this research. this is linked with the study by sembiring and ghozali (2017) study that the lowest data of the frequencies of flouting maxim is the maxim of quality, reaching 8.6%. moreover, another study found that the quality maxim was the highest flouting maxim that occurred (wahyuni et al., 2019). they found that forty-four utterances contain flouting of maxims, which consist of eleven floutings of the maxim of quantity, ten floutings of the maxim of quality, three floutings of the maxim of relevance, and nine floutings of the maxim of manner. although they appear in different percentages, they show similar reasons in that they give the opposite meaning from the truth. it was linked with nuringtyas (2018) saying that hiding the truth is becoming the most reason used to flout the maxim of quality. thus, it can be said that there are always reasons behind the flouting of the maxims. the reasons are varied, depending on the situations happening during the conversation. 5. conclusion there were 15 utterances of the flouting found in the result of this study. the quantity and manner are the highest maxims occurring in the good morning america talk show. these two maxims occur 5 times, followed by flouting the maxim of relation which happens 3 times, and lastly followed by flouting the maxim of manner 2 times. flouting maxim of quantity and flouting the maxim of manner were the highest flouting maxims appear during the talk show. these are because both jackie chan and two hosts talked very actively to each other. besides, the flouted of maxim manner appeared also because jackie was expressive in sharing his experience in filming the actions movie which made him talked and gave more information than it was needed. the maxim flouting of quality and relevance is the lowest percentage maxim that occurs during the talk show. flouting the maxim of quality means that giving rofa marlisa & didin nuruddin hidayat |englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 141 information or statement which is believed to be false. therefore, it happened only twice in the talk show, and the reason is that jackie chan did not intend to lie, but he wanted to create humor. humor can be achieved by manipulating some rules in conversation. hence, people would not feel it as a conflict when stating humor. besides, it reduces tension during the conversation (soedjatmiko, 1992). moreover, there are always reasons behind the flouting of the maxims, and the reasons have multifaceted functions, depending on the situations happening during the conversation. maxim’s flouting performed by jackie was beneficial in building fun speaking, interaction, and giving more explanations. as far as both speaker and hearer can convey messages, ideas, and opinions well, sometimes the flouting of maxims is fair to occur (kalliomaki, 2005). thus, it can be said that there are always reasons behind 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(2017). the violation and flouting of cooperative principles in the ellen degeneres talk show. journal of language and literature, 12(1), 103–113. englisia may 2015 vol. 2, no. 2, 108-118 place­based education approach as  an innovation of an integrated  curriculum  fidyati sulaiman universitas malikussaleh lhokseumawe, indonesia emailfidya@yahoo.com abstract curriculum design is aimed to promote equality of empowerment. in most practice, however, the curriculum purposes confront conflicts especially between national and local needs. consequently, there are many insightful and innovative educational work which has relatively small advantages for students and schools in its flexibility and opportunity. this leads to a situation in which some groups have lack of opportunities in getting benefit from the educational curriculum application. this essay presents an appproch as an innovation of an integrated curriculum called place-based education. the significance of this strategy is believed to be able to promote the content of learning to the level of local’s relevance and engagement. finally, the more relevant of the learning content to the students’ socio-cultural life the broader participation they can play in the community and future career. keywords: english as foreign language; place-based education; integrated curriculum introduction the internationalisation of english language has made it as a learning language all over the world. from the city to slum areas, english is taught from primary to tertiary education. meanwhile, the ways of communication in educational sectors have changed rapidly over years. the changes have created innovations which aim to restructure and improve all educational domains including teaching and learning approaches, pedagogy, curriculum and organization in order to meet the needs of all learners and other educational stakeholders. an innovation is defined as a whole fidyati sulaiman englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 109 new concept or outcome in a particular context or an improvement of a procedure (commonwealth department of education, 2001). as most of educational sectors are learners-centered, the innovations on one hand have benefited certain groups of learners. on the other hand, some other groups may still have lack of opportunities to get benefit from these innovations. it can be derived from the lack of teachers’ preparedness or other schools’ technical resources. it also can be caused by the complexity of materials provided in english lessons which are not familiar with students’ daily needs. an integrated curriculum can inspire the students who learn english as foreign language (efl). the efl learners can be more motivated in english language learning since the curriculum takes an interest in their local sources. this is what to be called as place-based education. it can be defined as any educational approach in which the local environments are used as a context for teaching and learning (ciardi, 2006). it represents a recent trend in the broad field of outdoor education and recaptures the idea of living and learning in harmony with the earth and with each other. although the society becomes increasingly urbanized and technologized, which seems to be out of dated to adopt local sources when students’ knowledge and skills may need to be modernized, this essay argues that educators must continue to adopt and adapt more of the goals, theory, and practice of place-based education and integrate them into curriculum. the outline of this essay will include the english as a foreign language, integrated curriculum, and the significance of placebased education with an example of efl place-based education syllabus. discussion english as a foreign language english has become an important language in developing countries. it is crucial to find jobs in either small institutions or in a globalised business world. sadly to say that the fact is that many school graduates cannot speak english. some schools’ problems are related to both students and teaching. in indonesia, for example, the students are provided with a range of english grammar without their clear functions and the usages as well as application in daily life (artsiyanti, 2002). artsiyanti adds place-based education approach as an innovation of an integrated curriculum 110 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 that materials taught in the schools are too technical, such as technology, medical, and electrical processes. krashen and terrel (1983) argue that foreign language achievement is usually measured by grammar-type tests that involve heavy use of conscious grammar rules. thus, even though the students are able to remember the vocabulary words, they fail to know the words they often meet and deal in their everyday life. using a variety of resources, the education in the urban has more opportunities to make it more practical and provisional. the urban education is also provided with immersing access and high order skills which enables each individual to gain benefit maximally from education. conversely, the schools in the rural, with a complete lack of qualified human resources, school management and infrastructure, and technology have caused children to be less benefited by the schools. apart from urban and rural differences, egel’s (2009) study also found a difference between private and state schools. his investigation revealed that the teachers were able to recognize and aid the learning styles of their students at the private school because they had plenty of time and sufficient resources provided by the school. however, according to egel, efl teachers at the state schools were not always able to accommodate their students’ learning style preferences in regard to overcrowded classes and insufficient time to recognize all of their students’ preferences. in short, both rural and state schools have limits in their usage of supplementary teaching aids because of lack of resources in the school. this phenomenon has created various and massive private english courses. apart from good or bad quality of those courses, there is an indication about the less quality of english teaching in schools. the curriculum may change or be innovated; however, there are many graduates from schools who cannot even introduce themselves in english. these difficulties are caused by the rareness of communication between teachers and students in the classroom, the grammatical preference in teaching forms rather than its function, and complicated vocabulary words rather than simple words used daily. because of the lack of practice in the classroom and speaking initiation in school environment, for example, some students are shy to speak english because they may be laughed at by their friends. in line with this, egel fidyati sulaiman englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 111 (2009) claims that efl teachers must have the knowledg and skills to identify both their own teaching styles and their students’ learning styles. this view is right because when the teacher does not have teaching knowledge then the clashes in the classroom will occur and affect the students’ learning potential and attitudes towards english and learning in general. considering the facts and issues around mastering english as foreign language above, an innovation on curriculum has to be developed to meet the needs of some important stakeholders in education. integrated curriculum an integrated curriculum is sometimes considered as a new and modern curriculum. there is an increasing effort in improving the significance of curriculum to reach all level of community. this is in line with the aims of curriculum itself to promote equality of empowerment (kelly, 2009). therefore the development of capacities and capabilities to support every individual needs to be created. however, brady and kennedy (2003) state that an innovative curriculum was originated in and has been practiced since the 1910s in junior high schools in the united states. they argue that integrated curriculum has also been widely applied by some developed countries and integrated extensively in middle years of the school curriculum to promote interconnected angle of pedagogy approach in terms of interactive, learnercentred approaches. in integrated curriculum, more interdisciplinary approaches are designed as an innovative concept rather than putting academic discipline as the basic for organizing the curriculum (brady & kennedy, 2007). the aims of the application of integrated curriculum are various. it includes a kennewell’s view which states that students’ abilities may be jointly resulted if students work collaboratively towards a single product (kennewell, 2001). another reason in using this approach is for multi context-based syllabus instead of a single context-based to enlighten profound knowledge and expand understanding of a gist rather than the incomprehensible exiting contents (pilot & bulte, 2006). the subjects within the integrated curriculum are connected whether from general standards and principles to specific practices place-based education approach as an innovation of an integrated curriculum 112 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 and contents, from basic levels to complex advanced levels, and from one prerequisite course to another related course (kim, andrews, & carr, 2004). kim et al. (2004) divide the curriculum integration into four types. they are intradisciplinary, interdisciplinary, infused, and correlated. an intradisciplinary approach combines different strands of one subject or discipline into the same lesson and an interdisciplinary approach combines different subjects or disciplines into a single course or unit. an infused curriculum has specific technologies or teaching strategies added to course content and a correlated curriculum refers to the linkage of concepts from separate subjects or courses. in line with above view, pilot & bulte (2006) also state that to develop a better learning atmosphere and ensure that students are actively and effectively involved in learning activities, there must be a context-based movement. consequently, the method of interdisciplinary subject is a medium that motivates the sense of confidence and improves the learning intrinsic interest. thus, if students show their interest in the topics given and they are already good at using the contextual english language for their daily life, this will engage them with the excitement in the study. in addition, if teachers can vary their teaching styles and are able to encourage students’ interest in learning environment, an invaluable outcome can be gained from the process. to see if subject curriculum can be integrated, brady and kennedy (2007) say that the teachers often have to work hard finding the ways. some key competencies in integration include collecting, analyzing and organizing information, communicating ideas, planning and organizing activities, and working with others or in teams (brady & kennedy, 2007). significance of place-based education place-based education (pbe) is a learning strategy which focuses on using the local community as an integrating context for learning and is grounded in the resources, issues, and values of the local community (powers, 2004). this ‘placebased education’ is a relatively new term in educational literature. however, according to janice and clifford (2000) a concept which is almost similar to this approach was introduced by john dewey in 1950s in relation to experiential approach to stufidyati sulaiman englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 113 dent learning in the local environment. in regard to the term, powers (2004) says that the place-based education is often interchangeably used with some other similar terms including community-based learning, service-learning, environment as an integrated concept, and project-based learning. pbe is frequently discussed at a distance from the urban. however, ciardi (2006) claims it as not to be limited to rural setting as it can also attract people in the issues shaping urban life. to accommodate students’ individual skills and abilities, chawla and escalante (2007) argue that the place-based education uses the environment as an integrating context across disciplines which is characterized by exploration of the local community and natural surroundings, hands-on experiences of environmental discovery and problemsolving, interdisciplinary curricula, team teaching, and learning. the need for place-based education is derived from the phenomenon that there are many insightful and innovative educational works occurring today that have relatively small advantages for students and school in its flexibility and opportunity afforded by curriculum. moreover, as the curriculum is decided in the state level, there often exists a conflict between national and local needs (murray & greer, 1996). powers (2004) finds that place based education has been an effective tool for students to see the relevance of what they are learning which motivates them to be more engaged in the learning process. a study by ciardi (2006) also found the significance of this approach for learning to provide an entry point for exploring shared experiences and connected students with the issues that shape the communities to which they belong. kelly (2009) also agrees that culture must be considered as the total environment that the children develop and learn by making sense and meaning of it through their interaction. to explore the local community and surrounding natural areas in applying the pbe, some schools take students outdoor. chawla and escalante (2007) found that based on some studies, it is suggested that from the outdoor program of placebased education approaches students showed more cooperation and conflict resolution skills, more positive environmental behaviors, better problem solving, learning motivation, and classroom behavior. this achievement has improved the ratings of student assessments and teacher, parents’, and teachers’. chawla and escalante place-based education approach as an innovation of an integrated curriculum 114 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 (2007) also assert that place-based education immerses students in local heritage, cultures, landscapes, opportunities and experiences, and use them as a foundation for the study of language arts, mathematics, social studies, science and other subjects across the curriculum. another consideration stated by silver, strong and perini (2000) is a reality that outside the school children tend to rely on their natural ways of learning. conversely, they are often asked to process knowledge and skills in only one or two ways in school. hence, the teachers need to create a classroom environment that allows the students to process all information in a way they do outside the school. for teachers, powers (2004) also indicates the benefit for increasing their confidence in curriculum planning which includes the exposure to resources as well as the networks built among them. there are some issues surrounding the place-based education. it includes the lack of administrative support, not enough time for place-based education problems, discomfort of many teachers in outdoor classroom settings, awareness of community associations and other groups of the possibilities, and unclear concept for teachers and administrators on how place-based education addresses educational standards. to build administrative supports, for instance, it needs hard work from any parties such as parent and community support. the students’ leadership is also important to be built including identifying a thread that links student interests to the outdoors, creating a classroom based on safety and risk-taking, finding a connection that helps students understand how the project will affect them, their families, neighbors and friends (promise of place, 2009). in contrast to many other educational approaches which set the goal of schooling to prepare students to work and function in a highly technological and consumer-oriented society, place-based education educators aim to prepare people to live and work to sustain the cultural and ecological integrity of the places they inhabit (janice & clifford, 2000). therefore, place-based education learners must have knowledge of ecological patterns, systems of causation, and the long-term effects of human actions on those patterns. janice and clifford also note that providing students with the knowledge and experiences is needed to actively participate in fidyati sulaiman englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 115 the democratic process as one of the most compelling reasons to adopt place-based education. furthermore, the school has a key role in developing and sustaining the community. if we support the community to build employment opportunities and a sense of self-esteem then the students will have a future (department of education, training and youth affairs, 2001). an example: module of place-based education syllabus syllabus, as an operational construct, is a planned form of support for teaching activity in the classroom and form of guidance for constructing appropriate teaching materials (white, 1988). there are two approaches that can be used in designing language teaching syllabus as suggested by white (1988) namely the approach of intervention in the learning process through the pre-selection, specification and presentation of content which prioritizes the pre-specification of linguistic or other content or skill objectives and the approach of intervention by an authority, including the teachers which provide learners an immersing real life communication without any artificial pre-selection of items. another syllabus suggested by white is situational syllabus. ‘situational’ method refers to “the contexts in which language and behaviour occur in the ‘real world’, outside the classroom” (white, 1988, p. 62). in considering a variety of situations, white focuses this design on the setting (where?), the participants (who?), and relevant objects within the setting (what?). an example is as follow: setting in the market participants seller, customer objects fish, vegetable, fruit, money, groceries, kitchen utensils, shops such situation is selected based on ‘the real world’ condition in certain environment, such as going to fish, mapping the village resources, helping parent in the rice field, playing in the farm, and feeding the cattle. here is the example of module of syllabus for english lesson in regard to place-based education: 1. keywords: field trip, mapping, literacy 2. content selection: subject: english module: village mapping place-based education approach as an innovation of an integrated curriculum 116 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 unit: ‘areas in neighborhood’ 3. pedagogical area: place-based education, environment as integrating context ducation for sustainability 4. subject area: reading, writing 5. delivery area: school-based 6. demografic area: rural area efl 7. age area: secondary (grade 7-9) 8. tasks:  field trip: students are equipped with clipboards, paper, and pencils. they walk around the village and gather information as they meet with community members, discover and jut write down everything familiar and not so familiar items in english.  mapping/listing: students map or list (depends on students’ preference) their city by plotting their school, roads, the river, rice field, forest their homes and other points of community interest.  literacy: the students are assigned to read neighborhood informational text and talk to people they meet. some questions they may ask involves: "what is an interesting spot of our neighborhood? what makes our neighborhood function? what's the history of our neighborhood? what roles do people have in our community?" students begin to see the interconnectedness of their place.  writing and reading: after a field trip, students write personal narratives about the community resources they have visited and read it to the rest of class. 9. outcome area civic engagement self-efficacy selfawareness 10. assessment: peer/group assessment self assessment portfolio assessment whole evaluation from teacher conclusion learning english as a foreign language has been difficult as the attitudes attached to it are still limited. it includes unclear functions of grammar, technical vocabulary words, and poor teaching styles. for these reasons, this paper addresses place-based education strategy in teaching english as foreign language as a part of recent innovative curriculum design which offers authenticlearning and learnercentered. in this aspect, the integrated curriculum can be applied to serve for teaching and learning improvement. such an interdisciplinary approach is also aimed to provide meaningful learning outcomes to teachers, learners and community by adjusting learning to local resources. it also produces considerable advantages in terms of instructional knowledge and pedagogical knowledge for the teachers. for fidyati sulaiman englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 117 the students, enthusiasm and engagement become the key assets to create learning environment efficiently and effectively. to sum up, this approach offers teachers opportunity to maximalise teaching styles which assist them to improve their professional satisfactions and addresses students’ needs for english as a tool for searching better future career. references artsiyanti, (2002). bagaimana meningkatkan mutu hasil pelajaran bahasa inggris di sekolah, pendidikan network, retrieved from http://researchengines.com/artsiyanti.html brady, l. & kennedy, k. (2003) ‘curriculum construction’, 2nd ed., australia: pearson education australia. brady, l. & kennedy, k. (2007) ‘curriculum construction’, 3rd ed., australia: pearson education australia. chawla, l., & escalante, m., (2007). student gains from place-based education, university of colorado at denver and health sciences center. retrieved from http://www.foresthistory.org/education/curriculum/studentgains-chawla.pdf ciardi, m. g., (2006). place-based education in an urban environment, 231 (58), oxford: blackwell. commonwealth department of education, (2001). innovation and best practice in schools: review of literature and practice. canberra city: commonwealth. department of education, training and youth affairs, (2001). doing it well, canberra: commonwealth of australia. egel, i. p. (2009). english language learning and teaching styles in two turkish primary schools, social behavior and personality, 37(8), 1117-1128, society for personality research (inc.): turkey, doi 10.2224/sbp.2009.37.8.1117 janice, l. k., & clifford, e. (2000). place-based curriculum and instruction: outdoor and environmental education approaches, eric clearinghouse on rural education and small schools charleston wv. retrieved from http://www.ericdigests.org/2001-3/place.htm kelly, a. v., (2009). the curriculum, theory and practice, 6th ed, thousand oaks, ca: sage publications. kennewell, s. (2001) „using affordances and constraints to evaluate the use of information and communication technology in teaching and learning.‟ journal of information technology for teacher education, 10, nos 1&2, 101-116. place-based education approach as an innovation of an integrated curriculum 118 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 kim, m. m., andrews, l. r., & carr, d. l. (2004). traditional versus integrated preservice teacher education curriculum: a case study. journal of teacher education, 4 (55), 341-356. doi: 10.1177/0022487104266778 krashen, s. d., & terrel, t. d., (1983). the natural approach: language acquisition in the classroom, pergamon/alemany: uk, usa, canada, australia, france, federal republic of germany. murray, m. and greer, j., 1996, rural development in ireland, bristol: cedric chivers pilot, a. & bulte, a. m. w. (2006) „the use of “context” as a challenge for the chemistry curriculum: its success and the need for further development & understanding‟, international journal of science education, 28(9), 1087-1112. powers, a. l., (2004). an evaluation of four place-based education programs, the journal of environmental education, 4(35), 17-32. promise of place, (2009). enriching lives through place-based education, retrieved from http://www.promiseofplace.org/what_is_pbe. silver, h. f., strong, r. w., & perini, m. j., (2000). so each may learn, integrating learning styles & multiple intelligences, association for supervision and curriculum development, alexandria: silver strong & associates. white, r. v., (1988). the elt curriculum, oxford: basil blackwell. englisia may 2015 vol. 2, no. 2, 70-85 exploring the potential of blended  learning and learning management  system for higher education in aceh  zamzami zainuddin university of malaya, malaysia zem.aceh@gmail.com abstract the paper aims to explore the potential of the blended learning approach for higher education in aceh. this is a conceptual paper that attempts to provide the concepts and theories associated with implementing the blended learning approach on college-level students and lecturers. blended learning is a learning model that is enriched with traditional learning methods and online education materials. in a typical blended learning environment, students may learn contents outside of the class through websites or learning management systems (lmss), but engage in practical, hands-on activities during class hours. the author believes blended learning is a potentially effective approach if implemented for higher education in aceh, especially banda aceh, which has adequate internet access in numerous areas. integrating the blended learning approach will enhance students’ self-paced learning in aceh, and in turn improve their critical thinking and collaborative learning. this study also encourages lecturers in aceh to implement the blended learning approach in their teaching and learning practices, as well as urges the use of various lmss or web 2.0 tools as online learning platforms. finally, the practice of blended learning will support universities in aceh in transforming teaching and learning activities from being traditional, to becoming technology-based learning environments. keywords: blended learning; learning management systems; web 2.0; higher education; aceh introduction the rapid growth of technology, particularly the internet, has had many positive impacts on the education domain. lecturers and students in university could exploit the internet for various purposes such as accessing learning resources and zamzami zainuddin englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 71 interacting virtually outside class hours. it is no doubt that technology such as the internet enables learners to be brought together for discussions or learning purposes outside class hours. halili, abdul razak, and zainuddin (2015) acknowledge that the use of technology in education may promote students’ collaborative learning, problem-solving and critical thinking. students and lecturers could also easily access learning materials anytime and anywhere through numerous websites provided freely by some institutions (fu, 2013). those free resources are provided on many websites that can be used as a set of instructions for active learning, and is referred to as open courseware or open educational resources (oer). richter and mcpherson (2012) noted that open courseware provides free educational resources on websites, and allows everyone to access this content. students can thus freely access and download the content, or watch free online video lessons anytime, at their own pace, and according to their needs. with the integration of technology in education, traditional classroom activities such as lecturers’ talks, homework, and exams could be transferred to websites or learning management systems (lmss) (fu, 2013). besides, technology plays a significant role, since the media available online facilitates communication among learners, as well as between learners and lecturers (fisher, 2009). moreover, it has a very important role in student-centered approaches, which instruct students to study actively and independently without always depending on lecturers as the center of knowledge (gebre, saroyan, & bracewell, 2014). therefore, there is no doubt that technology has had a great contribution in the development of education on a global scale. although technology has been widely used in education, it has some limitations, such as students’ physical interactions and lecturers’ assessments toward students’ body language (kanuka & anderson, 2007). at the same time, traditional learning plays a contribution in face-to-face social interaction among students, and between students and lecturers during class hours (sun, tsai, finger, chen, & yeh, 2008). therefore, blended learning becomes an important alternative modality, which combines the conventional class-based learning with technology-based learning environments. this reduces the limitation of both learning models. in other exploring the potential of blended learning and learning management system for higher education in aceh 72 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 words, blended learning merges both conventional and technology-based learning to exploit the benefits of both. traditional classroom learning traditional classroom learning has always been traditionally practiced with physical attendance in class, the use of textbooks, and paper-based examinations. staker and horn (2012) noticed that traditional university courses are usually characterized as curriculum-based and lecture-based teaching where the lecturer acts as the center of knowledge. a course is organized by a curriculum provided through various materials and a number of lecture-based modules that are predetermined and sequenced. one-way lectures are commonly practiced in class, with more answers and discussions rather than problem-solving (dalsgaard & godsk, 2007). in other words, traditional class-based learning tends to focus on the lecturer rather than on the individual students. although the traditional classroom may be associated with physical face-toface interaction, and is of low cost since minimal technology is used, this classroom model has a number of problems. for example, teaching and learning activities only focus on text books and lectures, and students tend to be disengaged in active learning because they have a lack of time to express their abilities or performances in class. traditional learning tends to produce a low level of student engagement, and students often pay less attention to subjects they learn (carini, kuh & klein, 2006). nguyen (2011) also noted that traditional class activities also focus on textbooks and lecture talks; students tend to be disengaged in their learning activity. hence, students who are disengaged in learning will show some negative habits such as boredom, restlessness and disruptive behavior (freeman, o’connor, parks, cunningham, hurley, haak, & wenderoth, 2007). however, the evolution of technology has rapidly changed the culture of teaching and learning in education. several emerging technologies have contributed to education such as the internet, online learning, computer-assisted learning (cal), web-based distance learning (wbdl) and other technologies. hence, blended learning is an alternative emerging technology which integrates the convenzamzami zainuddin englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 73 tional class with technology based-learning environments. it is believed that the traditional learning approach which focuses on teachers as the center of knowledge is irrelevant in today’s digital age, and should be blended with technology-based learning (wang & heffernan, 2010). blended learning class blended learning is the integration of both conventional and modern teaching-learning processes, and has shifted the culture of teaching-learning from being lecturer-centered, to becoming student-centered. the learning activity is more active compared to lecturing in the classroom, and students are facilitated by the lecturer to be more active in solving problems independently. mortera-gutierrez (2005) mentioned that blended learning is the combination of multiple approaches to learning, combining several different delivery methods such as collaboration software, web-based courses or computer communication practices and traditional face-toface instructions. poon (2014) stated that there are numerous definitions of blended learning and the common definition is the combination of learning with physical and virtual environments. blended learning is a general scope of the teaching-learning model. poon (2014) also stated that blended learning has reformed teaching and learning activities from being teacher-centered, to becoming student-centered, and thus positively impacts students’ self-directed learning. also, students and teachers have more opportunities to interact and communicate both in and out of the class. according to ginns and ellis (2007), blended learning has contributed in establishing strong interaction between learners and instructors, as well as among learners themselves. blended learning does not ignore traditional learning because it applies both face-to-face interaction in the classroom, as well as online multimedia technology outside the classroom (halili & zainuddin, 2015). online learning allows learners to gain access to educational content, and engage in one-way or two-way communication with other learners and instructors through the internet. it also provides quick, easy and flexible access to all forms of content through digital devices. exploring the potential of blended learning and learning management system for higher education in aceh 74 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 o’connor, mortimer, and bond, (2011) stated that blended learning appears in the world of education because of the significant growth of computers and the internet. according to history, blended learning became familiarly used as a pedagogical concept in the beginning of the year 2000 (guzer & caner, 2014). poon (2014) supported that blended learning was introduced in the year 2000 when e-learning lost its credibility, and was altered by a blended learning model. he also noted that blended learning has been widely applied in many higher institutions worldwide. besides, it has also been widely practiced by corporate training and k-12 education. the following table 1 summarizes the example of categories of blended learning models. table 1. the categories of blended learning models a. higher education twigg (2003) b. k-12 education staker & horn (2012) c. corporate training rossett & frazee (2006) a.1 supplemental  supplemental online materials  online quizzes  additional online activities  flexibility of online activities for computer lab or home b.1 rotation  rotation among learning modalities, at least one of which is online  station rotation rotations within a classroom  lab rotation rotations within locations on a school campus  flipped classroom rotation within a given course or subject including online remote (at home)  individual rotation individually tailored rotation schedule for a course or subject c.1 anchor blend  introductory substantive face-to-face (f2f) classroom experience  subsequent independent online experiences a.2 replacement  reduction of in-class meeting time  replacement of face-to face class time with online activities  flexibility of online activities for computer lab or home b.2 flex  instruction primarily online in a classroom with customized f2f support when needed c.2 bookend blend  introductory experience online or f2f  a substantive learning experience online or f2f  a conclusion that extends the learning into practice at work a.3 emporium  elimination of class meetings  substitution of a learning resource center with online materials and ondemand personal assistance b.3 self-blend  option of an entirely online course to supplement traditional courses c.3 field blend  a range of instructional assets  choice of when and where to use the assets as needed to meet work-related challenges  availability of online instructional assets  a possible classroom experience as part of the mix zamzami zainuddin englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 75 a.4 buffet  several learning options from which students choose b.4 enriched virtual  school experience mostly online with some on-campus enrichment source: graham, c. r., henrie, c. r., & gibbons, a. s. (2014). developing models and theory for blended learning research. in a. g. picciano, c. d. dziuban, & c. r. graham (eds.), blended learning: research perspectives, volume 2 (pp. 13-33). new york, ny: routledge. learning management systems (lmss) learning management systems (lmss) are also called electronic learning platforms. lmss are online, web-based systems that tie together 21stcentury education with effective and creative uses of technology. the majority of lmss are webbased, and thus facilitate anytime, anywhere access to learning content and administration. they utilize synchronous and asynchronous technologies to facilitate access to learning materials and administration (black, beck, dawson, jinks, & dipietro, 2007). lmss contain videos, lessons, assignments, quizzes, tests, forums, a scheduling tool, collaborative work space and grading mechanisms. according to the profile of lms market in the higher education market as of autumn 2013, blackboard is the leading provider with 41% market share, with moodle (23%), desire2learn (11%) and vclassrooming being the next three largest providers (green, 2013). they are web-based and provide a variety of tools that can make a blended course more effective giving new possibilities for learners. lms is usually used in leaning activities outside the class in blended virtual classrooms. students could submit assignments, access content, and interact with lecturers virtually outside the class through lmss (black et al., 2007). moodle is an example of a supplement which can be integrated for a blended learning course. moodle offers flexible and dynamic management of the learning process, and satisfies new needs with regards to methodology and information technologies. moodle makes it possible to create an individualized process of learning where students can interact with each other and with their teachers, which encourages their close collaboration (kumar, gankotiya, & dutta, 2011). students can study outside classes at any convenient time, thereby increasing education efficacy. many teachers have found that they can save time and increase student learning by allowing students to exploring the potential of blended learning and learning management system for higher education in aceh 76 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 engage in material outside the class, which allows them to use face-to-face time for troubleshooting (cole & foster, 2008). besides, there are various other web-based systems that provide a variety of tools that can create a blended course more effectively for learners. numerous web 2.0 tools can be used in blended learning courses to establish two-way communication between the students and instructors outside the class, and also to give personal feedback for students’ improvement (schmidt & ralph, 2014). majumdar (2012) mentioned that blogs, wikis, podcasts, twitter, myspace and facebook are very popular web 2.0 tools used in teaching and learning activities. blogs, for example, have been widely used to establish students’ interaction with their teachers, share learning materials and learn to solve problems with their peers (garcia, brown & elbeltagi, 2012). other social sites such as facebook, myspace, livejournal, and bebo also allow users to share various materials with other users, and establish virtual interaction outside class hours (pempek, yermolayeva & calvert, 2009). the advantages on implementing blended learning some people assume that the use of technology in blended learning will ignore students’ social interactions, especially with their friends. actually, this is a wrong assumption because blended learning will not ignore traditional classrooms; students will interact with each other whether physically in the class or virtually outside the class (kuo, belland, schroder, & walker, 2014). moreover, in the classroom, students do not just sit and listen to lectures, but interact with friends and establish group discussions or work in peers (fearon, starr, & mclaughlin, 2011). blended learning becomes an important alternative modality for reducing the limitations of both face-to-face and online learning, mainly because it adopts the advantages of both types of learning approaches (graham, 2005). blended learning has reformed the activity of teaching and learning processes from being teachercentered, to becoming student-centered. students’ learning activities are more active than lecturing, and therefore students have more opportunities to develop their ideas in solving the problem at hand. the use of technology media and interactive group activities is a concept of blended learning. zamzami zainuddin englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 77 this learning approach will also establish good communication between lecturers and students while outside the class using online platforms or web 2.0 technologies. the responsibility of lecturers towards students does not only apply in the classroom, but also outside the classroom. jones and chen (2008) stated that in this model of learning, the lecturer will have the time to give feedback to students outside the classroom, and the lecturers will answer question and motivate students with their progress. scholars and practitioners believe that blended learning, which refers to the systematic and integrated combination of online and offline teaching and learning activities (goeman & van laer, 2012), holds the potential to make higher education more attractive, accessible and effective for adult learners. prior research has reported that students’ social interaction in technology learning environments is more effective than that in traditional classrooms. without using technology, students in traditional classrooms tend to interact physically in the classroom and ignore the interaction outside class hours. it can be assumed that students’ social interactions will not decrease when technology media is integrated into the classroom. technology use will indeed help students interact easily with all communities, both inside and outside the class. missildine et al., (2013) reported that the blending of new technology and traditional classrooms has established interactive learning. another study also reported that students can enrich the dialog with other students inside and outside the class because the activity of teaching-learning in flipped classroom is not only limited to within the classroom walls (mclaughlin et al., 2013). the challenges of implementing blended learning there remain some obstacles in designing online learning (karadeniz, 2009) such as designing the content based on video, animation or simulations, and the lack of time in developing the content. lecturers usually encounter difficulties in delivering the course in blended learning, and those who are not well-trained will encounter difficulties in the teaching-learning process. besides, another challenge is the limited access to videoconferences and content because of low bandwidth on the network. one australian institution faced a challenge while applying the blended learning approach on students, mainly because this country has large and more reexploring the potential of blended learning and learning management system for higher education in aceh 78 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 mote and regional areas. the internet broadband and capacity of downloading in those areas is limited (poon, 2014). therefore, the quality of the internet usually becomes a common issue in applying technology-based learning. furthermore, not all students and lecturer are aware that the utilization of technology media is important in the teaching and learning processes. to facilitate and motivate students to learn independently while outside the class also becomes another obstacle for teachers. some lecturers are unable to boost students’ motivation to use technology as instructions. then, some studies have reported that, in the use of blended learning for learning activities, not all students are able to study independently the content provided. for example, students stop to watch video lectures posted on website or lms because of uninterested and tedious (woo, gosper, mcneill, preston, green, & phillips, 2008). the design of blended learning environment classroom sessions in blended learning approaches are used for hands-on activities, discussion and interaction. in the transformed lecture, the lecturer would not present the subject matter in its entirety, but rather give an introduction and provide a background in order for the students to work on the problem. their role changed has to that of being guides, answering questions, promoting dialogue and recognizing students’ needs of assistance (oliver & stallings, 2014). all areas of importance in problem-based learning focus on improving students’ critical thinking in solving problems (wilkie, 2004). however, there is no single model in implementing the blended learning approach. the lecturer could apply and modify this approach in different models using different lmss or online platforms. hence, the successful and effective design of blended learning is based on flexible learning for the learners or their needs. in this case, the lecturer may understand students’ needs such as their learning styles, selfefficacy, attitudes, motivation and interests (lim & morris, 2009). therefore, when planning to choose an lms, the characteristics of the learners should be taken into account, because no single instructional technology is best for all learners, and this must be designed according to students’ needs. in other words, each person has specific preferences and strengths in the way they receive and process the inforzamzami zainuddin englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 79 mation presented to them. learners will be able to achieve learning goals more efficiently when learning environments are adapted or accommodated to their individual differences (federico, 1991). best practice of blended learning for higher education in aceh the 21st century brought with it different challenges for universities. many institutions are responding to the pressure by embracing new technologies. technology has a vital role to play in building up 21st-century skills, broadening access to education and personalizing the learning experience to adapt teaching to the unique needs of each learner. besides, today’s students come pre-skilled with technology proficiencies to universities and a built-in acceptance for new technology (erdem & kibar, 2014). many higher-education institutions worldwide have integrated lmss or elearning systems with their traditional education, creating a ‘blended-learning’ environment to give value to learners and businesses, while some others utilize it fully to support distance-based education. in the united states, more than half of highereducation institutions offer various forms of internet-based technology courses (evans & haase, 2001). the internet is a significant tool in blending the class where the students may access the contents online through websites outside the class. in addition, aceh is a province in indonesia which has adequate internet facilities, especially banda aceh, the capital of aceh, which is considered the islamic cyber city equipped with adequate free internet access in many areas such as coffee shops and parks. a survey in 2010 reported that 93 free wi-fi spots were spread around banda aceh city (adiwaluyo, 2013). after the tsunami disaster in aceh in 2004, hundreds of modern coffee shops were built with full wi-fi facilities, and many students spent more of their time in these places to access the internet. additionally, the existence of wi-fi coffee shops has replaced internet kiosks (warung internet) in banda aceh. in other words, most college students have abandoned internet kiosks and go to coffee shops as an alternative to accessing the internet. therefore, since many college students visit coffee shops for accessing the internet, the author believes that it is a great opportunity for exploring the potential of blended learning and learning management system for higher education in aceh 80 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 the lecturers in aceh to construct blended-learning environments in their teachinglearning practices. the author believes that aceh has a great opportunity in implementing blended-learning environments for higher education. this province also has a number of higher education institutions which offer professional degrees such as arraniry state islamic university, syiah kuala university, malikussaleh university, samudra university, teuku umar university and lhokseumawe state polytechnic. furthermore, the significant use of blended-learning for higher education is driven by the reality of so many university students coming to class unprepared for subjects, during which the instructor needs to explain the content from the basics. most of the classroom time is used by the instructor to talk, and not by the students to ask, discuss and solve problems (bristol, 2014). hence, this paper encourages lecturers in aceh to implement blended-learning in their teaching and learning practices, as well as urging the use of various technology tools (lmss) or web 2.0 platforms. also, the blended-learning model enables lecturers in aceh to promote active learning in the classroom, and also to cultivate students’ confidence in group discussions. this teaching model assists good lecturers in improving teaching and learning environments, and offers all lecturers an opportunity to change the way they teach. the use of technology (web 2.0) for higher education in aceh has been successfully practiced by silviyanti and yusuf (2014); they investigated the effectiveness of using blogs to support collaborative english writing activities for english students in syiah kuala university. the results reported that using blogs in teaching and learning english has successfully transformed the lecturer-centered approach into a student-centered approach, and has also demonstrated a positive effect on students’ english writing skills. conclusion and potential future studies technology has played a major role on higher education in the 21st century, and it will continue to play a larger role in the future across all levels and disciplines of higher education. therefore, higher education institutions in aceh must continue to increase their internet infrastructure, multimedia resources and internet-based edzamzami zainuddin englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 | 81 ucation programs. the hope is that the lecturers in aceh should take advantage of using technology to enhance students’ engagement, interaction, motivation and achievement in the teaching-learning process. this study has clearly explained the theories and concepts of blendedlearning environments. the implementation of blended learning would change the culture of student learning from being lecturer-centered, to becoming studentcentered, with more class activities belonging to students. students would learn through hands-on and project-based learning activities. with no time dedicated to the lectures, students have more occasions to practice their lessons with their friends and at their own pace. in addition, they have more time to interact with their friends and instructors inside and outside the class. students are aware of learning independently at their own pace, and have experienced using various technology tools for learning activities. the author believes that this study may contribute to a better understanding of technology use in teaching-learning activities in aceh. this paper also provides a major implication for the ministry of education (moe) or policymakers in indonesia in general, and aceh specifically, to determine blended-learning as a contemporary model to be implemented in teaching-learning activities at a number of universities in aceh. moreover, policymakers and practitioners in aceh should seriously examine the research of blended-learning in order to transform the traditional lecturer– student centered learning environment to a student-lecturer learning environment. the limitation of this study is that it is a conceptual paper. hence, there is still a room for improvement in future research through empirical studies. in future work, more quantitative research about the blended-learning instructional model in relation to academic benefits or students’ effective learning should be conducted. also, the study and practice of blended learning in aceh should be continuously practiced with the use of various technologies and tools (e.g., lmss and web 2.0 frameworks). exploring the potential of blended learning and learning management system for higher education in aceh 82 | englisia vol. 2 no. 2, may 2015 references adiwaluyo, e. 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(2004). becoming facilitative: shifts in lecturers’ approaches to facilitating problem-based learning. challenging research in problem-based learning, 8192. woo, k., gosper, m., mcneill, m., preston, g., green, d., & phillips, r. (2008). web-based lecture technologies: blurring the boundaries between face-to-face and distance learning. research in learning technology, 16(2). 81-93. englisia november 2018 vol. 6, no. 1, 1-14 a review of the department of english language education curriculum development habiburrahim universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia habib.habiburrahim@fulbrightmail.org manuscript received october 18, 2018, revised october 24, 2018, first published november 30, 2018, and available online january 12, 2019. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.22373/ej.v6i1.3529 abstract a review of the current literature on curriculum development elucidates that much of the existing work either: (i) focuses on the development of educational resources; (ii) rectifies the concept of curriculum; (iii) or identifies desirable features of development methods without providing any practical guidance that synchronizes the needs of any particular education systems and geographical status where students are living. this paper scrutinizes the development of the department of english language education curriculum of ar-raniry state islamic university (universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh) indonesia in line with aceh context. it is flexible and evolutionary, and is soundly underpinned by proven theory and practices from contemporary curriculum development concepts. systematically this article explores three pivotal aspects: educational foundation in aceh, curriculum development in indonesia, and an ideal curriculum of the department of english language education, particularly in aceh context. keywords: curriculum; curriculum development; english language teacher education; higher education introduction curriculum is a means to delineate the philosophy, objectives, teaching and learning materials, teaching and learning approach, and assessment of a specific educational program (mcfadden & roehrig, 2017). it is through the curriculum that an educational institution formulates the skills and experiences that students could master after accomplishing a certain study program. students will be equipped with a review of the department of english language education curriculum development 2 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 particular skills that enable them to achieve their gleaming future and get involved with development process if curriculum is well developed and taught. however, it is not impossible that students will be powerless and unskillful if specific graduate attributes fail to be integrated in education curriculum. hence, to empower students to reach their promising future, educational institutions should be able to develop their curriculum that enables students or learners to enhance their skills and competences, and implement such skills and experiences in real life. in fact, curriculum development in higher education institutions (hei) has multiple functions. the responsibility of ensuring that students obtain updated information regarding educational advancement is one of the tangible reasons. as such academic has an obligation to adapt to new circumstances including reviewing the programs offered to students, and priorities to be placed on the programs. academic community also “has moral compulsion to discharge their fiduciary responsibility to students and community for developing and maintaining quality, current, and relevant curricula” (kupperschmidt & burns, 1997, p. 91). to meet the current educational and employment prospects and students’ needs, curriculum should be periodically assessed and developed. at baseline the purposes of developing curriculum at academic level is to adjust with the institution missions and visions. in this sense, academic entails the need to become familiar with institutions’ missions and visions, and to understand the educational values adhered in the community where the educational institution is constructed. therefore, academic community should ensure that the development of curriculum accommodates appropriate values generated from institution missions and visions, state mission, student’s needs, and employment orientation. to this end, barnett vigorously urged academic to contemplate the curriculum in the light of generating learners not only to have an ideology of academic “knowing-that”, but also “knowing-how” (barnett, 1994). this enables them not only to know things, but also to do things. the application of these approaches into curriculum development does not mean that this reforms the traditional education purview, but this is to put new emphasis in the curriculum upon skills, competence, experimental and problem-based forms of learning (nicholls, 1995). this paper attempts to answer the following main questions: (1) what is habiburrahim englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 3 indonesian hei curriculum? (2) what is the curriculum foundation of aceh? and (3) what is an ideal curriculum of the department of english language education of uin ar-raniry? curriculum development in indonesia in developing curricula, indonesian hei is required to refer to the ministry of national education decree number 73, year 2013 regarding the core curriculum. hei should apply a kerangka kualifikasi nasional indonesia (kkni) curriculum that empowers learners to have a specific skill after graduating from a university or a college. the kkni curriculum is defined as a curriculum that emphasizes on a particular disciplinary study focus. additionally, the study focus will forge learners to master such the skills to be able to handle certain tasks based on the focus of their study. this regulation also legalizes the hei throughout indonesia to design and develop their curriculum in line with the missions of the hei and the focus offered programs. despite consenting hei to freely develop their curriculum content, the department requires hei to accommodate three basic competencies in their curriculum development. this is intended to provide a wide access to local authority both as the government and educational developers and practitioners to design educational curriculum that matches the local context. it means that curriculum should be developed based on the exclusiveness of local needs and strategies to empower students as an integral part of human empowerment based on particular condition and local geographic circumstances. in this sense, the department of english language education for instance should learn particular english courses as the core competence. core courses consist of four english language skills; listening, speaking, reading and writing. in addition, as the teacher students, they should also learn certain pedagogical courses as the supporting competence to be teachers. this includes teaching methodology, teaching evaluation, and curriculum analysis. other additional competences emphasize on local values and traditions as well as the visions and missions of the institution. in this regard, uin ar-raniry offers some elective islamic courses that a review of the department of english language education curriculum development 4 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 students can choose to study as part of their courses. the courses are ranging from islamic law to quranic interpretation and recitation. as stated in national strategic planning, the focuses of national educational empowerment rely on three conceptual frameworks; affective, cognitive, and psychomotor. the regulation affirms that affective domain should nurture learners’ competency in enhancing spiritual values, noble akhlak (moral) and other aesthetic values. the cognitive domain on the other hand should sharpen learners’ competency in empowering intellectual to master, develop, and apply specific knowledge and technology. finally the psychomotor domain stresses on the ability of learners in term of specific technical skills acquisition, and kinesthetic competency. all those values, indeed, ensure that students should have particular competence and should also behave as a noble person after they graduate from an educational institution. however, it seems that the regulation does not clearly illustrate the specific knowledge and graduate attributes that students should master. therefore, educational institutions must be able to formulate the skills students should master in order for them to be able to expand their knowledge and experiences to be applied in their life. nevertheless, to synchronize the basic concept of education across the country, educational institutions are expected to accommodate the above three conceptual frameworks. over the years to unite students in the distinct archipelago, the indonesian government adopted the national curriculum based on the principles of pancasila (indonesian national philosophy). these principles emphasize on the belief in one god, human rights, national unity, democracy, and social justice (kopong, 1995). this approach strongly influenced the development of curriculum throughout the nation. the enactment of regional number 22/1999 regarding the empowerment of local government has significant influence on educational empowerment (tilaar, 2002). this regulation shifted the state centripetal power to local actors and institutions (bjork, 2006). under the management of general directorate higher education in jakarta, hei may develop their own curricula and course to adjust with the local conditions. this enables hei to decide and assess the programs in the light of local needs and local contexts. as a result, hei can develop various programs habiburrahim englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 5 and accommodate local values in developing their curricula. by accommodating the local needs, hei can maximally empower its curriculum in providing life skills to its graduates. “dalam konteks otonomi, lebih baik lagi apabila pendidikan yang diselenggarakan lebih diarahkan ke potensi yang dimiliki oleh daerah dan dalam konteks kemandirian lokal” [in the context of autonomy, it is better that education is directed towards the potential of the region itself and in the context of local independence] (tilaar, 2002, p. 228). this regulation, in principal, provides a wide opportunity for all educational institutions throughout indonesia to empower their own schools and people based on the heritage and culture of its community entities. by accommodating the local needs into a specific educational empowerment, it is expected that the local community will be well developed. educational developers at local level may have sufficient knowledge in formulating the target of education for every individual and school. through the implementation of this regulation, it is expected that the education quality throughout indonesia can be empowered without facing any significant difference. educational foundation of aceh the aceh self-governed regulation (uupa) stipulated in the national regulation number 11 of 2006 (undang-undang pemerintah aceh, 2006) that there is a special regulation on the aceh government. the regulation affirms that aceh has its self-governed government that enables the local government to develop and manage its own government policy. the regulation also includes provisions concerning political issues, human rights, rule of law, educational systems, and economic matters (aspinal, 2005). some politicians believe that this regulation is the result of political will from central government in jakarta to hush the political flaming in aceh regarding the potent demand of acehnese for an independent state; aceh vigorously wanted to get free from indonesia. regarding the education, the regulation affirms that the foundation of aceh’s education should be based on islamic values, quran and sunnah, national state philosophy, national regulation 1945, and local culture (uupa, 2006). however, a review of the department of english language education curriculum development 6 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 there is no specific information confirming detailed concept of those essences. as such, higher education institution (hei) may interpret and apply those concepts loosely, depending on the visions and missions of respective institutions. as aceh region is inhabited by muslim majority, acehnese view education from islamic perspective in which education is a form of worship (qanun no. 23, 2002). education in islamic standpoint means “a lifelong learning process of preparing individuals to actualize their role as a khalifah (vicegerent) of allah on earth and thereby contributes fully to the reconstruction and development of their society in order to achieve well-being in this world and hereafter” (hashim & langgulung, 2008, p.1). from acehnese cultural perspective, education is the righteous media in empowering students’ personality as part of the process of forming acehnese society at large to be civilized, and increasing their dignity (qanun aceh no. 5, 2008). education should be an active vehicle to improve society’s welfare by means of transforming religious and science values into community lives. therefore, he should nurture students not only in scientific spheres, but more importantly in moral principles. universities should play more visible roles in the educational, social and economic well-being of local communities (jongbloed, enders, & salerno, 2008). graduates of universities are regarded as individuals who have certain competencies and they are professional in their fields. this is in accordance with the strategic planning of aceh education in which it ensures that all secondary and higher education graduates are able to work in increasingly competitive global, regional, national and labour markets. graduates should be well prepared to contribute to the development of social, economic, political and community life of aceh (nad strategic planning, 2007). if they are teachers, for instance, they should be able to teach students appropriately; they should be able to add values by being teachers. the added values can be tolerant, abiding by law, care towards others, generous, skillful in their study field, honest, trustworthy, and other social attributes. to answer this need, it is imperative that the academic at this department work very seriously to integrate the islamic teachings, which has sacral values for acehnese, and general knowledge into a comprehensive format. it is well understood that the integration of knowledge is well accepted by most scholars habiburrahim englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 7 throughout the world. there is no more knowledge segregation to be proposed to make a specific barrier between one specific knowledge concentration and other study fields. students need to study islamic religious teachings to strengthen their knowledge on religious values. through these values, it is expected that students may have good moral to act and behave wherever they are. furthermore, from acehnese cultural perspectives, it is believed that knowledge is a means to make people reach their happiness both in this world and there in hereafter. to reach this happiness, both islamic knowledge and general knowledge should be studied and mastered by students. department of english language education, a department that integrates islamic teaching and general knowledge, must be able to answer this challenge. the department should be able to produce graduates who have good understanding on islamic values as a core mission of acehnese culture and ar-raniry institute, and english skills as a core competence of the department. department of english language education as part of islamic education institution must be able to play pivotal roles to fulfill the need of this expectation; to provide strong islamic knowledge foundation and excellent english education knowledge for the students studying at this department. to reach this objective, there are various steps to be taken into serious consideration by all stakeholders at this department. curriculum is part of it. the curriculum of this department should be able to provide students adequate life skills. it should also be able to produce graduates who have satisfactory islamic knowledge to be good muslim citizens. english language education curriculum according to malgoire the “common purpose of general education is to provide students with fundamental basis of knowledge, skills, and experience that will enable them to thrive professionally, personally and as citizens” (magloire, 2010, p. 24). department of english language education of uin ar-raniry banda aceh is one of the departments under the management of fakultas tarbiyah dan keguruan (teacher training faculty). the primary objectives of the department are to educate students to be professionals in english language and to be professionals a review of the department of english language education curriculum development 8 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 english teachers, who will teach at junior and senior schools (panduan akademik universitas islam negeri ar-raniry, 2016). despite the department has proposed to implement the kkni curriculum for students enrolling in academic year 2017/2018, the department still uses the former curriculum. the former department’s english language education curriculum states that to achieve a bachelor’s degree in english language and to be able to teach at senior and junior high schools throughout aceh province, students should complete 144-160 credit hours. in shaping its graduate to be professional in english language, the department offers three course components; core competence comprises of english related subjects, supporting courses emphasize on pedagogical related courses, and elected courses focus on certain islamic teaching values. the compositions of these courses are recognized as the three basic elements of general education structures (zeszotarski, 1999). the structures enable students to concentrate on the core coursework while they are free to select other courses that they may be interested in. however, it is essential to stipulate particular knowledge students should learn and how the performance is to be displayed (biggs & tang, 2007). if those courses are poorly designed, students may fail to develop their particular competence and the university itself cannot assure the quality of its graduate in this regard. at the department, students are offered some core courses as well as optional courses. students can select optional courses that meet their preferences. as a matter of fact, this concept provides students greater freedom of choice and enables courses to be constructed flexibly. yet, most of the provided courses are often lack of coherence between the concept of teaching and learning, and how to improve students’ competence to be good islamic citizens. in addition, when students are requested to study so many subjects, this can lead them to study a course at a superficial level. as a result, shallowness of learning and inadequate opportunity for students to grips with a specific knowledge discipline is unavoidable (rowland, 2006). rowland illustrates that asking students to pick up some courses for the sake of their knowledge development interest is the same as we treat students as consumers in a supermarket. these students pick and mix their educational habiburrahim englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 9 commodities with little sense of continuation and development. to some extent, the intention of he to offer some elective courses is worthwhile in which students may freely select the courses that match their interest. however, when students study only a few credit hours, they are studying at superficial level, their depth study is insufficient to enable them engage in critical approach and values of any particular scholarship. an ideal content of curriculum for this department should accommodate a comprehensive concept how to teach students to be good citizens, namely the citizens who have strong islamic faith as the primary values acknowledged by uupa (habiburrahim, orrell, conway, 2016). the department should reconceptualize some specific subjects in the light of uupa and local culture mainstream. this concept does not mean to add more irrelevant subjects for students studying at the department, but some existing irrelevant subjects can be omitted, and then more appropriate subjects can be added. apart from this specific academic metaphor, higher education students should be educated to be individuals having critical abilities to be a democratic society to enable them make changes in community lives. higher education should “both comply with the demands of disciplinary knowledge and also contest its assumptions and transgress its boundaries” (rowland, 2006, p. 39). as candidate of teachers, students studying at the department should master necessary skills to acknowledge the practicality of teaching as core to the nature of their future career. students then can apply this knowledge within professional development experiences for being qualified school teachers. barnett and coat proclaim that within the scholarly context, any formal course at he institutions should be able to be assessed in terms of its capacity to promote and develop knowing (dealing with teaching and learning), acting (applying the mastered knowledge into practice), and being (integrating the knowing and acting into oneself in order to contribute to the real world) (barnett & coate, 2005). this notion is acknowledged by stein and walker (2010) stating that he curricula should support the development of learning and the application of knowledge in a variety of contexts and situations. teaching and learning process should become an a review of the department of english language education curriculum development 10 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 integral part that may influence students’ thought and actions. ultimately, this process brings positive implication toward students’ social lives and works. in the contemporary workforce world, university graduates are required to master several practical important abilities. as such, curriculum developer at this department should be able to envisage this requirement. self-directed learning, critical thinking and reasoning, finding and using appropriate learning resources, information and technology, teamwork, and leadership skills are part of the core skills that are highly demanded nowadays (kwan, 2009). all these skills can be best acquired through ibl (inquiry-based learning), ebl (enquiry-based learning), and pbl (problem-based learning) learning approaches (dickson, 2010). ramsden (2003, p. 141) reminds us that though the pbl approach is “more applicable in professional fields and discipline, the key to its use in all fields lies in its focus on realistic issues that bring together teaching, research, and practice”. since the graduates of this department are trained to be professionals in english language, they should possess these skills to also work in non-pedagogy domain realms. some of the graduates are actively involved in non-pedagogical world. they are serving as key players at private international companies such as exxon mobile, chevron, and other non-governmental organizations (ngos) such as oxfam, islamic relief, and international relief development. this is a part of prestige that has been recognized by people in aceh, particularly those who graduated from the department. to more enhance the quality of education at this department, those mentioned skills should be part of curriculum content of the department of english language education. recent research conducted on students’ opinion on the department curriculum elucidates that students are not satisfied with the ongoing curriculum (habiburrahim, 2017). most of research participants claim that there are courses that overlap and are not interrelated. regarding the islamic courses, department should assess the current offered courses. some of the courses are obscure in terms of content and focus. even, some of the courses have different names but they have similar goals. indeed, the department should be able to justify one course based on the needs and the objectives to be achieved after students learn such the course. students also expect that lecturers who handle the islamic courses should be able to actively communicate in english. this means while lecturers transforming habiburrahim englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 | 11 their islamic knowledge, they are actively communicating by using english as the recommended language of the department. this brings multiple advantages for students in which they can study english while they are learning islamic values. if department has strong intention to implement students’ expectation, the department can assign lecturers who have adequate islamic knowledge graduated from various overseas universities. if the department does not have sufficient lecturers who have good islamic knowledge on islamic substances, it should find others who have both skills in english and religious knowledge. in accordance with the general knowledge, students claim that the department does not offer updated life oriented-skills that students can acquire. for instance, those who want to be translators should be provided extra hours and courses on being able to empower their competence to be translators. in this regard, students also expect that the department should foster a strong collaboration with other institutions that may bring mutual benefit. the department should have initiate cooperation with both government and non-government organizations which in the end may use services of students from the department of english language education. for example, those who want to deepen their life skills on translation can do some internship programs with english course institutions that have translation project, or those who want to be english writers can do some internship programs with english magazine or newspaper agencies. the curriculum of the department should also encourage students to learn practical knowledge. students after having adequate knowledge on theoretical aspects should implement them into a real practice. this can be done by recommending students to do some practical works after taking a particular course. a literature course for instance should stress on empowering students to be able to produce a drama or other entertainment programs. when students have this skill, they may have another non pedagogical competence to play. and there is no doubt that this will open positive employment prospects for students. in terms of ict, the department should incorporate communication and computer skills into its curriculum. students have to be trained to master enough communication skills that may help them to mingle with different background and ethnicity of people working in an organization. students should be trained to master a review of the department of english language education curriculum development 12 | englisia vol. 6, no. 1, november 2018 interpersonal skills to be able to successfully adapt with various organizational cultures. computer skills in addition should be part of integral competences that students should master. to this end, the department should be more aware of integrating computer skills into its curriculum. students are expected to be able to have at least basic skills in drawing and calculating. this may include skills to operate common use of microsoft offices. it is arguable that computer skills have become critical values for those seeking job nowadays. all those things will be true, and increasingly true, as far ahead as anyone can see. conclusion curriculum plays a critical role in equipping students to have practical skills and competencies after studying at an educational institution. to provide updated information and skills that match the current employment markets, educational developers assert that curriculum should periodically be assessed and developed. as a state islamic university, uin ar-raniry through its faculty and department could integrate islamic and general education into one educational concept. this enables students studying general education to also study some islamic courses to strengthen their religious understanding. the department of english language education of uin ar-raniry is responsible for preparing its graduates to master adequate knowledge both in english and islamic field. therefore, the department must be able to integrate its curriculum that matches the needs of students and the expectation of acehnese educational values. to widely open employment prospects for its graduates, in addition, the department should also foster a strong cooperation with various institutions in order for students to have opportunities to do internship programs. finally, ict, interpersonal skills, problem solving skills, and communication skills as part of bachelor’s generic skills should be incorporated into the department curriculum. references aspinal, e. 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(1999). dimension of general education requirements. new directions for community colleges, (108), 39-48. englisia may 2014 vol. 1 no.2, 191-215 gayo language is old malay (a  dialectology study: the language  change)  abdussalam universitas sumatera utara medan abdussal am & salami mahmud universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh abstract an interdisciplinary linguistic which studies the problem on language variation is so called dialectology. the variation of language happens on the usage that is caused by the change of social environment and place for ages. language variation can be found in the form of accent, sub dialect, dialect, or that of language. studying a language variation means also to trace the language history. geographically, language variation can show where the speaker comes from. linguistics distinctions analyzed in dialectology are phonetics, morphemic, and lexical variations. however, in this study, phonological and lexical variations are discussed. glosses used are ogden's 850 basic words which have been translated into bahasa. the research subjects are 18 gayo native speakers. six of them become primary informants and the rests are as secondary ones. methods of acquiring data used are cakap-simak (speak and listen) as well as tulis-rekam (write and record). the discovered data from the informants are crosschecked with the standardized words of kamus besar bahasa indonesia (indonesian great dictionary). then, the distance of word variations are determined by using dialectometry formula. the result are: 165 words = 19,41% lexical differences, 305 words = 35,88% phonetically differences, and 380 words = 44,71% without difference, neutral or zero. by regarding 1% data error tolerant, it can be concluded that gayo language is old malay that has “accent variation = 20,41%" compared to new malay or bahasa indonesia. keywords: language, variation, gayo, malay. gayo language is old malay (a dialectology study: the language change) 192 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 introduction gayo language that is found in the central part of aceh province is interesting to be discussed by dialectological study since the language spoken by gayo ethnic is known as an old malay. malay in gayo language melaya means “go anywhere” and is also called for “malaysia”. for example, “we nge beloh ku melaya” = “he has gone to malaysia.” “kusi we melaya?” = where does he go? in tamil, melayu or melayur = high land. in sanskrit, malaya = a kind of delicate scent eaglewood tree. in javanese, melayu = geras or run. according to ensiklopedi umum 1997, malay language covers: malay of riau, lingga, malay of johor including malay of bangka, malay of natuna, bunguran ulu, melay of baliton, melay of margur, pashu…” at the present time, the melay ethnic is called as indonesian, they populate all of indonesian islands as native population (nasution & sembiring, 2007, pp. 3-9). a long time ago, there was a great kingdom in gayo area called as kerajaan linge or lingga. as said by mouth to mouth story, the kingdom had a very close relationship to lingga in malaysia. the story “sengeda and white elephant” tells the relationship of linge gayo, malaysia, and aceh darussalam kingdoms. it is told that sengeda and bener meriah’s mother was the king of malacca’s daughter. in view of the fact that gayo is classified as melay etnic as well, but why is gayo called as an old melay? to answer the question is not easier one, since it is needed some studies to support the fact such as history, anthropology, archeology, genetics, and linguistics to prove it scientifically. in this paper, the case is discussed by linguistics view on the variation of lexical words of bahasa gayo as an old melay compared to bahasa indonesia as a new melay by using dialectometry formula. the number of words used as glosses are ogden’s 850 basic words (crystal, 2002). geographical area of gayo language gayo language area is geographically situated in central region of aceh which is located in the six regencies, namely (a) east aceh regency, (b) bener abdussalam & salami mahmud englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 193 meriah regency, (c) central aceh regency, (d) gayo luwes regency, (e) south-east aceh regency, and (f) aceh tamiang regency (see the maps!). image taken from http://uranggayo.wordpress.com/ the purposes and the significance of study the purposes of the study are (1) to identify the number of variation lexically and phonologically; (2) to decide categorization of accent, sub dialect, dialect, or language differences between bahasa gayo as an old malay and bahasa indonesia as a new malay; and (3) to describe linguistically relationship between the old malay and new malay as the answer to the question of the study. the significant of this study are: (a) realization of the idea about preserving local languages based on the statute uud 45; (b) proving the phonological and lexical variants of gayo and malay languages; (c) increasing the professionalism on writing about dialectology; (d) supporting the vocabulary of gayo and indonesian; (e) enhancing self confidence to speak in gayo and malay languages among the spokesperson; (f) developing knowledge on dialectology; (g) adding new reading material on the language; (i) knowing where the spokesperson come from; and (h) recommendation for decision maker in applying the government policy on language. gayo language is old malay (a dialectology study: the language change) 194 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 literature and theory at this point, it will be discussed the literature of gayo seeing from the views of history, archeology, genealogy, anthropology, and linguistics. from the history view: according to said (1961), monograph team from unsyiah (1970), ibrahim (2001), gayo speaking people are the old malay originated from backside of india and occupied alongside of indonesian islands during the time of the first movement. aminurrashid (as cited in nonki, 2011) states that "...the ethnic called malay was living people at the outside bank of a small river that is named as sungai melayu (melay river) to the upward of sungai batanghari (now, sungai jambi). they had been there more or less +1500 years ago. it had been occupied by a malay kingdom before a well-known sriwijaya kingdom or old palembang. archeology view: the very new fact from archeology officer in medan is that the fossils of gayo’s ancestors which are called as old malay have been discovered recently. they had been living in takengen since the time 4.400 to 3.580 years elapsed (http://aceh.tribunnews.com/). anthropology view: it is believed that gayo culture was from howabinh that had been existed since the mesolithic ages +7.000-5.000 years elapsed (see, http://aceh.tribunnews.com/2011/12/12/kajian-arkeologis-suku-batak-dari-gayo and waspada, 11 january 2012, c11). it means gayo people have been existed +3.500 years earlier than malay kingdom and sriwijaya one. gayo is categorized as old malay or proto melay. genealogy view: it is told that gayo people have genealogical relationship with old malay. in the book aceh sepanjang abad, it is stated that gayo ancestor were old malay that strided out alongside of coastal area and settled to the central part of aceh caused by the coming of new malay from indo-china and kampuchea in the year 300 b.c. they lived along side of coastal area of north and east of aceh as well as along side of jambo aye river, perlak, and kuala simpang (said, 1985, pp. 76). gayo people formerly lived in the coastal area of north and east part of aceh, exactly in perlak and pase. later on, they settled into central part of mounabdussalam & salami mahmud englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 195 tainous area of aceh loser antara which is now called as gayo high land (ibrahim, 2001). linguistics view: gayo language is a language that is spoken by aceh gayo or old melayu which is more popular called as urang gayo = gayo people. the majority of them live in central aceh (uu 24/1956), southeast aceh (uuno. 7/1974), gayo lues (uuno. 4/2002), and bener meriah (uu 41/2003). before the year 1974, the four regions belong to central aceh regency. some of gayo people reside in other regions, such as gayo kalul in aceh tamiang (uu 4/2002), gayo lukup or serbejadi, in east aceh (uu 24/1956). before 1956, gayo kalul and serbejadi belong to central aceh. in the year 2002, aceh tamiang was part of east aceh regency. a small number of gayo people exist in aceh singkil (uu 14/1999), southwest aceh (uu 4/2002), subulussalam city (uu 8/2007), and other parts of indonesia (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/aceh). gayo people do not have a special writing system; however, it was derived from arabic and modified tobe so-called as arab melayu or arab jawi. it is known since the time of islam existence in andalas or sumatra island. alphabetical writing system or latin’s writing symbols were not recognized before the dutch colonialization period (ibrahim, 2001, pp. 1-7). gayo language is spoken by gayo people spread along the six regencies of aceh. it is stated that the phyla of melay polynesia language inherits the local languages such as melay, javanese, sundanese, minangkabau, achinese, batak, balinese, bugis, nias, toraja, sasak, seram, dayak, and gayo in indonesia (kern, as cited in nasution & sembiring, 2007, p. 56). dialectology the terms of dialectology, accent, dialect, language, and variant are as follows: (a) the systematic study of regional dialects is known variously as dialectology, dialect geography, geolinguistics, or linguistic geography” (see, crystal, 1992:26; chambers and trudgill, 1980:207); (b) accent “a national, local or individual way of pronouncing words” (hornby, 1999:6). for example, speak english with a foreign accent!(c) dialect “the form of a language used in part of country or by a class of people with grammar, words and pronunciation that may be different from other gayo language is old malay (a dialectology study: the language change) 196 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 forms of the same language” (hornby, 1999, p. 319); (d) language, in gayo is called as basa or bahasa. it means a systematic system apply to communicate ideas or feelings by using sign, sound, gesture, or signal that is considered and known its meaning (brown, 2008, p. 406) or “the system of sounds and words used by humans to express their thoughts and feelings” (hornby, 1999, p. 662); (e) variant or variation is “a thing that differs from other things or from a standard” (hornby, 1999, p. 1320). so, variants in this study are linguistic form differences of lexical and phonetically used by the two languages, namely bahasa gayo as old malay and bahasa indonesia as the new malay. “all aspects of language structure and use are subject to changes, but the most noticeable and frequent changes affect pronunciation and vocabulary, and it is these which have attracted most study” (crystal, 1992, p. 328). so, language is change “dari kaku ke baku” from a rigid into flexible one, from imperfect to be perfect one, such as: old english to be middle english and modern english. old bahasa indonesia into new one, such as ejaan bahasa indonesia yang disempurnakan (eyd). for example: yung→igung→idung→hidung (nose) yup→iup→iyup→tiup (blow) ka’→kak→akak →kakak →kakanda (sister) sap→isap→hisap (suck) ancient malay-old malay-new malay: savanakna→sebanyaknya→sebanyak-banyaknya (as much as possible) manghidupi→menghidupi (to earn for a living) -varang→barang (things) vuatna→buatnya (for him/her) -prakara→perkara (matter) studies on dialectology, in indonesia, have been done since 1951 (lauder, 2002). it is mentioned that there are 172 studies on dialectology all over indonesia which is considered having more or less 735 languages. one of them is the study on javanese done by nothofer. he came into conclusion that javanese dialect found in western part of jogja is more conservative than that of jogja, showing the characteristic of ancient java (nothofer, as cited in laksono, 2001). so, does bahasa gayo (old melay) differ from or close to bahasa indonesia (new melayu)? how are the variants? abdussalam & salami mahmud englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 197 language variants can be found in the form of phonological variant and lexical one. it is important to differ between phonological and lexical features in this study because to categorize linguistic features of a language into accent, sub dialect, dialect, or a language by using dialectometry formula, the variation of phonology is neglected (ayatrohaedi in mahsun, 1995, p. 119). phonological variants among the regions are noticed if (a) the variants of lexeme conduce the same meaning or correspond to one and another, (b) the variants between the lexeme that show the same meaning if one or two sounds exist at the same position. the variant of lexeme that shows the same meaning is regarded as phonological variant if the lexeme is derived from the same lexical or the same protolanguage. if there is another reflection of a lexical or corresponding of its meaning is considered that it has two variants, namely phonological variant and lexical one (mahsun, 1995, p. 23-24). the variation of phonological feature caused by deletion or addition of vowel or consonant sounds is used to be happened and it is so-called sound variation or the style of a language. according to linguist, dialect variation consists of five styles: (1) phonetic or phonological variant, for example: in bahasa gayo: /aih/, /wih/, /waih/ ‘water’; and kuhi, kusi, kusihen ‘where’; (2) semantic variant, including: (a) synonym, a word that has the same meaning of a thing at different place, such as in bahasa gayo lues and gayo laut: poen and poa ‘salt’; (b) homonym, words with the same form but different meanings of different places, for example, bayi ‘baby’ = anak (bahasa indonesia) and bayi ‘bride’= pengantin (bahasa gayo); lang ‘tomorrow’ = besok (gayo) and lang ‘no’ = tidak (karo); enggih ‘no’ = tidak (gayo) and enggih ‘yes’ = ya (java). (3) onomasiological variant, the set of associated concepts in relation to their languitic forms at different places, such as tahlil, wirid, pengajien, and yasinen ‘menghadiri pengajian = attending to reading group’ (gayo laut-gayo lues); (4) semasiological variant, the set of the same concept for different meaning, e.g. padang = kota (city), suku (tribe), sate (skewered meat); (5) morphological variant, the variation of word structure of the same language, e.g. (gayo) gure-geguren = senang-kesenangan ‘delight-delightment’, gayo language is old malay (a dialectology study: the language change) 198 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 mangan-pemanganan = makan-makanan ‘eat-food’ (guirald, as cited in ayatrohaedi, 1983, p. 3–5). another linguist divides the variants into ten language styles (mahsun, 1995, p. 33-39), such as assimilation, dissimilation, metathesis, constriction, aphaeresis, syncope, apocope, prothesis, epenthesis, and paragog. (1) assimilation is the influence exercised by one sound upon the articulation of another, so that the sounds become more alike, it can be a vowel with another vowel, vowel with consonant, and consonant with another consonant. e.g. (gayo blang-gayo lut): mere→mera = mau ‘want’, amate→amante = bapak kita ‘our father’, sana→hana = apa ‘what’, nise→nice = dia punya ‘her/his’. (2) dissimilation, the influence sound segments have on one another, so that they become less alike. e.g. ancient javanese and new javanese: rwā→roro→loro = dua ‘two’; bahasa gayo and batak karo: sara→sada = satu ‘one’, rowa→dowa = dua ‘two’, tulu→telu = tiga ‘three’, ine→inang = ibu ‘mom’, ama→amang = ayah = ‘father’, engi→anggi = adik perempuan ‘young sister’. (3) metathesis, alteration in a normal sequence of two sound elements. e.g. old melay-new melay or gayo-indonesia: geral→gelar ‘name or title’, ringkalan→lingkaran ‘circle’. (4) contraction, a shortened of two sounds attached to an adjacent form. e.g. bahasa gayo blang-gayo laut: daun→dun = daun ‘leaf’, belang→blang = lapangan ‘square’. (5) aphesis, the loss of an unstressed vowel at the beginning of a word. e.g. in old malay: masin→asin ‘salty’, masam→asam ‘sour’. (6) sincope, the loss of sounds or letters from the middle of a word. e.g. bahasa indonesia: gelembung→gembung ‘bubble’, gerigi→gigi ‘teeth’, gemuruh→guruh ‘thunder’. (7) apocope, the omission of a final syllable, sound, or letter in a word. e.g. bahasa gayo laut: geralle→geral = nama ‘name’, jerohe→jeroh = baik ‘good’, sedeppe→sedep = sedap ‘delicious’. (8) prothesis, the insertion of an extra sound at the beginning of a word. e.g. bahasa indonesia: bu→ibu ‘mom’, kak→kakak ‘sister’, bang→abang ‘brother’. (9) epenthesis, the insertion of an extra sound in the middle of a word. e.g. old malay: doa→dowa = do’a ‘pray’, sumang→sumbang ‘disharmony’, amaku→amangku ‘my father’, saidi→sahidi (one’s name). (10) paragog, the addition of sounds or letters at the end of a word. e.g. gayo language: kune →kunehen = abdussalam & salami mahmud englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 199 bagaimana ‘how’, kusi→kusihen = kemana ‘where’, cerak→ceraken = bicara ‘talk’, keta→ketane = begitu ’then’. some theories in linguistics, a special study on dialect is called dialectology, dialect geography, geolinguistics, or linguistic geography. it is said that dialectology has connection with the other nonlinguistic sciences. that is why, in this writing, before discussing dialectology further, it is necessary to discuss the supporting knowledge such as history, anthropology, archaeology, and genetics. all these sciences can prove the genuine of an ethnic where it is from. so, these are needed to support the probes that aceh gayo is really an old malay or not. 1. historical theory, that people who live in the interior or central of an island or continent are the first dwellers to the island or the continent (see, ibrahim, 2001:1). gayo people live in the central of sumatra island, central aceh. 2. anthropological theory, that human culture is develop time to time, from the traditional era to modern one (from paleolithic→mesolithic→to neolithic). it can be seen from the tools and house wares used, including musical instrument made. 3. archeological theory, the very ancient people can be known their ages from carbonic test of their fossils. it has been found that the fossil of gayo ancestors in ujung karang kebayaken, takengon. the age of the fossils are +6.500 years elapsed (see http://sejarah.kompasiana.com/ 2011/07/05/). 4. genetics theory, someone can be known his ancestor by comparing his genetic or dna with his or her ancestor. the fossils teeth of gayo ancestors in ujung karang kebayaken have been studied by experts from eijkman institute for molecular biology jakarta. the fossils were found by archeologists of north sumatra (see http://www.tanohaceh.com/?p=1129). 5. linguistic theory, “language shows who you are”. the relationship of a tribe to another one can be traced from the language they speak since the linguisgayo language is old malay (a dialectology study: the language change) 200 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 tic features of the speakers can be seen or analyzed to show where they are from. in linguistic theory, there is a theory which is so-called ‘wave theory’. it is popularized by johannes schmidt in the year 1872. according to this theory, the languages used by people in certain region are influenced by the changes of a certain region. it means, a change will spread away (just like the wave) from its core and it does not stop till the border of a dialect since it is able to spread out of a language border to interlanguages. even it influences among the phyla of the languages or intralanguges. there is hypothesis which says that a language is categorized as protolanguage to some other languages can be known by comparing the languages (schwarz, et al., 1992, p. 1176). in this study, the words of aceh gayo (old malay) are compared to bahasa indonesia (new melay). then, the words are analyzed to find the percentage of lexical and phonological variants by using dialectometry formula. method of study and analysis this study uses two methods, library research and field research methods. library research is used to find some information based on writing materials such as book, journal, encyclopedia, dictionary, magazine, newspaper, and other writing materials. field research is used to find data from subjects or informants in the field. to identify accent, sub dialect, dialect, and language variants of bahasa gayo, is used cakap and simak methods or speaking and listening methods sudaryanto, 1993). speaking method is applied by using elicitation technique, face to face, and recording technique. listening method is applied by using techniques of writing and recording. data collecting are analyzed by using matching technique, matching and comparing techniques, contrasting and comparing techniques. data collection is taken from some informants that are fulfilling exceptional requirements (mahsun, 1995; ayatrohaedi, 1983; chambers and trudgill, 1990). the result of recording data is written, and then they are compared with the lexical words found in kamus besar bahasa indonesia. informants are selected from six fields of study. data collection used questionnaire of 850 glosses, ogden’s 859 basic words (crystal, 1992 and abdussalam, 2012). next, selecting the glosses to sort them into lexical and abdussalam & salami mahmud englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 201 phonological variants, neutral or zero (without variant), at last, each group of glosses are calculated by using dialectometry formula to be considered the variant of the two languages into accent, sub dialect, dialect, or language variants (thomas, 1988; guiter in mahsun, 1995:118; sibarani, 1999). the dialectometry formula s x 100 = d% n description: s = number of word variation from area of the study. n = total number of glosses that are compared. d = total percentage of variation. based on the formula, it is measured the lexical variation or differentiation as the following criteria: more than ≥ 81 percent lexical variation is considered as language variant (langue), 51−80 percent lexical variation is considered as dialect variant (dialecte), 31-50 percent lexical variation is considered as sub dialect variant (sousdialecte), 21-30 percent lexical variation is considered as accent variant (parler), and less than ≤ 20 percent lexical variation is considered as no variant (negligeable). (guiter, as cited in sibarani, 1999, p. 9, lauder, 2002, p. 39, and mahsun, 2005, p. 154). the analysis of phonological variation is using guiter criteria: (guiter in mahsun, 2005, p. 155). however, in this study, the standard of phonological criteria are not applied because to determine an accent, sub dialect, dialect, and language variants by using dialectometry formula, the phonological and morphological variants should be ignored (ayatrohaedi in mahsun, 1995, p. 119). the result of study the result of dialectometry analysis on the glosses of 850 basic words show that the variation of bahasa gayo (old malay) compared with bahasa indonesia (new malay) as follows: few lexical variation, namely 165 words = 19,41%, some phonetically variation, 305 words =35,88%, and neutral or zero = 380 words = 44,71%. by adding 1 % error tolerance of data, it is found that lexical variation = gayo language is old malay (a dialectology study: the language change) 202 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 20,41%. it means there is “accent variation” between bahasa gayo (old malay) and bahasa indonesia (new malay). conclusion having seen from the result of dialectometry analyses and supported by archeology, anthropology, genealogy, and history theories, it can be pulled out a supposition that gayo people are the oldest men in sumatra and their language is called as aceh-gayo language or gayo language or old malay that has different accent with new malay or bahasa indonesia (20,41%). so, it is very possible that gayo’s ancestors are also the ancestors for achinese, batak, minangkabau, new malay ad other tribes among sumatra island. the idea has been supported by nasution and sembiring (2007, p. 3-9) that the present melay ethnics named as indonesian, live in all indonesian islands are genuine native people or speakers. based on the conclusion, it is necessary to do further studies with a bigger number of glosses or words, namely 2.000 up to 3.000 glosses and more complete of linguistic aspects, namely lexical, morphological, and phonological features. so, the accuracy of data is more acceptable since few of ogden’s 850 words may not be sufficient any more. abdussalam & salami mahmud englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 203 references abdussalam. (2012). hanya 850 kata gayo-indonesia-inggris untuk komunikasi sehari-hari. medan: program studi linguistik sekolah pascasarjana usu. aceh.tribunnews.com. (2012). kajian arkeologis suku batakdari gayo. retrieved from http://aceh.tribunnews.com/2011/12/12/kajian-arkeologis-sukubatak-dari-gayo ayatrohaedi. (1983). dialektologi: sebuah pengantar. jakarta: pusat pembinaan dan pengembangan bahasa. brown, h douglas. (2008). prinsip pembelajaran dan pengajaran bahasa (transl). (5th edition). jakarta: us embassy. chambers, j.k. and trudgill, p. (1980). dialectology. cambridge, new york, melbourne: cambridge university press. crystal, d. (1992). the cambridge encyclopedia of language. cambridge: cambridge university press. hornby, a.s. (1999). oxford advanced learner’s dictionary. 4th impression. oxford: oxford university press. ibrahim, m. (2001). mujahid dataran tinggi gayo. takengon: yayasan maqamammahmuda. kompasiana. (2012) retrieved from http://sejarah.kompasiana.com/2011/07/05/ menelusuri-sejarah-suku-gayo-melalui-dongeng-dan-bukti-arkeologi/ laksono, kisyani. (2001). bahasa jawa di jawa timur bagian utara dan lex.dambangan: kajian dialektologis. ringkasan disertasi. lauder, multamia rmt. (1993). pemetaan dan distribusi bahasa-bahasa di tangerang. jakarta: pusat bahasa. lauder, multamia rmt. (2002). “reevaluasi konsep pemilah bahasa dan dialek untuk bahasa nusantara”, (jurnal) makara, sosial humaniora, vol.6, no.1 juni 2002 (file pdf). mahsun, (1995). dialektologi diakronis: sebuah pengantar. yogyakarta: gadjah mada university press. nasution, farizal & sembiring, asli br. (2007). budaya melayu. medan: badan perpustakaan dan arsip daerah provinsi sumut. gayo language is old malay (a dialectology study: the language change) 204 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 nonki. (2010). asal usul bahasa melayu. retrieved from http://massahartiga.lex.dogspot.com/2010/03/asal-usul-bahasa-melayu-sebuah-kajian.html nothofer, bernd. (1980). dialektgeographische untersuchungen in west-java und im westlichen zentral-java. wiesbaden: otto horrassowitz. nur, w. w. (2011). menelusuri sejarah suku gayo melalui dongeng dan bukti arkeologi. retrieved from http://sejarah.kompasiana.com/2011/07/05/ menelusuri-sejarah-suku-gayo-melalui-dongeng-dan-bukti-arkeologi/ schwarz, chaterine., davidson, george., et al. (1992). chambers english dictionary, (editors). london: clays ltd. st ives plc. sibarani, robert & hanafiah, ridwan. (1999). geografi dialek bahasa mandailing. medan: departemen pendidikan dan kebudayaan, bagian proyek pembinaan bahasa dan sastra indonesia dan daerah sumatera utara. sudaryanto. (1993). metode dan aneka teknik analisis bahasa: pengantar penelitian wahana kebudayan secara linguistis. yogyakarta: duta wacana university press. tanoh aceh. (2012). 200 siswa di takengon jalani tes dna. retrieved from http://www.tanohaceh.com/?p=1129 thomas, alan r. (1988). methods in dialectology. philadelphia: multilingual matters ltd. wikipedia. (2011). aceh. retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/aceh abdussalam & salami mahmud englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 205 appendix the words phonetically difference between old malay and new malay (indonesia) no. gloss english bahasa gayo (melayu tua) bahasa indonesia (melayu muda) difference/ variant (neutral, lexical, phonetics) 1 2 3 4 a 2 able, mampu, sangup . mampu, sanggup phon.d 3 about, sekiter . sekitar, phon.d 6 across, semelah . sebelah (seberang), phon.d 7 act, betindak . bertindak, phon.d 8 addition, penamahen . penambahan, phon.d 9 adjustment, penyesuen . penyesuaian, phon.d 13 against, berlewenen. berlawanan phon.d 14 agreement, persetujuen . persetujuan, phon.d 15 air, hewe, kuyu. hawa, bayu, phon.d 16 all, seloroh . seluruh, phon.d 17 almost, hamper. hampir, phon.d 19 amount, jemlah . jumlah, phon.d 20 amusement, hiburen . hiburan, phon.d 22 angle, sagi, sodot . segi, sudut, phon.d 23 angry, benges . bengis (marah) phon.d 24 animal, benatang . binatang, phon.d 25 answer, jeweben . jawaban, phon.d 28 apparatus, peralaten . peralatan, phon.d 29 apple, wah napel . buah apel, phon.d 30 approval, persetujuen . persetujuan, phon.d 31 arch, bangunen mulengkung. bangunan melengkung, phon.d 32 argument, alasen . alasan, phon.d 34 army, tentera . tentara, phon.d 36 as, sebage (lagu) . sebagai, phon.d 39 attempt, cube. coba (usaha) phon.d 40 attention, peratin, pratin . perhatian, phon.d 42 authority, keahlien . keahlian, phon.d 43 automatic, otomates . otomatis, phon.d 44 awake terjege (wet nome). terjaga, phon.d b 49 balance, timang , imbang, phon.d gayo language is old malay (a dialectology study: the language change) 206 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 50 ball, bal . bola, phon.d 51 band, ben, rombongen . ben, rombongan, phon.d 54 basket, keranyang . keranjang, phon.d 56 be, ara, jadi. ada, jadi, phon.d, n 58 because, sebeb . sebab, phon.d 59 bed, rosbang . rusbang, phon.d 61 before, sebelam . sebelum, phon.d 62 behavior, kelakun . kelakuan, phon.d 63 belief, kepercayaen . kepercayaan, phon.d 66 berry, uwah (ni) beri . buwah beri phon.d 70 bit, tetikik, tikit . sedikit, phon.d 72 bitter, pait, pit pahit, phon.d 73 lex.dack, item, hitam, phon.d 76 lex.dow, iyup . tiup, phon.d 79 boat, perau . perahu, phon.d 80 body, beden . badan, phon.d 82 bone, tulen . tulang, phon.d 88 brain, utok . otak, phon.d 91 brass, kuningen . kuningan, phon.d 92 bread, ruti . roti, phon.d 94 brick, atu bata . batu bata, phon.d 98 brother, abang, sudere . abang, saudara, n, phon.d 101 bucket, emer . ember, phon.d 102 building, bangunen . bangunan, phon.d 103 bulb, bohlam, gelemung . bohlam, gelembung, n, phon.d 107 but, tapi. tetapi, phon.d c. 117 cart, pedati, gerbak . pedati, gerobak n,phon.d 119 cause, sebeb . sebab, phon.d 121 chain, rante . rantai, phon.d 123 chance, kesempaten,can . kesempatan, phon.d 128 chest, peti, dede. peti, dada, n, phon.d 132 circle, ringkelen . lingkaran, phon.d r = l (alofon) 135 clock, jem . jam, phon.d 138 coal, atubere . batubara, phon.d 148 company, perusahaen,rombongen perusahaan,rombongan, phon.d 149 comparison, perbandingen . perbandingan phon.d 153 condition, keadaen, parie . keadaan phon.d 154 connection, hubungen . hubungan, phon.d 156 control, kendalin . kendali, phon.d 157 cook, mujerang . menjerang, phon.d abdussalam & salami mahmud englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 207 158 copper, tembege . tembaga, phon.d 163 cough, matuk . batuk, phon.d 166 cow, lemu . lembu, phon.d 169 crime, kejahaten . kejahatan, phon.d 170 cruel, kejem, kasar . kejam, kasar phon.d, n 171 crush, tebrak . tabrak, phon.d 175 curtain, tire . tirai, phon.d 178 cut . mungerat, munebang . mengerat, menebang phon.d d. 179 damage, kerusaken . kerusakan, phon.d 181 dark, gelep . gelap, phon.d 182 daughter, peteri . putri, phon.d 184 dead, mate . mati, phon.d 186 death, kematen . kematian, phon.d 187 debt, utang . hutang, phon.d 188 decision, keputusen . keputusan, phon.d 189 deep, relem, delem . dalam, phon.d 190 degree, derejet,tingket . derajat,tingkat, phon.d 191 delicate, sedep . sedap, phon.d 192 dependent, ketergantungen . ketergantungan, phon.d 193 design, murancang . merancang, phon.d 194 desire, keinginen, kenak . keinginan, kehendak phon.d 195 destruction, perusaken. perusakan, phon.d 197 development, pengembangen . pengembangan, phon.d 198 different, mubeda, bebeda . berbeda, phon.d 199 digestion, pencernaken ,lamung. pencernaan, lambung phon.d 202 discovery, penemun . penemuan, phon.d 207 distribution, penyaluren . penyaluran, phon.d 208 division, bagen . bagian, phon.d 209 do, bebuet . berbuat, phon.d 214 drain, saluren, parik . saluran, parit phon.d 216 dress, pekayan . pakaian, phon.d 218 driving, munyepir . menyopir, phon.d 219 drop, tetep, singah . tetes, singgah, phon.d e. 222 ear, cuping, kemiring . kuping, phon.d 223 early, awal, mulo . awal, mula n, phon.d 227 education, pendidiken . pendidikan, phon.d 228 effect, akibet, pengaruh . akibat, pengaruh, phon.d, n 230 elastic, elastis, tegangkenur . elastis, tegangkendur n, phon.d 232 end, akhire, selese . akhir, selesai phon.d gayo language is old malay (a dialectology study: the language change) 208 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 236 error, kesalahen . kesalahan, phon.d 237 even, malahen . malahan, phon.d 238 event, peristiwe, kejaden peristiwa, kejadian phon.d 240 every, setiep, jep . setiap, phon.d 241 example, contoe . contoh, phon.d 242 exchange, pertukeren . pertukaran, phon.d 243 existence, keberadaen . keberadaan, phon.d 244 expansion, perluesen . perluasan, phon.d 245 experience, pengalamen . pengalaman, phon.d 246 expert, tenege ahli . tenaga ahli, phon.d f. 250 fall, musim gugur, metuh . musim-gugur, jatuh n, phon.d 255 fat, gemok, gotol . gemuk, phon.d 260 feeling, perasaen . perasaan phon.d 263 fiction, cerite . cerita, phon.d 264 field, ume . huma, phon.d 266 finger, jari, jejari . jari, jemari n, phon.d 268 first, mulo, pemulo . mula, pemula phon.d 269 fish, iken . ikan, phon.d 271 flag, bendera, kiberen . bendera, kibarkan, n, phon.d 272 flame, munyala . menyala, phon.d 273 flat, gempes . kempes, phon.d 274 flight, penerbangen . penerbangan, phon.d 275 floor, lante . lantai, phon.d 276 flower, bunge . bunga, phon.d 278 fold, lipeten . lipatan, phon.d 279 food, panganen . penganan, phon.d, 280 foolish, ogoh . bodoh, phon.d 283 force, kekueten . kekuatan, phon.d 284 fork, gerpu, penggarut garpu, penggarut phon.d, n 288 frame, bingke . bingkai, phon.d 289 free, gratis, cume-cume gratis, cuma-cuma, n, phon.d 292 from, ari . dari, phon.d 294 fruit, uah, uwah. buah, buwah phon.d g. 299 get, depet . dapat, phon.d 301 give, osah . kasih, phon.d 305 goat, kaming . kambing, phon.d 312 green, ijo . hijau, phon.d 314 grip, tengkam . tangkap, phon.d 316 growth, pertumuhen . pertumbuhan, phon.d 317 guide, pemannu. pemandu, phon.d abdussalam & salami mahmud englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 209 h. 320 hammer, tukul, mertil. tukul, martil, n, phon.d 323 happy, bahgie . bahagia, phon.d 324 harbor, pelabuhen . pelabuhan, phon.d 329 have, milik ara . milik, ada, n, phon.d 331 head, mumimpin, ulu. memimpin, hulu, phon.d 334 heart, jantung, ate . jantung, hati, n, phon.d 336 help, bantu, tulung . bantu, tolong n, phon.d 337 here, i sin, i sien . di sini, phon.d 340 hole, luwang, loyang . lubang, phon.d 342 hook, sangkuten. sangkutan, phon.d 343 hope, harapen . harapan, phon.d 344 horn, terompet, tanuk . terompet, tanduk, n, phon.d 345 horse, kude . kuda, 346 hospital, umah sakit . rumah sakit, phon.d 347 hour, jem . jam, phon.d 348 house, umah . rumah, phon.d i. 353 idea, ide, pemikiren . ide, pemikiran , phon.d 354 if, ike . jika, phon.d 357 impulse, gerak ni ate . gerakan hati, phon.d 359 increase, muningket . meningkat, phon.d 364 instrument, peralaten . peralatan, phon.d 365 insurance, jaminen, asuransi . jaminan, asuransi, phon.d, n 366 interest, bunge, minet . bunga, minat, phon.d 367 invention, penemun . penemuan, phon.d 369 island . pulo . pulau. phon.d j. 370 jelly, sele . selai, phon.d 372 join, gabungen . gabungan, phon.d 373 journey, perjelenen . perjalanan, phon.d 375 jump . lumpet . lompat. phon.d k. 379 kick, tipak . sepak, phon.d 381 kiss, cum, cumen . cium, ciuman, phon.d 385 knowledge . pengetahuen, ilmu . pengetahuan, ilmu. phon.d, n l. 386 land, dereten, tanoh . daratan, tanah, phon.d 392 lead, petunyuk, pimpin . petunjuk, pimpin, phon.d, n 393 leaf, dun, ulung . daun, phon.d gayo language is old malay (a dialectology study: the language change) 210 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 394 learning, pelejeren . pelajaran, phon.d 398 let, bier, ijinen . biar, ijinkan, phon.d 399 letter, suret, tulisen, huruf . surat, tulisan, huruf, phon.d, n 400 level, tingket . tingkat, phon.d 403 light, caya, nyala . cahaya, nyala, phon.d, n 407 linen, lemut, lemek . lembut, lembek, phon.d 409 liquid, cairen . cairan, phon.d 411 little, tikik . dikit , phon.d 412 living, kehidupen . kehidupan, phon.d 417 loud, inger . hingar, phon.d 419 low, renah . rendah. phon.d m. 421 make, buet, tos . buat, phon.d 423 man, urang, rawan . orang, lelaki, phon.d, lex.d 424 manager, menejer, pimpinen . manajer, pimpinan, phon.d 426 mark, tene . tanda, phon.d 428 married, munikah, kerje . menikah, phon.d 429 match, adu, judu . adu, jodoh, n, phon.d 430 material, reta, bene . harta, benda, phon.d 431 mass, rami, rayat . ramai, rakyat, phon.d 433 meal, makanen, mangan . makanan, makan, phon.d 436 medical, kesehaten . kesehatan, phon.d 437 meeting, pertemuen, rapat . pertemuan, rapat, phon.d, n 438 memory, memori, ingeten . memori, ingatan, n, phon.d 443 mind, pikiren . pikiran, phon.d 447 mixed, icampur, iaduk . dicampur, diaduk, phon.d 450 month, bulen (tanggal) . bulan, (tanggal), phon.d 451 moon, ulen (planet) bulan (planet) phon.d 452 morning, soboh . subuh, phon.d 454 motion, begerak . bergerak, phon.d 457 move, pinah . pindah, phon.d 458 much, more, bayak, lebih bayak, dele. banyak, lebih banyak, phon.d n. 462 name, nahma, geral . nama, gelar phon.d 469 need, kebutuhen, keperluen . kebutuhan, keperluan, phon.d 474 news, berite, keber . berita, kabar, phon.d 475 night, kelam, gelep . malam, gelap, phon.d 476 no, enggih, gere . enggak, tidak, phon.d 477 noise, inger . hingar, phon.d abdussalam & salami mahmud englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 211 480 nose, iyung, igung . hidung, phon.d 482 note, cataten . catatan, phon.d o. 486 observation, pengamaten . pengamatan, phon.d 487 of, tentang, mungenai . tentang, mengenai, phon.d 488 off, matinen . matikan, phon.d 489 offer, tawaren . tawarkan, phon.d 492 old, tue . tua, phon.d 495 open, uke . buka, phon.d 497 opinion, pendepet, pikiren pendapat, pikiran, phon.d 498 opposite, lewen (kata) . lawan (kata), phon.d 503 ornament, hiasen . hiasan, phon.d 504 other, laen, len . lain, phon.d 507 over, i atas . di atas, phon.d p. 511 paint, cet . cat, phon.d 513 parallel, sejejer . sejajar, phon.d 514 parcel, bungkusen . bungkusan, phon.d 515 part, bagien . bagian, phon.d 518 payment, pembayaren . pembayaran, phon.d 519 peace, dame . damai, phon.d 520 pen, pelpen . pulpen, phon.d 522 person, urang, manusie. orang, manusia, phon.d 531 plate, pingen, plat . pinggan, plat , phon.d, n 532 play, men, drama . main, drama , phon.d, n 534 pleasure, kesenangen . kesenangan , phon.d 536 pocket, sak, kantong . saku, kantong, phon.d, n 538 poison, racun, tube . racun, tuba, n, phon.d 540 political, pelitik, pendukung politik, pendukung phon.d, n 543 position, posisi, keduduken posisi, kedudukan, n, phon.d 545 pot, pot,cerek . pot, ceret, phon.d 546 potato, gantang . kentang, phon.d 548 power, kuasa, tenege . kuasa, tenaga, phon.d 552 prison, penjere . penjara, phon.d 554 probalex.de, kemungkinen . kemungkinan, phon.d 558 property, aset, reta . aset, harta, n, phon.d 563 pump, pumpah . pompa, phon.d 564 punishment, hukumen . hukuman, phon.d 565 purpose, tujuen . tujuan, phon.d 566 push, tulak, degen . tolak, tekan, phon.d gayo language is old malay (a dialectology study: the language change) 212 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 q. 569 question, pertanyaen . pertanyaan, phon.d 572 quite . sunguh . sungguh, phon.d r. 578 ray, siner . sinar, phon.d 581 reading, mubaca . membaca, phon.d 582 ready, siep . siap, phon.d 583 reason, alasen . alasan, phon.d 586 regret, penyesalen, munyesal penyesalan, menyesal phon.d 588 relation, hubungen . hubungan, phon.d 593 responsible, bertanggungjeweb . bertanggung jawab, phon.d 594 rest, isterhat . istirahat, phon.d 601 road, jelen . jalan, phon.d 602 rod, tangke . tangkai, phon.d 608 round, puteren . putaran, phon.d 610 rule, aturen . aturan, phon.d s. 618 say, ucepen . ucapkan, phon.d 620 school, sekulah . sekolah, phon.d 621 science, ilmu pengetahuen . ilmu pengetahuan, phon.d 630 seed, eneh . benih, phon.d 631 selection, pemilihen . pemilihan, phon.d 632 self, diri, kendiri . diri, sendiri, phon.d 633 send, mungirim . mengirim, phon.d 636 separate, mupisah . berpisah, phon.d 644 sheep, bebiri . biri-biri, phon.d 648 shock, guncangen . goncangan, phon.d 650 short, singket . singkat, phon.d 653 sign, tenne . tanda, phon.d 655 silver, pirak . perak, phon.d 657 sister, adek, aka . adik, kakak phon.d 658 size, ukuren . ukuran, phon.d 664 slope, mereng . miring, phon.d 667 smash, cemes . smes, phon.d 671 smooth, alus . halus, phon.d 679 soft, lemut . lembut, phon.d 680 solid, pedet . padat, phon.d 681 some, tikik . dikit, phon.d 683 song, nyanyin, lagu . nyanyian, lagu phon.d, n 687 soup, sop . sup, phon.d abdussalam & salami mahmud englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 | 213 690 special, husus . khusus, phon.d 691 sponge, sepon, mugosok . sepon, menggosok, n, phon.d 692 spoon, senok . sendok, phon.d 699 statement, pernyataen . pernyataan, phon.d 705 stick, tungket . tongkat, phon.d 711 stone, atu . batu, phon.d 716 street, jelen, dene . jalan, phon.d 717 stretch, mulonggaren . melonggarkan, phon.d 718 stiff, jekang, kental. kejang, kental, phon.d, n 720 strong, kuet . kuat, phon.d 723 sugar, gule . gula, phon.d 726 support, dukungen . dukungan, phon.d t. 741 teaching, ejeren, ejer . ajaran, ajar, phon.d 744 than, aripada . daripada, phon.d 745 that, behwe . bahwa, phon.d 747 then, kemudien, kemuden . kemudian, phon.d 749 there, i sone . di sana, phon.d 750 thick, tebel . tebal, phon.d 752 thing, benne . benda, phon.d 754 though, meskipe . meskipun , phon.d 755 thought, pikiren . pikiran, phon.d 760 thunder, gegur . guntur, phon.d 761 ticket, kercis . karcis, phon.d 763 till, hinge, sampe . hingga, samapai phon.d 767 to, ku . ke, phon.d 771 tongue, dilah . lidah, phon.d 775 town, kute . kota, phon.d 776 trade, perdagangen . perdagangan, phon.d 777 train, kretapi . kereta api, phon.d 778 transport, pengangkuten . pengangkutan, phon.d 786 twist . puter . putar, phon.d u. 791 use, gune, pake’ guna, pakai phon.d v. 796 view, pandangen, anggapen . pandangan, anggapan phon.d 797 violent, kekejemen . kekejaman, phon.d w. 799 waiting, munanti . menanti, phon.d 808 wave, gelumang . gelombang, phon.d gayo language is old malay (a dialectology study: the language change) 214 | englisia vol. i no. 2, may 2014 812 week, mingu . minggu, phon.d 814 well, jeroh, telege . baik, telaga, lex.d, phon.d 818 when, ketike . ketika, phon.d 821 whip, cambuk, dere . cambuk, dera, n, phon.d 822 whistle, piul . siul, phon.d 823 white, puteh . putih, phon.d 826 wide, lues . luas, phon.d 840 work, buet, kerje. buat, kerja, phon.d 842 wound, luke . luka, phon.d 843 writing, tulisen . tulisan, phon.d x. y. 845 year, taun, tun . tahun, phon.d 847 yes, eya, ole, o beta . iya, o begitu, phon.d, lex.d 849 you, kam, ko . kamu, kau phon.d 850 young. mude . muda. phon.d z. phonetically difference = 305 words (35.88%) englisia november 2015 vol. 3, no. 1, 23-37 information and communication  technology (ict) and its role in  educational assessment  marina universitas malikussaleh, indonesia marina@unimal.ac.id abstract this paper identifies the role of ict in assessment practices in education. the significant factors that schools and teachers should consider include the benefits it can provide to improve and enhance assessment. the primary focus of this paper is: what are the roles ict can provide to support assessment in education? ict has several roles and supports in educational assessment practices. this paper emphasizes its roles in two parts: testing, and tasks. ict can be used in testing to administer tests, to score the tests, to analyse the result and to facilitate teachers in assessing learning outcomes. besides, ict can be integrated in completing student’s task such as portfolio and project-based assessment. ict provides opportunities for students to create electronic versions of their portfolio. ict can also support students to complete their project. it is essential for teachers to realise that the rubric used to assess e-portfolios and projects must also assess students’ technology use. keywords: ict; assessment; technology-based assessment introduction schools in the modern day have become more sophisticated in terms of the development of their instruction infrastructure and facilities. previously, the school environment was limited to having a class with chairs, tables and a board. most of the instruction activities were conducted in class in front of students and most of the assessment processes were performed in class with paper and pencil tests. given that technology has developed very rapidly and has influenced every aspect of life, information and communication technology (ict) and its role in educational assessment 24 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 including education, technology, computers and the internet should be integrated into education to support instruction and assessment processes. in ict environment, instructional activities do not have to occur in class all the time. teachers and students can also communicate through email or other online media. specifically, in relation to assessment, ict are used to support assessment practice in various ways. computers can be used as the medium for testing, to score students’ tests using automatic scoring software and as a tool for doing assessment tasks. this phenomenon is considered as a new way of measuring educational outcomes and is well known as technology-based assessment. john and wheeler (2008) state that because of current advances in ict, assessment of learning is now experiencing change in ways that have lead it to revision of the methods, rationale and process of testing. in addition, jonassen et al (2009) point out that the use of technology to support assessment is not only done by converting traditional forms of assessment into a digital format, such as computer-based testing, quizzes or surveys, but it can also be used to assess higher-order learning outcomes. this article investigates the notion of ict-based assessment or e-assessment and its role in education. it is hoped that it would make assessment in education more beneficial and effective in the future. ict to support assessment practice education constitutes one of the important aspects in developing nations because it is through education that people will be able to develop their human capital. quality education needs good assessment. nitko and brookhart (2011, p. 3) define assessment as ‘a process for obtaining information that is used for making decisions about students; curricula, programs, and schools; and educational policy’. based on studies of classrooms, stiggins et al (as cited in nitko & brookhart, 2011) state that teachers should use many sources of information to assess students’ achievement. therefore, to gain complete and accurate information about students, it is better for teachers to use a wide range of assessments. in education, one aspect that raises much research and study is the importance of ict use in assessment practice. in many ways, ict can support assessmarina englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 25 ment practice. ict can also be used to support formative and summative assessment. according to the organization for economic co-operation and development (oecd) (2001), there are three main rationales for the importance of including ict in education. first, the economic aspect: the oecd states that 21st century employers consider workers with ict skills to be preferable. therefore, learners are now aware that acquiring ict skills is important for their future career. second, the social aspect: ict is considered to be a requirement for social participation in the community and workplace since ict now is seen in the same position as literacy and numeracy. in addition, the wider use of ict will lead to some benefits in education, such as a good relationship between home and school, greater parental involvement in student progress and better chances for the interactive involvement of educational institutions in society. third, the pedagogical aspect: ict plays significant roles in broadening and enriching teaching and learning. these three aspects are most likely related to using ict in assessment. students who are encouraged to use ict in working and completing their assignments will be more familiar with ict. current issues in educational assessment can be acknowledged by communicating with experts in any educational institution via email, websites, conference calls and other media. since assessment is part of teaching and learning, it can also be enriched and broadened through ict to support a variety of needs in assessment. campbell (2005) states that rather than only using computer-assisted assessment (caa) to assess students, caa technology can also be used to assist in the assessment process. caa technology such as computer-based testing (cbt) helps teachers in assessing students’ achievement by marking test items and analyzing the test results. it is usually used for examination, quiz and questionnaire type testing. the other important use of caa is to help teachers to do assessments where professional judgment is involved. campbell (2005) developed an e-marking tool as part of his phd research study. he states that the e-marking tool aims to lessen the busy work of marking, such as adding up marks and recording and spell-checking comments by hand. as a result, teachers are able to spend more of their time on quality information and communication technology (ict) and its role in educational assessment 26 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 feedback, reflection and moderation. the e-marking tool has been applied to oral presentations, posters, essays, tutorial papers, tutorial presentation concept maps and exams. the e-marking tool he developed is about moving marking process off the desk and onto the computer by combining and integrating spreadsheet features, word process and database applications. meanwhile, ict can also be used for students to do their assignment. ict is not only used to assess students’ tasks, but also is used to prepare and complete the tasks. for example, students use ict to complete assessment tasks like technologybased projects such as science projects, creating podcasts or photo stories and eportfolios. it is important for teachers to notice that, to assess assessments tasks that integrate ict, they have to assess the technology skills as well. furthermore, burgstahler (2010) states that computers can be used to facilitate people with disabilities to enhance their independence, productivity and capabilities. however, the computer needs adaptive or assistive hardware and software that can help people with disabilities. for example, to be readily used, a standard computer needs built-in access devices or unique combinations of software and hardware used for certain disabilities such as for voice or braille output. this benefit of ict in education, particularly assessment, will really assist people with disabilities to do their assessment more effectively. in addition, it also helps teachers to avoid discrimination and to be fair in a way that every student can be assessed according to their conditions and needs. thus, it is clearly explained that the inclusion of ict in education cannot be avoided. the use of ict by teachers and students will support the assessment process. for teachers, they can catch up with the development in educational technology so that they can be digital teachers. for students, the use of ict will prepare their computer skills so that they will be ready to be digital learners and workers. testing and ict testing is defined as ‘a method of measuring a person’s ability, knowledge, or performance in a given domain’ (brown, 2004, p. 3). brown further explains that the terms ‘testing’ and ‘assessment’ are sometimes used interchangeably, but actualmarina englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 27 ly have different meanings. assessment is a much broader term, and testing is part of assessment. assessment can be conducted in many forms and in an ongoing process, while testing has a more formal administrative procedure and occurs at certain times in a curriculum to provide measurement and evaluation. mcdonald (2007) asserts that testing aims to obtain relevant and accurate data to make important decisions with a minimal amount of error. burkhardt and pead (2003) state that the potential use of computers as a tool for assessment has been in the minds of educators for years, but has not yet produced many practices in classroom assessment. however, since the massive growth of computers and the internet in the 1990s, there has been the possibility of replacing traditional examinations with online testing. essentially, the use of ict in testing can be conducted in either the online or offline setting. some examples of assessment tools that are used in the online setting given by dawley (2007) include course surveys, exams and testing tools, internet assessment tools such as hotpotatoes, quia, exambuilder, rubric tools like rubi star and quiz creation tools such as quizstar. in addition, some survey tools are available such as survey monkey, zoomerang, survey pro, surveygold and survey gizmo. these tools are used to create questions such as multiple choice, essay, true/false, matching, fill-in-the-blank and ordering types of questions in online testing. when students are required to take the tests, the internet availability is necessary. for the offline setting, a set of questions can be designed by using certain software, such as adobe dreamweaver, which can make an offline version of the test as well as generating the score. the testing programs can be accessed in a computer independent of an internet connection. it is important for teachers who are committed to using ict in assessment to acknowledge these tools and be able to use them. these tools are very useful for helping to create tests in digital settings. in testing, terms such computer based testing (cbt) and computerised adaptive testing (cat) are some of the test systems that use ict as the basis for administrating the test. to gain more insight, the various uses of ict in testing are elaborated. information and communication technology (ict) and its role in educational assessment 28 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 computer as scoring tool in testing testing has been used to assess students for years, especially on large-scale assessments such as national examinations and the cpns test (indonesian civil service admission test), and various language proficiency tests such as the ielts and toefl for english, goethe zertificate for german, and many others. tucker (2009) states that “fill-in-the-bubble” testing has dominated student assessment practices in local, state and national assessments since the invention of the ibm type test scoring machine in 1938. in testing that uses a computer as the scoring tool, the tests are administered by using a paper-pencil test, in which the questions are printed on paper and students are required to fill in the bubble score sheets, basing their answers on multiple-choice question types and, in some tests, filling in the gaps. then, to obtain the score of the test, the computer scans the score sheets. here, the computer acts as scoring tool to help test administrators in the scoring process, which is usually the time-consuming part of assessing multiple-choice tests. tucker (2009) asserts that the computer, as scoring tool, replaces the conventional paper-based multiple-choice or filling the gaps test with computerised versions. the limitations of multiple-choices tests are still there. however, it is essential to keep in mind that the use of computers facilitates a more efficient and effective scoring system, and it is expected to be able to minimise errors. regarding computers as marking tools, burkhardt and pead (2003) maintain that even though artificial intelligence has been developing for more than 40 years, the reliable interpretation of open responses in natural language by computers is still a problem. it needs to be remembered that computers with developed artificial intelligence are able to mark open response tasks, but the reliability is still questionable. in this case, teachers still have a main role in assessing or marking open responses tasks. for essay marking, burkhardt and pead (2003) state that there are several available marking systems, but the systems will not assess semantic analysis. rather, they assess things such as sentence length and ‘rare’ word frequencies. however, the possibility of cheating the system arises if students know the marking algorithms. given such concerns, a human marker is still needed, with a computer used as marina englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 29 backup. if the computer mark and the human mark have very significant differences, a second human marker is called in. to sum up, scoring student assignments like multiple choice tests, and marking reports, projects or oral tasks need a lot of time and effort to produce a fair and accurate scoring. teachers are usually perform as both the test administers and scorers. moreover, the existence of technology and computers can help teachers to do the scoring process faster, which can save a lot of time. however, it needs to be taken into consideration that in some situations, a computer cannot replace a teacher to do marking. the better thing to do if a computer is going to take part in the process of scoring is a mutual contribution of computer and human. computer–based testing (cbt) in testing, the method of using a computer that acts as the test deliverer is called computer-based testing (cbt). according to jonassen et al. (2009), computer-based testing has been used to make the testing process simpler for teachers and administrators and to facilitate faster scoring of students’ work by using scanned sheets and asking students to perform the test on a computer. in computer-based testings, the functions of the computer are as the test medium and as the scorer. the computer can also analyse the test results to check the test item’s performance. mils et al. (2002) state that nowadays, many tests for licensure, certification and admission are done using cbt as a common form of test delivery. cbt has been an option or sole means of test delivery by many large-scale, high-stakes testing programs. in essence, the use of computers as the basis of assessment has spread widely. most computer-based tests consist of fixed and close-ended responses, which are scored by using an automatic electronic scoring machine. however, in some computer-based tests, such as toefl, they offer a written essay section and an oral production section. these sections are scored by humans (brown & abeywickrama, 2010). however, jamieson (2005) discusses the contribution of corpus linguistics in recent developments of computer-based assessment to providing more authenticity by designing more complex tasks and structures and by recording written and orals score by using speech and writing recognition software. as technologies burgeon information and communication technology (ict) and its role in educational assessment 30 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 and become progressively more sophisticated, it is possible that in the coming years, computers and technology will have a wider role in assessment practice, not only in multiple-choice testing, but also in written and oral tests. computerised adaptive testing (cat) the development of computer technology and psychometric theories have triggered a change in the way tests are administered from conventional paper-andpencil tests to computerised adaptive testing (cat) (leung, chang, & hau, 2003). cat is a specific type of computer-based test (cbt) that is assisted by a computer program which replaces a human administrator. the test taker performs this test on a computer. it begins by giving the test taker a moderately difficult question which is immediately scored. the difficulty level of the next question depends on the test taker’s ability to answer previous questions correctly or incorrectly (brown & abeywickrama, 2010). brown and abeywickrama (2010) describe cat as an instrument in which test takers receive a set of questions that meet test specifications and are generally appropriate for their performance level. in short, cat is about a computer program calculating an estimate of a person’s proficiency to choose appropriate questions. cat and other computerised tests are different from paper-and-pencil tests. the national council on measurement in education in the united states (2002) mentions that the paper-and-pencil test has a component called ‘test form’, which is a set of items in a test booklet. several test forms consisting of mostly unique test items are produced by a large testing program each year, and the number of items in a test form is easy to determine. whereas in cat, the test does not have such test forms in paper-and pencil testing. all items with varying difficulties are stored in the cat item pool, which contains a large number of calibrated items. in every cat test, the items are drawn from the item pools by the item selection algorithm, by which the difficulty level of the items is adapted to each individual examinee’s level. cbt and cat are forms of assessment that use a computer as the medium of delivering the test. a testing program or software has been made and saved into a computer or website depending on whether the test is an online or offline version. students will sit in front of a computer to do their test by answering questions and the marina englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 31 computer will manage administration of the test and the scoring process. burkhardt and pead (2003) state that computer-delivered testing offers: 1. economies in the delivery of traditional paper tasks; 2. automatic collection of student responses if the responses consist of simple alphanumeric text, multiple-choice answers and short-answer papers or ‘drag-and-drop’ responses; 3. automatic marking of simple student responses without using human judgement or interpretation; and 4. new types of task presentation using interactive multimedia elements. computerised assessments provide some potential opportunities to test examinees and assist examiners in many ways such as: saving time and paper, effective and efficient test administration and an automatic marking process. it also benefits students in that the test can be conducted at any available time since it is computerised. the shortcomings of testing still exist in the computerised version of test. however, it offers benefits that make the testing process more feasible and efficient and test scoring more fair and accurate. electronic portfolio one form of assessment that can be utilised by teachers is the portfolio. butler and mcmunn (2006) define portfolios as being written and integrated collections of students’ work showing effort, progress or a degree of proficiency. the tendency to use ict in assessment also influences portfolio assessment, in which electronic versions of portfolios are developed in many educational institutions. therefore, an overview of e-portfolio applications in assessment will be elaborated. things such as the organisation and benefits of e-portfolios are discussed. electronic portfolios benefit students just like the hard copy portfolio does since an electronic portfolio is basically trying to replicate the traditional portfolio. instead of using paper or manually collecting students’ works in bundles, the works are collected in an electronic or computer-based format and saved in computer data storage or online data storage. this is what meyer and latham (2008) state as the most evident advantage of the e-portfolio, which is eliminating the physical storage information and communication technology (ict) and its role in educational assessment 32 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 problem which occurs with the paper-based portfolio. in addition, the ict environment provides opportunities to present material that cannot be readily incorporated into a print-based format such as animation, recording and video. further, an eportfolio enables very rapid access to material in the portfolio in a flexible way. the same material could be indexed in different ways to meet different needs. there are many software programs that can be used for an electronic portfolio in either offline or online format. for an online portfolio, ferrara (2010) suggests that to have portfolio assessment program online, an educational institution must have high commitment to providing the most suitable technologies to suit students’ needs. in addition, for online e-portfolios, the availability of internet access is required to access the e-portfolio program, since it is a web-based program, even though some e-portfolio programs also provide offline versions that also need internet access, but not necessarily for accessing the program. strudler and wetzel (2005) mention two routes of portfolio creation that can be taken by educational institutions. some can use off-the-shelf tools such as microsoft office and various web authoring applications while others can use commercial web-based systems (e.g., chalk and wire, john hopkins’ portfolio system, live text, professor portfolio and taskstream). given the fact that the e-portfolio provides many advantages for students, teachers and schools, the application of e-portfolio as part of student assessment needs to be considered. however, the application of e-portfolio might be not easy, but it is possible as long as it is adjusted to the situation and available resources. project-based assessment and technology in assessment, the project is considered as an alternative assessment for a constructivist classroom that provides students opportunity to express what they have learned and help them to define their own view of the topic (tiene & ingram, 2001). nitko and brookhart (2011) recognise two types of project: the individual student project and the group project. the purpose of an individual student project is to show the student’s ability to apply and integrate a wide range of abilities and knowledge as well as using creativity, originality and aesthetics. the purpose of the group project is for students to demonstrate their ability to work collaboratively and marina englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 33 appropriately to create a high-quality project. in view of the fact that a project is an interesting alternative assessment that supports students’ knowledge application into an authentic constructivist project, several uses of ict in projects are reviewed. using a project as an assessment task benefits students in ways that provide them with a real opportunity to implement their knowledge rather than just acquiring it verbally from teachers in class. it facilitates students working in groups to build communication and collaboration skills. for assessment purposes, butler and mcmunn (2006) suggest that projects can assess not only the products of learning, such as reports, but also the process of learning, such as performance in project preparation. nevertheless, it needs to take into consideration that teachers need to develop a good project plan and a good rubric in order to assess students effectively. tiene and ingram (2001) mention several uses of technology to help construct educational projects which support constructivist learning that emphasises students expressing what they have learnt in meaningful ways. they mention several technology-related projects such as developing a powerpoint presentation, a web page or a short television program. it is essential for teachers to realise that there are many ways of using ict in project-based assessment. the other technology-related project is producing a shot television program. tiene and ingram (2001) mention several advantages of performing this project in a classroom assessment. it motivates students and encourages them to investigate a subject thoroughly by writing a script. it also helps to develop a variety of skills, such as imagination and creativity, research, writing ability, organisation, social sensitivity and some technical expertise. producing video for assessment purposes will be a lot of fun for students to do in class. given the fact that project-based assessment provides the opportunity for students to implement their knowledge in creative and productive ways, it is essential for teachers to design a project that supports constructivist learning by integrating the use of ict in the process of completing the project. it needs to take into account that project-based assessment can be implemented in all subject areas in class such as biology, geography, art and so on. however, teachers need to consider school information and communication technology (ict) and its role in educational assessment 34 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 resources and their students’ level of ict skill before planning a project in order to create an effective project-based assessment. assessing technology use in portfolio and project portfolios and projects are forms of performance assessments. according to nitko and brookhart (2011), performance assessment is any assessment technique that requires students to physically demonstrate their understanding of certain knowledge by carrying out a complex, extensive process (e.g. an oral argument presentation, a musical play or knotted rope climbing) or by producing an important product (e.g. a poem, an experiment report or a painting). the use of ict in portfolios and projects will make a difference in the assessment process compared to traditional portfolios and projects. not only will the contents of portfolios and projects be assessed, but also the ability of students’ to demonstrate their ict skills in creating eportfolios and projects. in other words, a rubric used to assess performance that involves ict, has to assess both a student’s knowledge and mastery of technology. projects as performance assessments must have clear details and descriptions of how they will be graded and this must be completed before they are assigned to students. a rubric helps to give students a standard for making a correct project. loveland (2005) points out the importance of standard-based assessment for project-based learning. he recommends the creation of standard-based rubrics, which consist of a set of criteria for a level of performance that must be achieved by students in order to be considered successful, and a set of performance levels which indicate several levels of student attainment, from low to high. in summary, brown and abeywickrama (2010) assert that designing an effective and successful rubric is not an easy job for teachers; it needs effort, care and precision. teachers should also make sure the criteria in a rubric reflect the purposes of the assessment. finally, it is vital for teachers to realise that using rubric-reference assessment is valuable for performance-based assessment. conclusion the discussions of this paper suggest that ict can be applied to support educational assessment practice in several ways. computers can help in scoring stumarina englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 35 dents’ assignments, such as multiple-choice tests and marking reports, essays and projects. the use of an automatic scoring machine to score fill-in-the-bubble testings or a marking system for teachers to mark essays is some examples of using ict as a marking tool. computer can be used as the medium for testing, scoring tests and test score analysis. computer-based testing (cbt) and computerised-adaptive testing (cat) are two examples of ict application in assessment practice in which students perform the test in front of a computer. it also assists students to complete their assessment tasks such as the use of electronic portfolios and project-based assessment. teachers will assess the e-portfolio and project by using a rubric that assesses not only the process and product, but also their students’ use of technology. there are many ways of incorporating ict in assessment practices. schools and other educational institutions can find the most appropriate method that suits their context. therefore, it is now essential for schools to encourage themselves to strengthen their commitment to developing a better assessment practise which can support teachers, students and other stakeholders. references brown, h. d. (2004). language assessment principles and classroom practices. new tork: pearson education inc. brown, h. d., & abeywickrama, p. (2010). language assessment principles and classroom practices (2 ed.). new york: pearson education inc. burgstahler, s. (2010). working together: people with disabilities and computer technology. retrieved from http://www.washington.edu/doit/brochures/pdf/wtcomp.pdf burkhardt, h., & pead, d. (2003). computer based assessment a platform for better tests? in c. richardson (ed.), whither assessment? (pp. 133-148). london, uk: qualifications and curriculum authority. butler, s. m., & mcmunn, n. (2006). measurement and assessment in teaching. san fransisco: josey-bass. campbell, a. (2005). application of ict and rubrics to the assessment process where professional judgement is involved: the features of an e-marking tool. assessment and evaluation in higher education, 30(5), 529-537. information and communication technology (ict) and its role in educational assessment 36 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 dawley, l. (2007). the tools for successful online teaching. london: idea group inc. ferrara, v. m. (2010). technology for online portfolio assessment programs. the journal of continuing higher education, 58(3), 184-185. gipps, c. v. (2005). what is the role for ict-based assessment in universities? studies in higher education, 30(2), 171-180. john, p. d., & wheeler, s. (2008). the digital classroom: harnessing technology for the future. new york: routledge. jamieson, j. (2005). trends in computer-based second language assessment. annual review of applied linguistics, 25, 228-242. jonassen, d., howland, j., marra, r. m., & crismond, d. (2009). meaningful learning with technology. new jersey: pearson education inc. leung, c.-k., chang, h.-h., & hau, k.-t. (2003). computerized adaptive testing: a comparison of three content balancing methods. journal of technology, learning, and assessment, 2(5). retrieved from http://www.jtla.org loveland, t. r. (2005). writing standards-based rubrics for technology education classrooms. technology and engineering teacher, 65(2), 19-22. mcdonald, m. e. (2007). the nurse educator's: guide to assessing learning outcomes (2 ed.). brooklyn: jones and barlett publishers. meyer, b., & latham, n. (2008). implementing electronic portfolios: benefits, challenges, and suggestions. educause quarterly, 1, 34-41. mills, c. n., potenza, m. t., fremer, j. j., & ward, w. c. (2002). computer-based testing building the foundation for future assessments. mahwah, new jersey: lawrence erlbaum associates, inc. ncme. (2002). item and tes disclosure for computerized adaptive tests. in c. n. mills, m. t. potenza, j. f. john & w. c. ward (eds.), computer-based testing building the foundation for future assessment. mahwah, new jersey: lawrence erlbaum associates. nitko, a. j., & brookhart, s. m. (2011). educational assessment of students. boston: pearson. oecd. (2001). learning to change. retrieved from http://www.oecdbookshop.org/ strudler, n., & wetzel, k. (2005). the diffusion of electronic portfolios in teacher education: issues of initiation and implementation. journal of research on technology in education, 37(4), 411-433. marina englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 37 tiene, d., & ingram, a. (2001). exploring current issues in educational technology. new york: mcgraw-hill. tucker, b. (2009). beyond the bubble: technology and the future of student assessment. washington: education sector. englisia may 2019 vol. 6, no. 2, 130-145 teacher teaching styles in introducing concept mapping strategy in reading comprehension activity at senior high schools in meureudu, aceh khairiyah syahabuddin universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia khairiah_syahabuddin@yahoo.com rahmat yusny universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia ryusny@gmail.com nia zahara universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia niazahara95@gmail.com manuscript received march 15, 2019, revised may 11, 2019, first published may 31, 2019, and available online june 19, 2019. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.22373/ej.v6i2.4548 abstract the objective of this study is to learn how english teachers’ teaching style at senior high schools (smas) in meureudu in introducing concept mapping strategy in delivering reading comprehension lesson. in teaching reading comprehension, different teaching styles gives different students learning experience and output, and using concept mapping, students are stimulated to have better control over their comprehension. this study was conducted at sma 1 meureudu and sma 2 meureudu, a town located 123 kms from banda aceh, indonesia. very often, english classes in schools located far from the main cities in aceh suffer from lack interesting activity the study was using qualitative approach through class activity observations and interviews. concept mapping activities facilitated by the teachers at sma 1 meureudu used digital projector and paper handouts as the media for the group activities. the teacher of sma 2 meureudu used only handout paper as a medium and by pairing the students. the findings of this study showed that the teaching styles in delivering reading activity using the concept mapping activity used http://dx.doi.org/10.22373/ej.v6i2.4548 khairiyah syahabuddin, rahmat yusny, & nia zahara englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 131 by the teachers in both schools differ in the way how the teacher assign student to work on the task. the students were found to be more fully engaged in the reading activity with concept mapping compared to any past reading activities using translating line-by-line and answering questions. assigning group reading task also help boost the students motivation and collaborative responsibility to learn. keywords: concept mapping; teaching style; reading comprehension introduction reading is one of the four language skills that is also considered a way to acquire knowledge. according to charlton (2005), reading is meaning-making and problem solving activity that increases in power and flexibility the more it is practiced. in aceh, indonesia, many students are struggling with reading comprehension, especially in comprehending inferred meaning of reading (random information by senior high school students in 2017). those senior high school students, are still confused when they read reading texts. many students in that schools still could not find the main idea in reading comprehension after several times reading the text. one of the common reasons is due to the lack of vocabulary that impedes understanding of the text. very often, they do not understand what the texts want to convey to them although they have managed to extract and find meanings of the details in the text. to try to overcome this problem, it is suggested that teachers could develop a teaching strategy that would help students to identify the main messages of the texts. there are three popular ways to develop reading comprehension strategies especially for efl students in senior high school in aceh, indonesia. the first strategy is identifying purpose of reading the text by asking “why?” and “what?” the second strategy is capturing the details in the text using mind mapping and the third strategy is capturing reader reactions by using the strategy called “mcdowell grid” (kaufman, 2008). sma negeri 1 meureudu and sma negeri 2 meureudu are two senior high schools in meureudu, a small town in pidie jaya district in aceh, indonesia. both schools use k13 curriculum (2013 indonesian school curriculum) in process of design and teaching-learning. based on the preliminary study conducted through a teacher teaching styles in introducing concept mapping strategy in reading comprehension activity at senior high schools in meureudu, aceh 132 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 simple interview with the teachers at both schools on the ways they teach english reading, it is common for teachers to use the three phases’ techniques. firstly, the teacher gives and explains a text. after giving the text, teacher reads each paragraph one by one and then the students were instructed to find difficult words (vocabulary) in the text and find their dictionary meaning. the students are instructed to use their dictionary if needed. the third phase is, whether individually or in groups, students are instructed to answer the comprehension questions activity tasks. ideally, the students should understand the text well. although the students have been taught reading by using the three phases above, students are still finding difficulty to comprehend the text entirely. therefore, based on the preliminary study at both schools, the following sets of problems were found: 1. some of the students have very limited numbers of english vocabulary in performing reading comprehension activity in the class. 2. some of the students are unable to identify the main idea in the text 3. some of the students are unable to identify specific information in the text 4. some of the students are unable to comprehend the inferential meaning in the text 5. some of the students are unable to identify the language features in the text. there are some previous research studies that have been conducted regarding concept mapping strategy. the following are presented here as representative for those. a research conducted by romli (2014) looked at the performance of english teachers and students of mts tarbiyatul falah, bogor, indonesia in using concept mapping strategy. the researcher used observation, interview, and questionnaires to collect the data. the result revealed that the teachers performed the strategy well and the students could understand the reading material well and therefore their scores improved. kinchin and hay (2000) performed a research looking at the use of concept mapping strategy in collaborative groups to increase students’ ability in reading comprehension. the finding stated that the students can understand the reading text clearly. a study conducted in iran by kalhor (2016) showed a positive impact of concept mapping khairiyah syahabuddin, rahmat yusny, & nia zahara englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 133 on the students’ cognitive levels that help them improve their learning styles and academic scores. while those studies focus on the use of concept mapping or mind mapping, his research focuses on the teacher style to help improve students’ reading skills. teachers’ teaching style using different media and strategies in developing reading activity is suggested to alter and vary students reading experience. the aims of the present study is to see whether the teacher’s teaching style in teaching reading comprehension by using concept mapping strategy suggests a different outcome and learning experience. discussion in this research, the researcher used qualitative approach to analyze the data. the focus of qualitative research tends to be on understanding the meaning imbedded in participant experiences through an open-ended, unstructured and subjective approach (lincoln & guba, 1985). interview was conducted to the teachers of the two schools based on a set of main questions. in-depth interview sessions (bungin, 2007) were done by addressing questions openly through face-toface by not following the structure of the questions that have been prepared. the reason is to retrieve as much information from the teacher, which basically are the questions on the teachers’ perceptions on how they understood, and used their knowledge regarding teaching reading comprehension to their students and how they would use concept mapping technique for reading comprehension lessons. another data collection for this study was classroom observation for the two classes held by the teachers from the two schools. the teacher’s behavior during teaching and learning using concept map in reading comprehension were noted by using observational checklist. in analyzing the data, the researcher used observations checklist for the observation, and miles and huberman (1994) analysis for the interview. from the observation, the researcher found that the students of sma 1 meureudu, class xii ipa 1 shows positive attitudes toward the learning process. relatively most of them showed eagerness and interest when learning english and there were few students who participated in the class actively. most of the students teacher teaching styles in introducing concept mapping strategy in reading comprehension activity at senior high schools in meureudu, aceh 134 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 seemed to be passive but attentive, only certain students often shared their opinions during the learning process. when the teacher asked their opinion, some students remained silent. they are shy due to the presence of the researcher who they did not know much yet. regarding the observation to the teacher, the teacher prepared and taught the class well. the teacher has prepared interesting and up-to-date topics to discuss and used the method of concept mapping. the researcher also observed the class conducted an english reading enhancement activity. it was held at the first 15 minutes of the class period. in this activity, each student was encouraged to read available english texts and passages in the book. after the free reading activity the teaching learning process started by the teacher by delivering the lesson based on her prepared lesson plan. the teacher reviewed the past material and then continued the next material. the teachers prepared the projector and paper based handouts as media. at that particular lesson, the teacher provided the picture of world famous person, erdogan, the president of turkey, and then asked the student to describe the person in the picture. the students mentioned what they know about the president quite well. after that the teacher gave the students a picture of an indonesian famous singer, afghan, together with an article about him. every student knew him. and the students tried to describe what they know of the pop singer. the researcher noted that the teacher prepared students’ condition well. it was also observed that the teacher’s way in the presentation or delivering material in teaching learning process was considered unique. she used both bahasa indonesia and english interchangeably to make the students understood what she said. most teachers would just shift to using bahasa indonesia throughout the lesson once they find students facing hard time to understand. the teacher gave the example using concept mapping in reading comprehension on the screen based on the students’ answers about what they could think of afghan, the popular singer in the picture. almost all of the students understood how to use concept mapping in reading comprehension. the teacher divided the students into seven groups and gave the example of steps on how to use concept mapping, followed by an exercise. khairiyah syahabuddin, rahmat yusny, & nia zahara englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 135 teacher gave pictures of a person and descriptive reading articles about the person along with step-by-step instruction in organizing the details into a concept map. in the groups, the students shared everything they knew about the pictures and the articles. the students would share their opinion to others and received others’ opinions in return to be added into the concept map. it could make the students more active and comprehend text better. after the students completed the exercise, the teacher posed some questions to the students about the exercises they were working on and other questions that students would like to have answers with. a few students asked the teacher questions and the teacher answered clearly. from the observation conducted at sma negeri 1 meureudu, it could be concluded that the teaching learning target of english teacher of the classroom was achieved. allowing the students to work and exchange ideas by questioning their friends and the teacher helps them gained a lot more information on the subject, in which also helps them understand the reading article. in addition, having the students to work to be freely interact in groups allow them to become more critical in organizing the components from the reading. the teacher was successful to make students understand or comprehend how to use concept mapping in the reading comprehension. table below summarized the teacher’s preparation, her teaching presentation and teaching method. table 1 observation result of sma negeri 1 meureudu – the preparation no observation aspect yes no researchers/observer’s comment 1 teacher prepared lesson plan √ the teacher prepared class based on lesson plan 2 the goal of teaching in the lesson plan was clear √ teaching learning is clear and understandable. the student understand about the materials 3 teacher prepared teaching media √ the teacher used laptop and projector as a media to show examples of concept map and how to organize the map 4 teacher prepared setting of the classroom √ teacher set the classroom before doing teaching learning. students teacher teaching styles in introducing concept mapping strategy in reading comprehension activity at senior high schools in meureudu, aceh 136 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 for teaching are grouped but they are allowed to work and interact freely within the group and with members of other groups 5 teacher prepared the students’ condition well √ this school conducted 15 minutereading enhancement prior to teaching learning process to stimulate reading interest table 2 observation result of sma negeri 1 meureudu – the presentation no observation aspect yes no researchers/observer’s comment 1 teacher told the target of teaching which should be achieved √ teacher do not tell the target of teaching to student for that day, but the target was achieved 2 teacher motivated students, engaged student’s attention to join teaching process well √ teacher motivated student using pictures of president of turkey (erdogan) and indonesian pop singer (afgan), so students felt interested to pay attention and study more actively 3 teacher explained the lesson using certain techniques to make it clearer and easier to understand √ teacher explains the material clear. teacher used concept mapping as a technique to make student easier to comprehend reading. she taught based on concept mapping guideline 4 teaching process was based on logical steps √ teaching learning was based on the steps of concept mapping strategy 5 while teaching learning process, the teacher made time to ask some questions to the students √ during the class, the teacher asked some questions based on the materials to check students’ comprehension 6 the teacher answered student’s question clearly √ the teacher answered the question asked by the students clearly 7 teacher asked the students to conclude lesson at the end of the class √ the teacher asked some students to show their mind map to others and conclude by giving reflection toward the lesson at the end of class. khairiyah syahabuddin, rahmat yusny, & nia zahara englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 137 table 3 observation result of sma negeri 1 meureudu – teaching process (method) no observation aspect yes no researchers/observer’s comment 1 teaching was done valiantly as long as the time location allowed, not classical and not boring √ the class was not boring but active because students work in groups and teacher used good media 2 material was based on the purposes of the teaching √ the material was prepared and selected based on the purpose of teaching that was prepared in a form of lesson-plan 3 during teaching learning process, the teacher gave the student reinforcement positively √ sometimes, during teaching learning, teacher gave the reinforcement positively to students to maintain their eagerness and positive feeling towards the learning activities 4 illustration and example s were chosen carefully, so those could be effective and easy to understand √ student found it easy to understand what the teacher explained to and they responded the teacher using english language the second observation took place in sma 2 meureudu, the school is located in jalan medan-banda aceh. the student number was smaller than that of sma negeri 1 meureudu compared to the other school. in the observation, there were a few students who participated in the class actively. most of the students seemed to be passive at first, only certain students often shared their opinions during the learning process. right before the teaching learning process, the class was found rather messy and students seats are not well organised, showing that the students were not ready to study. the teacher started the class by ordering the students to organise the seats and thus prepared the students to take their seats for the lesson. students say prayers before studying in the class and it was part of the lesson plan. apart of the contrary, the class is known as the highest achiever in sma 2 meureudu which was class 1 ipa 1. the teacher teaching was based on the lesson plan and the teacher reviewed the past material for couple of minutes by giving some pop teacher teaching styles in introducing concept mapping strategy in reading comprehension activity at senior high schools in meureudu, aceh 138 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 quiz to the students. some students could answer that question, and a few students were just silent when the teacher asked about the past material. in the observed class, the teacher used concept mapping in teaching reading narrative texts. the teacher started the lesson by giving explanation about the material, and explained the structure of a narrative text to the students. the teacher used only paper handout to support the activity. the researcher observed that when the teacher explained the material some students were having conversations and were not pay full attention to the teacher's explanation. the teacher used the story of malin kundang, an indonesian famous folklore, as an example of narrative text to use concept mapping. student found it too easy to understand because the students knew the story beforehand. the researcher found that the teacher was not aware that some famous and well known story would not be a great example for teaching reading comprehension. the students often refer to their background knowledge or their past experiences with the reading/topic, not challenging themselves to comprehend the english text that they are currently reading. however, the teacher then gave an exercise to use concept mapping with the narrative text passage from the textbook and the students applied concept mapping from the text without any considerable difficulty. the teachers grouped the students in pairs. no detailed instructions were given but almost all the students understood the process and able to map the details from the reading material. the students found that the technique is easy to apply and does not really require much explanation. the only way the student complete the task is by sharing what they knew from the reading with their partner. unlike the students from the other school, according to the teacher, diving them in larger groups will not make them as productive as in pairs, as they might just talked a lot. when the students did the exercise, the teacher asked questions to the students about the exercise or asked them to post questions. a few students asked some questions to the teacher and the teacher answered them clearly. the students finished the exercise to make concept mapping based on the reading about the legend of minos, king of crete. khairiyah syahabuddin, rahmat yusny, & nia zahara englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 139 from the observation conducted, it can be seen that the english teacher of sma negeri 1 meureudu achieved the target of teaching learning in the classroom by introducing concept mapping to comprehend a narrative passage. the teacher succeeded to make students understand or comprehend on how to use concept mapping in the reading comprehension effectively. the table below is a compiled data displaying the classroom’s observation of sma negeri 2 meureudu. table 4 observation result of sma negeri 2 meureudu – preparation no observation aspect yes no researchers/observer’s comment 1 teacher prepared lesson plan √ teacher teaching based on lesson plan 2 the goal of teaching in the lesson plan was clear √ the goal of teaching based on the lesson plan, and was clearly mentioned 3 teacher prepared teaching media √ the teacher used paper as a media 4 teacher prepared setting of the classroom for teaching √ teacher set classroom before teaching learning 5 teacher prepared the students’ condition well √ teacher prepared students’ condition, by asking some questions like: ”are you ready to study?” table 5 observation result of sma negeri 2 meureudu – presentation no observation aspect yes no researchers/observer’s comment 1 teacher told the target of teaching that should be achieved for that day √ teacher did not tell the target of teaching to students, but the target was achieved 2 teacher motivated students, took student’s attention to join teaching process well √ teacher motivated student to pay attention to study. that was to support teaching process 3 teacher explained the √ teacher explained the material teacher teaching styles in introducing concept mapping strategy in reading comprehension activity at senior high schools in meureudu, aceh 140 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 lesson using certain technique to make it clearer and easier to understand well and clear. teacher used concept mapping as a method to make it easier to comprehend the reading. teacher taught based on concept mapping guideline 4 teaching process was based on logical steps √ the process teaching learning was based on the steps of the strategy concept mapping 5 while teaching learning process, the teacher made time to ask some questions to the students √ in teaching learning process the teacher asked some questions to students 6 the teacher answered student’s question clearly √ the teacher answered the question of students clearly 7 teacher asked the students to conclude lesson at the end of the class √ the teacher asked the students to conclude the material in the end of class and they did it well table 6 observation result of sma negeri 2 meureudu – result no observation aspect yes no researchers/observer’s comment 1 teaching was done valiantly as long as the time location possible, not classical and boring √ the class was not boring, but some students in the class just talked too much 2 material was based on the purpose of the teaching √ material was based on the purpose mentioned in the lesson-plan 3 during teaching learning process, the teacher gave the student reinforcement positively √ yes, the teacher gave students reinforcement, for example the teacher asked one to one of the students in the class 4 illustration and example were chosen carefully, so those could be effective and easy to understand √ student found it easy to understand what the teacher explained to them, and they responded the teacher using indonesian language khairiyah syahabuddin, rahmat yusny, & nia zahara englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 141 both teachers had different ways to apply the concept mapping in reading comprehension. teacher of sma 1 meureudu used concept mapping in descriptive text and students worked in groups. the teacher also used a projector and paper handout as a media for the reading activity. the teacher worked hard to give explanation and providing examples on how to use concept mapping to comprehensively identify important text details. on the other hand, the teacher of sma 2 meureudu used concept mapping in narrative text and students worked in pairs, but the teacher only used blank piece of paper as media for the activity. both schools used different teaching styles. figure 1. students’ concept map from the reading styles in delivering the reading activity using concept mapping was seen as not very influential for effective result. concept mapping is fairly less challenging to do, however, the researcher found that the students consider concept mapping a new technique for them to learn reading comprehension, and the technique can be easily applied with different types of text. the only issue is that concept mapping is not used very often or even introduced to these students. the researcher used the interview to support the data collection in this research. the result for both schools were differences. the following was from the interview session with the english teacher from sma negeri 1 meureudu. table 7 interview result of sma negeri 1 meureudu teacher teaching styles in introducing concept mapping strategy in reading comprehension activity at senior high schools in meureudu, aceh 142 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 no list of interview qs teacher’s responds 1 how do you teach using concept mapping in reading comprehension? i teach concept mapping based on steps. to make students interested i use pictures to support strategy concept mapping. 2 how do you prepare for teaching reading comprehension using concept mapping? the first one i prepare the material to teach learning. the second, i use the media to support teaching learning in the classroom. the third, i divide students into groups. students could work together and share anything in the groups. 3 how do you make sure you meet the needs of your students with concept mapping? this strategy is so important to make students understand about reading, because concept mapping one of strategies to improve reading comprehension. so student needs this strategy. 4 after using concept mapping, can students improve reading skills? yes, after using concept mapping i as a teacher can see scores of students high. it means, it improves. 5 what are your thoughts on teaching learning using concept mapping to students in group work? i think if students work in groups, they can share with other friends, and can ask if they do not understand on certain materials. so, work in groups are more effective for this strategy. 6 do you find it difficult when you teach reading comprehension using concept mapping? of course not. the strategy is good. 7 do you often give this strategy to your students not really, sometimes based on table, the interview result of sma negeri 1 meureudu, the researcher saw the teacher could take a charge about concept mapping strategy. the teacher also understood the steps on how to teach using concept mapping strategy. this strategy would help the teacher improve reading skills of students while also create an interesting collaborative learning experience. the english teacher of sma negeri 1 meureudu considered that she has successfully introduced concept mapping as a strategy in teaching reading comprehension. concept mapping can be used in all types of reading, narrative, descriptive, and others. however, the english teacher of sma 1 meureudu considered that only descriptive text can be used concept mapping, and it helped the teacher a lot to teach the learning materials in the classroom. the students did the exercise well using concept mapping. it made students more interested in study, because concept khairiyah syahabuddin, rahmat yusny, & nia zahara englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 143 mapping did not make them bored but instead students became more active in teaching learning. table 8 interview result of sma negeri 2 meureudu no. list of interview qs teacher’s responds 1 how do you teach to use concept mapping in reading comprehension? i teach concept mapping based on step how to use concept mapping in reading comprehension; it can make students easy or fast to understand about reading. 2 how do you prepare students for teaching reading comprehension using concept mapping? the first one i prepared the material to teaching learning; then i use good examples to use concept mapping in order to interest the students. 3 how do you make sure you meet the needs of a student with concept mapping? this strategy is so important to help students to understand the reading, because many students not comprehend what reading tells. so that way this strategy is so important and students need this strategy 4 after using concept mapping, students can improve reading skill or not? yes, after using concept mapping the students increase their scores 5 do you use concept mapping to other reading material of different text types only descriptive. but maybe it can be applied to others too. 6 what are your thoughts on teaching learning using concept mapping to students in group work? i think if students work in groups, they do not work well but they talk a lot, like a chatterbox. so i do not divide them into the group but make them work in pairs 7 do you find it difficult when you teach reading comprehension using concept mapping? of course not, using strategy concept mapping makes it easier for the students to understand/comprehend the reading from the notes from the interview session with the teacher from sma negeri 2 meureudu, the researcher saw the teacher could take a charge about concept mapping strategy. the teacher also understood the steps by using concept mapping strategy. this strategy would help the teacher to improve reading skills of students. the answers from the english teacher of sma negeri 2 meureudu, showed that the teacher teaching styles in introducing concept mapping strategy in reading comprehension activity at senior high schools in meureudu, aceh 144 | englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 teacher found that the students enjoyed using concept mapping as a strategy in learning reading comprehension. conclusions based on the observations and the interviews, there are few conclusions that can be made. first is that both teachers from the schools were not frequently introducing or using concept mapping in reading comprehension activity. they often just used reading and translating the lines to answer the comprehension question in the textbook. students often found that translating lines of text to answer comprehension questions is not interesting. very often teachers are the ones who provide the answer while students are passive waiting for the final answer given by the teacher. concept mapping in reading comprehension class was considered new by some of the students from the two schools. the researcher observed that they were fully engaged throughout the lesson. they were ‘locked’ to the activity as if they were solving puzzle, which was quite interesting to watch. the teachers from both schools were excited seeing their students engaged to completing the task and muttered why would not they used concept mapping before looking at their students very active. styles of delivering lesson using concept mapping is not very important. concept mapping is relatively easy to apply and students who are new to the technique would know how to apply it without any issues. using digital projector only would give better presentation when the teacher explains the steps. nevertheless, without digital projector teacher could easily introduce the strategy to the students. assigning students to develop a concept map from the reading in groups (both in pairs or groups with more than 2 members) will boost the students’ confidence in completing the task. students were seen more motivated and responsible when they were given the opportunity to freely work in groups in this activity for the task that they know how to complete. in line with this, the teachers from both schools were also concluded that the reading activity using concept mapping showed great improvement in keeping the students engaged with the task along with delivering satisfactory results. khairiyah syahabuddin, rahmat yusny, & nia zahara englisia vol. 6, no. 2 may 2019 | 145 references bungin, b. (2007). penelitian kualitatif: komunikasi, ekonomi, kebijakan publik dan ilmu sosial lainnya. jakarta: putra grafika charlton, b. c. (2005). informal assessment strategies: asking question, observing students, and planning lesson and promote successful interaction with text, portland: pembroke. kalhor, m. (2016). the effect of concept mapping on efl student meaningful learning english reading comprehension, tehran, iran: counseling center of education office of shahriyar. kaufman, j. (2008). 3 simple techniques to optimize your reading comprehension and retention. retrieved from https://joshkaufman.net/3-simple-techniques-tooptimize-your-reading-comprehension-and-retention/ kinchin, i. m., hay, d. b., & adams, a. (2000). how a qualitative approach to concept map analysis can be used to aid learning by illustrating patterns of conceptual development. educational research, 42(1), 43-57. lincoln, y. s. & guba, e. g. (1985). naturalistic inquiry. newbury park, ca: sage publications miles, m. b., huberman, a. m. (1994). qualitative data analysis: an expanded sourcebook. thousand oaks, ca: sage. romli, m (2014). improving students’ reading comprehension of narrative the text through story mapping: a classroom action research of the second grade of mts tarbiyatul falah (unpublished undergraduate thesis). universitas islam negeri syarif hidayatullah jakarta, indonesia englisia november 2019 vol. 7, no. 1, 1-14 exploring english teachers’ beliefs on their teaching profession fajrinur universitas syiah kuala banda aceh, indonesia fajrinur14@gmail.com manuscript received april 18, 2018, revised september 27, 2019, first published november 30, 2019, and available online january 20, 2020. doi: 10.22373/ej.v7i1.3012 abstract the aim of this study is to explain the influence of the english teachers’ beliefs toward their teaching profession in bireuen district, aceh province. this is a quantitative study which involved thirty english teachers as the respondents. these teachers teach at six high schools in bireuen. the schools were purposively selected to cover the broad area of bireuen district. some of the schools were in the rural area, some are in the city. five english teachers from each high school were randomly selected. the data collection was done using questionnaires. it can be concluded from the answer that in general the teachers have positive beliefs toward their profession, they satisfied with their job, they feel confidence about their job, it can also be seen from the answers that most teachers received appraisal and feedback from other teachers and most of the teachers believe that appraisal and feedback can increase teaching passion. beliefs about overall job-related principles, job satisfaction, self-efficacy and appraisal and feedback give big influence toward their teaching profession as english teachers. this big influence is affecting teachers is various way. beliefs appear to have the strongest impact on teacher learning, followed by changes in teacher behavior and last on students learning. keywords: influence; teachers, teachers’ beliefs; teaching profession introduction educational experts and researchers have diverse opinion about whether or not teaching is a profession (cobbold, 2015). some experts oppose that teaching is a profession while some others agree on it. according to susanto (2004), to be called a profession, certain job has to have certain characteristics, and generally those characteristics shows that it has educational institution, a salary, professional exploring english teachers’ beliefs on their teaching profession 2 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 association, certification and people’ recognition. further, susanto (2004) argues that the profession of teaching is still lack of recognition to be called a profession. even it has recognition; it is still too far to be compared with other profession, such as lawyer, doctor, etc. on the contrary, richards and lockhart (2005) agree that teaching is a profession, so people who work as teachers are called professionals. musriadi (2016) also agrees that teaching is a profession, so teachers need to be qualified to do their job professionally. according to soetjipto (2009) as cited in musriadi (2016), teaching is a profession since it has characteristics of a profession. according to the teacher and lecturer law number 14 of 2005 chapter i article i, point 1 (depdiknas, 2007), teaching is regarded as a profession in indonesia. it is directly quoted as in the following “guru adalah pendidik professional dengan tugas utama mendidik, mengajar, membimbing, mengarahkan, melatih, menilai dan mengevaluasi peserta didik pada pendidikan anak usia dini jalur pendidikan formal, pendidikan dasar, dan pendidikan menengah.”[teachers are professional educators with the primary task of educating, teaching, guiding, directing, training, assessing and evaluating students on early childhood formal education, basic education and secondary education]. in chapter iii, article vii, point i of the law, it mentions the characteristics of a profession. first, the individuals should have talent, eagerness, call and idealism. second, they have a commitment to improve the quality of education, faith, piety and character. third, the persons have an academic qualifications and educational background according to field duty. fourth, they have competence required according to field duty. next, they have the responsibility to carry out the duty. next, they earn income in accordance to working achievement. then, they have an opportunity to develop a sustainable professionalism with lifelong learning. after that, they have the guarantee of lawful protection in carrying out the duties of professionalism. finally, they have a professional organization which has the authority to regulate matters related to the duties of professionalism of teachers therefore, teaching is indeed a profession, since it has certain features a profession must have. given that teaching is a profession, teachers who work in this area are professionals and they need to be qualified. it was explained in teacher fajrinur englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 3 and lecturer law no. 14 of 2005, chapter iv article 10 that teachers need to be qualified to teach (depdiknas, 2007). teachers are considered already have the qualification to do the job once they finished from their professional education (pendidikan profesi) which is rewarded by a qualified university (depdiknas, 2007), and then they should enroll in a sustainable in-service training. however, it was reported by al jazeera (“educating indonesia,” 2013) that indonesian educational system is one of the worst in the world because only 51% of indonesian teachers have the right qualification to teach. this is in line with the results of teachers competence test (uji kompetensi guru (ukg)) which was held from 9 to 27 november 2015. the overall result of the test was not meeting the standard. it was expected that the result would reach 55, but the national average of 29 million teachers in 34 provinces was around 53.02 (hafil, 2015). teachers in aceh province have only reached 45.12 which was the third lowest result compared to other provinces (hafil, 2015). the test is examining two out of four teachers’ competencies: pedagogic and professional competence, both were showed very low in average. it also happened in bireuen as well as other areas in aceh. this phenomenon was unfortunate and the researcher identified this as a problem, and it has become concern for everyone in educational world. the government expects that teachers are supposed to be qualified once they completed their university degrees, but the result of the ukg proved otherwise. government has also conducted seminars and workshops or promoted teachers’ professional competence, but still teachers have low professional competent scores. are teachers being not qualified to be called professional? the problem may lie not on what teachers do, but on beliefs which underlie everything teachers do. kagan (1992) noted that teachers’ belief is teachers’ assumptions and perceptions about teaching and learning. teachers have beliefs about every aspect of teaching (richards & lockhart, 2005). the teachers’ beliefs which lie beneath every teacher mind may be different from what they do, especially their beliefs about teaching profession. some teachers may regard that teaching is a profession; some others may consider it merely as a job. the way teachers see their profession may or may not affect their qualification as teachers. teachers’ belief influences the way teachers see whether they need to improve their teaching or not. exploring english teachers’ beliefs on their teaching profession 4 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 it means that teachers will have the willingness to explore more and more about who their students really are, the material being taught and method and techniques they may employ in teaching in order to improve their teaching (jackson, 2012). golombek (1998) affirms the notion that the change in teachers’ beliefs precedes change in their teaching practice. the exploration on english teacher beliefs helps to understand teachers’ professional development. understanding what kind of teaching belief english teachers hold and the influence will shed light on how to develop teachers’ professionalism (yoshihara, 2012). the increasing professionalism will hopefully lead to significant improvement in teaching. based on the framework suggested by oecd (2013) there are five categories related to teacher beliefs on their profession. they are overall job related beliefs, job satisfaction, self-efficacy, appraisal and feedback, and effect of the five framework features on teachers’ teaching practice. the first questionnaire was compiled into five sections based on the five first framework suggested, along with another section; teachers’ background information , while the data related to the last framework suggested; the effect of the five framework features on teachers’ teaching practice, were collected from the second questionnaire. research methodology the nature of this research is a quantitative study as it is clarified by creswell (2007) that a study which is conducted to see the influence of factor x to factor y is seen as a cause-effect research design that sheds light on the occurring patterns to the actual phenomenon under a study. the independent variable in this study is teaching profession, and the dependent variable is the principles in of beliefs which are overall job-related belief, job satisfaction, self-efficacy, and appraisals and feedbacks (marshall & rossman, 2006). briefly, this study was aimed at finding out the influence of english teachers’ beliefs on the teachers’ teaching profession. research subject the subjects of this research were thirty english teachers from six high-schools in bireuen district, aceh province. the schools were purposively selected to cover the broad area of bireuen district. some of the schools were in the rural area, some are fajrinur englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 5 in the city. five english teachers from each high school were randomly selected since this research only involved english teachers in bireun district. research procedure first, the teachers were guided on how to answer the questionnaires and asked to choose the most suitable answer based on their beliefs. questionnaires are adapted from oecd (2013) teaching and learning international survey (talis). the 1st questionnaire consists of several kinds of statements and questions. some of them required teachers to choose whether he or she strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree. some consists of choices that required teachers to choose more than one answer provided or continued by themselves. the 2nd questionnaire required teachers to choose on 1 to 4 scales on impact from certain feature of belief to their teaching, then there are also open ended question that required teachers to answer by themselves. then, questionnaires were distributed to the teachers and they answered the questionnaires based on their beliefs theoretically and practically. each teacher spent forty to an hour to fill in the questionnaires. the technique of data analysis the data obtained in this study were analyzed using descriptive statistics. in conducting the data analysis, data from the questionnaire were first changed into quantitative data as suggested by brown and rodgers (2002). the process was done using percentage formula to define the percentage in analyzing the data from the questionnaire (sudjana, 1992). percentage formula is to the sum of a certain category in a group of data. below is provided the percentage formula. 𝑃 = 𝑓 𝑛 𝑥 100 where: p = the data percentage f= the data in a certain section of the data group n= the overal sum of the data discussion there are two major points discussed in this section. the first point is about the teachers’ belief toward their job and the second point underpins influence of exploring english teachers’ beliefs on their teaching profession 6 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 beliefs toward the teachers’ profession. the first point is divided into four beliefs which are overall job-related beliefs, job satisfaction, self-efficacy, and appraisals and feedbacks, while the second point is about influence of these beliefs to teachers profession. overall job related beliefs part consist of six questions as can be seen in table 1 and 2: table 1: participants reason to be teacher (overall job related beliefs) statement answer percentage initial reason for choosing to become a teacher. ambition 47% income 33% educational background 16% suggestion 4% the first question in the questionnaire is asking teachers’ reason to choose teaching profession. the data shows that the highest percentage of answer is 47% of teachers chose ‘ambition’ as their reason. then it is followed by ‘income’, ‘educational background’ and ‘suggestion’. therefore it can be concluded that most of teachers chose to be teacher in the first place because of their ambition or their own willingness. it means that somehow teachers like some components of education; the students, the material being studied –in this case englishand the totality of the experience or the whole teaching profession (jackson, 2012). he added that this –likefeeling forms an attachment and reduce the separation between the educational components. table 2: statement 2-6 (overall job-related beliefs) statement strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree to be a teacher requires a commitment to improve the quality of education. 10% 90% to be a teacher requires talent, strong desire and idealism. 7% 40% 53% becoming a teacher requires academic qualifications and educational background. 30% 70% fajrinur englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 7 what teachers do is more important than the income. 13% 27% 60% teachers in our community are noble and respected. 16% 37% 47% the second statement states that to be a teacher requires a commitment to improve the quality of education. there are 90 % of teachers who strongly agreed. then, the third statement depicts that to be a teacher requires talent, strong desire and idealism, and this statement was strongly agreed by 53 % of teachers. next, the fourth statement about the fact that becoming a teacher requires academic qualifications and educational background in accordance with the field of duty was strongly agreed by 70 % of teachers. next, the fifth statement stating that what teachers do is more important than the income they receive was strongly agreed by 60 % of teachers. later, the sixth statement stating the fact that teachers in our community are noble and well respected was strongly agreed by 47 % of teachers. it can be concluded from the answers that in general the teachers agree on the five statements states in the first part of questionnaire, means that they have positive beliefs toward several things mentioned, which is related their job. they believed that to be a teacher requires commitment, talent, strong desire, idealism, academic qualification, and educational background. they also believed that what they do as teachers are more important than the income they received. they agree that teacher and their job are noble and well respected in their community as well. concerning to the statement of teachers’ commitment to improve education, most of teachers agree. it is as mentioned by mart (2013) that commitment is a vital belief in teaching since a committed teacher would do a lot of effort and struggle to achieve the development of their students. then, in the third statement which draws the fact that a teacher requires talent, strong desire and idealism was agreed by most teachers. this is in line with the proposition of esmaelian, rahmani, and pordanjani (2014) stating that teachers with ideal characteristics can give more credibility, increase skills including reading and writing, pay more attention to moral and character development, and pose comprehensive and clear approach while teaching. next, almost all teachers agreed with the belief that to be a teacher, a exploring english teachers’ beliefs on their teaching profession 8 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 person needs to bear an academic qualifications and educational background. this is considered really important because a teacher can only teach what she/he is informed about. then, concerning to the teachers’ salary, most of teachers believe that their work is more important than income. they would do the work sincerely without being burdened by the thought of salary they are paid, but it is undeniable that if teachers do not have to think about income, they would spent more time thinking about teaching. in short, salary—as well as other primary life-needs—is a critical point that become a measure whether teachers are willing to do their job well or not (ngimbudzi, 2009; ayele, 2014). regarding the next statement stating that teachers in our community are respected was agreed by most teachers. as mentioned by hargreaves, et al., (2006) in the past, teacher profession was indeed seen as a low-level profession and teachers are ranked in the same level with news reporters and commercial travelers. however, recently, teachers are seen far better and they are put in third rank after doctors and nurses. this notion has proved that the profession of teachers is not as low as it was in the previous era. this is also the reason all participants agreed that becoming a teacher is a noble work. job satisfaction part consists of four questions as can be seen in table 3: table 3: job satisfaction statement strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree satisfied with teaching skills 7 % 20 % 73 % satisfied with method 7 % 13 % 80 % enjoy teaching at the school 40 % 60 % satisfied with the job 36 % 64 % there are four statements in this framework; satisfaction on their teaching skills, the methods they use, whether they enjoy teaching at their current school, and whether they are all in all satisfied with their job. majorly, they are all strongly agree or satisfied with these four statements. this result is supported by ngimbudzi (2009) that teachers are satisfied when they get the job security at a place (in this school at the current school they are teaching) and the feel that their knowledge is meaningful fajrinur englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 9 to their job. he added that teacher satisfaction on the behalf of their existence and knowledge will definitely make them perform the best in teaching. self-efficacy part consists of three questions as can be seen in table 4: table 4: self efficacy statement strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree making a significant educational difference in the lives of their students 7% 90% 3% the participants try really hard to make progress with even the most difficult and unmotivated students 66% 34% the participants were successful with the students in their class 3% 85% 12% generally, this framework sues the teachers’ confidence in their job as a teacher. all of them believe that they have made significant educational difference toward their students, have dealt with difficult and unmotivated students, and have been successful teaching their students. it is important for teachers to feel confidence about their job since the beliefs about self-efficacy is noted to influence the teaching and learning process and self-efficacy is an indicator whether the teaching and learning process will succeed or fail (gavora, 2010). appraisal and feedback part consists of two questions as can be seen in table 5 and 6: table 5. appraisal and feedback statement answer percentage teachers often received appraisal and feedback from. other teacher 39 % principal 25 % supervisor 17% students 16 % students’ parents 3 % in the table above, it can be seen that 39 % of teachers received appraisal and feedback from other teacher, 25 % from principal, 17 % from supervisor, 16 % exploring english teachers’ beliefs on their teaching profession 10 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 from students and the rest 3 % of them received appraisals and feedbacks from students’ parents. then, below is presented the table showing whether appraisals and feedbacks can increase teachers’ passion in their teaching performances. table 6. appraisal and feedback statement strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree appraisal increase teaching passion 13% 56% 30% the table above shows that 30 % of teachers were strongly agree, 56 % of them were agree, 13 % of them were disagree, while there is no teacher strongly disagreed. it can be seen from the answers that most teachers received appraisal and feedback from other teachers and most of the teachers believe that appraisal and feedback can increase teaching passion. in teaching, appraisals and feedbacks are vital keys in improving teachers’ performance, because the passion can lead to improvement. it is supported by elliott (2015), he said that teachers who obtain appraisals and feedbacks can improve their teaching performance. the other point being discussed in this section is about the influence of the teachers’ belief on their performance quality as a teacher. the discussion was draw based on the result of the second questionnaire. concerning to the first framework on the job-related belief, its influence is shaping teacher’s character, drive teacher to be good at their job and these beliefs remind them to stay sincere. it can be seen that the influence from overall job related beliefs to teaching profession is encouraging since the answers are all positive. it is a good thing since a negative view of the teaching profession, either by society as a whole or when perceived by teachers themselves, can impact the recruitment of high-quality professionals into the teaching profession. it can also affect whether teachers stay in the profession (oecd, 2009) regarding the job satisfaction itself, the influence is also perceptible when they perform their duties. job satisfaction makes them go to school every day, even when they are sick, and it make them happy. it is important since according to butt (2005) teacher who are satisfied with the aspects of their jobs that relate to their fajrinur englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 11 teaching work, such as work tasks and professional growth, they tend to be satisfied with other aspects surrounding the performance of their job – for example, working conditions, interpersonal relations and salary. concerning the self-efficacy, the teachers believe that they are successful with their students. these beliefs influence them mostly when they were novice teacher, not only influence teacher in teaching, but also influence students. as gavora (2010) said that the influence is positive on their future performance both toward their students and themselves as their confidence is seen as their duty as an educator. it is important since self-efficacy in a long shot affect students’ achievement, as puchner and taylor (2012) say that exploring teachers’ self-efficacy may have implications for teachers’ commitment to the job, performance and, by extension, the academic achievement of students. the influence of appraisal and feedback on the teachers’ performance quality is also vital. after receiving appraisals and feedbacks, they realize their deficiency in teaching and dealing with students and they cling to the commitment that should perform better in the future. in addition, this is the type of feedbacks and reflection that leads to development (nye, konstantanopoulos, & hedges, 2004). the development process is an ongoing cycle whose works need various factors in identifying, measuring and developing an individual’s performance—in this case the teachers—to boost up more positive development and enhancement (elliott, 2015). conclusion and implication firstly, based on the discussion in the previous chapter, some conclusions were drawn. based on the framework offered by oecd concerning to job-related beliefs, job satisfaction, self-efficacy, appraisal and feedback, the teachers believed that to be a teacher requires commitment, talent, strong desire, idealism, academic qualification, and educational background. they also believed that what they do as teachers are more important than the income they received. they agree that teacher and their job are noble and well respected in their community as well. in addition almost all of teachers agree that teachers’ main task is teaching and that the most important job of teachers besides teaching is educating. it can be concluded from the answer that all in all teachers are satisfied with their job in general, because exploring english teachers’ beliefs on their teaching profession 12 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 most of them are satisfied with their teaching skill, satisfied with their teaching method, and enjoy teaching at their current school. further, it can be concluded from the answer that most teachers feel confidence about their job. they feel that they are making a significant educational difference in the lives of their students, they tried really hard to make progress with even the most difficult and unmotivated students and they feel that they were successful with the students in their class. it can also be seen from the answers that most teachers received appraisal and feedback from other teachers and most of the teachers believe that appraisal and feedback can increase teaching passion. secondly, participants state that the beliefs about overall job-related principles, job satisfaction, and self-efficacy and appraisal and feedback give big influence toward their teaching profession as english teachers. this big influence is affecting teachers is various way. beliefs appear to have the strongest impact on teacher learning, followed by changes in teacher behavior and last on students learning. the researcher expects that there are other researchers who will continue this research or simply conduct another research in more specific scopes, probably in job-related beliefs, job satisfaction, self-efficacy, appraisal and feedback, or beliefs about professional development. since educators’ beliefs and perceptions exceptionally important and make certain influence on students and the educational system as a whole. references ayele, d. (2014). teachers’ job satisfaction and commitment in general secondary schools of hadiya zone, in southern nation nationality and people of regional state. (unpublished master’s thesis). jimma university, jimma, ethiopia. brown, h. d., & rodgers, t. s. (2002). doing second language research. oxford, united kingdom: oxford university press. butt, g. (2005). teacher job satisfaction: lessons from the tsw pathfinder project. school leadership and management, 25, 455-471. cobbold, c. (2015). professionals without a profession? the paradox of contradiction aboutteaching as a profession in ghana. journal of education and practice, 6(6), 125-135. fajrinur englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 13 creswell, j. w. (2007). qualitative inquiry and research design: choosing among five approaches. thousand oaks, ca: sage publication, inc. depdiknas. (2007). peraturan menteri pendidikan nasional uu no 14 tahun 2005 no. 16 tahun 2007. jakarta: depdiknas. educating indonesia. (2013, february 22). al jazeera. retrieved from https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2013/02/2013219652571 54992.html elliott, k. (2015). teacher performance appraisal: more about performance or development? australian journal of teacher education, 40(9). http://dx.doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2015v40n9.6 esmaelian, m., rahmani, t., & pordanjani, h. m. (2014). comparison of characteristics of teachers in primary schools, with idealism teachers features. technical journal of engineering and applied science, 4(4), 388-393. gavora, p. (2010). slovak pre-service teacher self-efficacy: theoretical and research considerations. the new educational review, 21(2), 17-30. golombek, p. r. (1998). a study of language teacher’ personal practical knowledge. tesol quarterly, 32(3), 447-464. hafil, m. (2015, december 31). guru yogjakarta raih nilai ukg tertinggi. republika.co.id.retrieved from http://www.republika.co.id/berita/koran/ didaktika/15/12/31/o07q886-guru-yogyakartaraih-nilai-ukgtertinggi? hargreaves, l., cunningham, m., everton, t., hansen, a., hopper, b., mcintyre, d., maddock, j., pell, t., turner, p., mukherjee, j., & wilson, l. (2006). the status of teachers and the teaching profession: views from inside and outside the profession (research report rr755). cambridge, united kingdom: department of education and skill, university of cambridge. jackson, p. w. (2012). what is education? chicago, il: university of chicago press. kagan, d. m. (1992). implications of research on teacher belief. educational psychologist, 27, 65-90. marshall, c., & rossman, g. b. (2006). designing qualitative research. thousand oaks, ca: sage publication. mart, c. t. (2013). a passionate teacher: teacher commitment and dedication to student learning. international journal of academic research in progressive education and development, 2(1), 437-442. musriadi. (2016). profesi kependidikan. jogjakarta, indonesia: deepublish. ngimbudzi, f. w. (2009). job satisfaction among secondary school teachers in tanzania. (unpublished master’s thesis). university of jyvaskyla, yliopisto, finland. nye, b., konstantanopoulos, s., & hedges, l.v. (2004). how large are teacher effects? educational evaluation and policy analysis, 26(3), 237–257. oecd. (2009). creating effective teaching and learning environments: first results from talis, paris, france: oecd publishing. exploring english teachers’ beliefs on their teaching profession 14 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 oecd. (2013). creating effective teaching and learning environments: first results from talis. canada: organization of economic collaboration and development. puchner, l. d., & taylor, a. r. (2006). lesson study, collaboration and teacher efficacy: stories from two-school based math lesson study groups. teaching and teacher education, 22, 922-934. richards, j. c., & lockhart, c. (2005). reflective teaching in second language classrooms. new york, ny: cambridge university press. sudjana, n. (1992). metode statistika, bandung, indonesia: tarsito. susanto, m. (2004). menimbang ruang menata rupa. jogjakarta, indonesia: galangpress group. yoshihara, r. (2012). esl teachers’ teaching beliefs and practices: a case study of three teachers in an esl program in hawaii. integrated cultural studies, 18(1), 41-61. englisia november 2015 vol. 3, no. 1, 1-8 the internet and ict: opportunities or threats to  the education world?  habiburrahim university of flinders, adelaide, australia habib.habiburrahim@fulbrightmail.org abstract in this millennium era, the internet plays pivotal roles in providing educational access. it serves as a significant tool to communicate, discuss, and even explore information from a different world and reference. in educational world in most developed countries, the internet is used as an important educational transformation, especially for those who struggle with times and geographical boundaries. as such, the internet could flexibly bridge between a professor and a student to communicate and coordinate with regard to their research progress. beside its advantages, some educational practitioners have harshly criticized the implication of the internet used in the educational world. opponents of the internet users claim that the internet could threat anyone, including educational world. oftentimes the internet is used to do crimes and other unlawful actions, stealing other people's information and money is one of the tangible examples associated with the internet. issues on intellectual and copy rights and other academic misconducts are also connected to the internet in the last few years. this paper attempts to provide a brief discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of the internet in higher education. keywords: internet, information and communication technology, higher education introduction it is unarguable that new technologies have provided tools to reconstruct education as we undergo dramatic technological revolution and enter a new millennium. particularly, multimedia technologies such as cd-roms, internet, and world wide web (www) produce uncountable novel resources and materials for expanding education. information and communication technology (ict) that has been evolved the internet and ict: opportunities or threats to the education world? 2 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 nowadays plays profound significant roles for globalization in which national borders are blurred by instant interactions, communications, and even information sharing. in this global era, the world boundaries seem to be diminished. one action that occurs in a corner of a globe can be easily known and watched by other people living in other countries. assisted by various sophisticated technological devices, people from different parts of the world, sometimes continents away, are able to share a series of information, science, knowledge, and other valuable research findings and inventions. furthermore, in educational world, the internet plays a paramount role. it is utilized as an extension of the classroom or as a vehicle for higher what does this mean education, is becoming increasingly widespread. the internet is now being used as a powerful supplement to the traditional ways that students study and learn in lecture halls, tutorials, laboratories and in the preparation of assignments (hammer & kellner, 2001). there is a very close fit between the structures and processes of the internet and the structures and processes of teaching and learning in the university's traditional forms of education. in addition, the internet provides access to unlimited sources of information and search engines are continuously being upgraded to provide efficient ways to help users find what they want. libraries are using the internet to create gateways to what has been termed a massive library system, where people can roam through the electronic equivalent of book stacks via a desktop workshop. the electronic equivalent offers the ability to integrate text with charts, graphs, photographs, sound, video and other forms of multimedia (friedman, 2006). librarians are now playing a vital role in identifying, evaluating and making available quality electronic documents. indeed, all these technology advancements can bring both benefits and negative impacts toward pedagogical development worldwide. the primary purposes of this paper are to analyze the implications of internet and search engines implementation to the future of higher education. ict: advantages and challenges advantages studies indicate that information and communication technology permeates every aspect of higher education ranging from conducting instruction, research, and service to the administrative infrastructure that supports the operation of complex habiburrahim englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 3 school environment (hattan, dawson, hermes, & bologness, 2004). suffice it to say that in this cybernetics age, the utilization of internet, world wide websites, and other technological supports at educational institutions are absolutely critical and inexorable. all these technologies become pivotal vehicles to deliver academic coursework to a significant number of students mainly those who face time and geographic limitations. as a matter of fact, ict innovation can occur faster than our understanding of its use in practice. to this end, its implementation at higher education institutions must be approached more as an ongoing learning process than as a technology acquisition practice. according to ehrmann (2000), effective ict use involves a continual process of: 1) identifying pedagogical goals, 2) determining what activities will serve this goal, and 3) selecting the appropriate tools to implement the activity. moreover, the basic activity of communication is another point of compatibility between the internet and academia. the oldest and most important form of education is the constant exchange of ideas and opinions between students and lecturers, and among researchers. this process of dialogue, including argument and debate, challenging one another and testing propositions, can be easily transferred into electronic form. moreover, the internet is open 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. as a consequence, communication can be carried on at all hours, and across distances. the internet allows study groups to work online, and tutorials can be carried out as electronic discussions. in all these ways, the internet creates an environment where energetic discussion and debate, one of the most fundamental educational processes, can be carried out. although continuously not a substitute for direct human contact, electronic communication has some features that do permit an actual extension of the scope, continuity and even the quality of certain forms of interaction. furthermore, cradler (1996) cited in ludwig and taymans (2005) acknowledges that successful professional development clearly keeps technology in the role of a tool, and focuses on how technology integration improves educational curriculum and its quality. therefore, the application of technological devices should touch the educational essences by which students may enlighten their competencies for a better future and career. the internet and ict: opportunities or threats to the education world? 4 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 it is undeniable that internet and other search engines have become useful tools for learners to find tremendous reading materials online. thousands of books, articles, reports, and other documents are now available online. in response to this need, statistics show that internet users throughout the world have mounted dramatically in the last ten years, most of whom are college students and worldwide business players. the following graph shows the internet users by world region. the table above elaborates that among the world regions, the internet use in asia is exploding, making it geographically the world's largest market. this is inline with the report published by international telecommunications union (itu) in october 2003. itu respectively highlights those seven “core” economies asian countries in using internet. they are china, hong kong, india, japan, singapore, south korea, and taiwan. in those countries, people actively access internet at ages two years and older (stephen, 2003). those countries have profoundly utilized internet to accelerate their business and educational development. they strongly believe that internet is one of the pivotal vehicles to grapple and deliver information within a short period. internet has enabled a student and professor to communicate and work together without any delay regardless of the distances that separate them to mingle in a same forum. in addition, in the united states, the use of internet in educational has revolutionized the way research is conducted and education is delivered (goldmann, 2005). some tangible challenges current researches indicate that computers, tv sets, internet, and world wide web sites have now, in some countries, become very common objects of disrespect within the educational context (hammer & kellner, 2001). they mention that the most common complaints addressed to these characterizing negative the computer revolution and its associated forums appear to blame the new technologies and students who use them for playing games. others criticize that students spend too much time on e-mail, in chatrooms, or in web-surfing. in a similar vein, criticisms also emerge in the response of students’ tendency toward employing these multimedia devices; computer, internet, and the world wide web, to cheat on term habiburrahim englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 5 paper assignments rather than productively utilize them as the tools to expand research and education. lanier (2006) ascertains that students who are active internet users tend to purchase packaged term papers and/or to download entire essays from the internet and online providers as nowadays many world wide web sites provide written papers. he adds that around seventy percent of college students admit to cheating. some educational practitioners believe that this practice is against the norms of educational ethic. truly, learners are expected to be the people who value people’s creativities by means of acknowledging any references that they quote and retrieve. issues on individual rights and intellectual property have been discussed in most educational meeting forums. educational experts claim that it is almost impossible to control all learners’ activities in browsing their reading materials from internet. besides, all too often, a news story or artifact of media culture depicts youth as taking advantage of the internet in an immoral fashion to access pornography, to cheat, or to play trivial games (hammer & kellner, 2001). as a matter of fact, the criticisms of the role of internet and other multimedia technologies in higher education stem from an inability to grasp the nature and importance of internet literacy and to understand how new technologies can help revitalize education (ehrmann, 2000). this failure to embrace new technologies as a teaching device has been preceded by an uneven and never adequate use of internet and multimedia facilities in the classroom. as a result, the illogical of common practice of blaming students and the technology itself may become a potential pedagogical ignorance. regardless of whether we like it or dislike it, internet and other search engine tools will continually play a significant role in empowering higher education institutions. to this end, it is imperative that educational practitioners, faculty, staff, and administrators counter the issues of academic integrity, individual rights, and intellectual property that have become a serious concern in educational world. benefits to higher education it is believed that the advancement of technology has brought a profound revolution in higher education institutions in the last decade. this advancement has the internet and ict: opportunities or threats to the education world? 6 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 been harnessed by various prestigious universities worldwide. they attempt to reform education systems to make them accessible to all people worldwide. in order to enable learners to participate in obtaining knowledge every time and every where, higher education institutions offer various conveniences, such as comfortable internet access, updated computer programs, continuous online communication and mentoring. through these advancements and flexibilities, education has the potential to reach everyone across the globe. a student who has access to and is supported by this technology, for instance, can sit at home to study and obtain a high quality education from a well-known university in the world without having to spend his/her valuable time in the country where the university is located. tremendous developments of this technology have also provided a universal access to a number of university libraries in the world. today, learners can freely read thousands of books, articles, documents, and other significant reports online. they can also watch their favorite movies simply by typing a key word in the google, yahoo!, or msn search engine sites. friedman (2006) says that, today learners become self-directed and self-empowered researchers, editors, and selectors of entertainments, without having to go to the libraries or the movie theaters. the education fashion has also changed by internet. going to school is still an important conventional education style, but by means of internet, far-distance education has been changing education ways. education contents are becoming richer, and the concepts of educating have been changed, too. a new kind of internet school, library, even electronic campus, will substitute the present school pattern. the old concentrated education will be replaced by scattering net education model, and the old "teaching" education will be changed into "exchanging" education (henderson, 2001). especially to developing countries, education investment is not able to meet the demand, internet is an economical way to improve the situation. remote places far away from higher institutions can receive education through internet, to improve national education level and quality. finally, the internet is playing a significant role in the emerging theories of education, where the academics act as facilitators, providing guidance, drawing students and steering discussions. the positive charge will come from the students behabiburrahim englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 7 coming the active agents and leaders for further educational development and change. universities have a responsibility to exert leadership in the imaginative and thoughtful uses of the best of the new technology for the purposes of better teaching and learning. with all these factors in mind, the library made a conscious decision to take the teaching role in preparing our academics for the challenge. conclusion it is undeniable that the advancement of technology not only brings various advantages for a number of people at large, but also creates series problems particularly if the technology is not used properly. for instance, the development of internet and other technological innovations, such as the three gigantic search engines; google, yahoo!, and msn, have enabled people to discover new study approaches and driven them to a world where they can do one additional task without having to sacrifice other routine activities. through internet connections, education can reach every corner of the globe. these have also enabled educators and instructors in one place to deliver learning and training experiences to learners located in other places, sometimes continents away. however, inappropriate harnesses of this technology advancement can bring a detrimental impact towards education and community developments. issues on individual rights and intellectual property are some of the academia concerns that always emerge in educational world. the use of the internet to threaten communities or to do cyber crimes including stealing people’s information and illegally hacking their financial sources by any means are considered as serious felonies that must be stopped. to this end, it is urged that people must professionally utilize this technology for the sake of good deeds only. they are strongly encouraged to use the internet for academic and business pursuits; it is not for committing any unlawful action. references ehrmann, s. 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(december, 25th, 2003). asian internet use takes off. asia times englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2020. vol. 7, no. 2, 143-155 micro-teaching course: does it affect students' teaching ability? safrul muluk * universitas islam negeri ar-raniry, banda aceh, indonesia safrul.muluk@ar-raniry.ac.id habiburrahim habiburrahim universitas islam negeri ar-raniry, banda aceh, indonesia habiburrahim@ar-raniry.ac.id ardiansyah ardiansyah universitas islam negeri ar-raniry, banda aceh, indonesia ardianputra2609@gmail.com manuscript received april 8, 2020, revised may 2, 2019, first published may 18, 2020, and available online may 21, 2020. doi: 10.22373/ej.v7i2.6712 recommended apa citation muluk, s., habiburrahim, h., & ardiansyah, a. (2020). micro-teaching course: does it affect students’ teaching ability? englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 7(2), 143-155. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v7i2.6712 abstract this explanatory quantitative study aimed to identify the correlation between the students’ micro teaching and field pre-service teaching courses. the population of the study was the students of the english education department of the faculty of education and teacher training universitas islam negeri (uin) ar-raniry, banda aceh, aceh, indonesia who had taken the micro-teaching class and had conducted field pre-service teaching, a total of 141 students. then, 43 students were selected as the sample of this study. data came from these students’ scores in micro teaching class and field pre-service teaching. the data were analyzed by using pearson product moment with the spss 16.0. the findings indicated that there was no significant correlation between micro-teaching and field pre-service teaching (p-value = .196; p>.05). in addition, the strength level of the pearson correlation coefficient between the two variables was negative and weak (r = -0.201). it can be interpreted that the students’ teaching ability was not dependent upon their micro-teaching scores. keywords: micro-teaching course; pre-service teaching; teaching instruction; students’ teaching ability * corresponding author mailto:safrul.muluk@ar-raniry.ac.id mailto:habiburrahim@ar-raniry.ac.id mailto:ardianputra2609@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v7i2.6712 micro teaching course: does it affect students' teaching ability? 144 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 1. introduction for quality learning instruction to happen, educators should possess four competencies: pedagogic, professional, individual, and social. during the teaching and learning process, an instructor needs to demonstrate the required skills to deliver quality learning. in the context of a teacher training program, pre-service teaching program is designed to create a teaching-learning environment that closely imitates real classroom situations (advisory committee on teachers education and qualification, 2013). the teacher training program, or commonly known as micro-teaching, is practiced by giving pre-service teachers the opportunity to rehearse real teaching situation within a small group of students, to show their teaching skills before their classmates (remesh, 2013). the aim of this course is to equip pre-service teachers with psychological status, aptitude, and required capacities needed in schools (asmani, 2010). moreover, kumari and rao (2004) state that small-scale teaching settings are intended to prepare futureteachers with appropriate teaching methodology, which in turn helps them deal with the complexities of the ordinary instructional processes. teaching in a classroom with 30 students for 90 minutes is, for any teachers, a daunting, uneasy, and complex undertaking. for pre-service teachers, it will be even more intricate because during the micro teaching course they should learn to be students and teachers at the same time. for this reason, potential distractions during teaching practice may arise. with regard to this particular issue, it is through the micro teaching course that the students are given the opportunities to rehearse required teaching skills and competencies in the small scale teaching environment. the teaching practice takes place in a classroom in front of their peers, aimed at preparing them with psychological enthusiasm, skills, and comprehensive abilities required to be able to take part in teaching practice in a school environment (asmani, 2010). micro-teaching is also defined as a training procedure, fabricated with the intention to give pre-service teachers and pupils the opportunity to collaborate in a practice situation (kumari & rao, 2004). it is created to simplify the intricacies of the regular teaching process, and at the same time to give the students the opportunities to practice teaching and to prepare them for future teaching careers (cooper & allen, 1970). at the faculty of education and teacher training (ftk) of universitas islam negeri ar-raniry (ar-raniry state islamic university/uin ar-raniry), where this study was conducted, the students are required to take micro teaching course as part of the compulsory subjects before they graduate. being responsible for producing qualified future teachers and lecturers, the faculty has cooperated with schools in banda aceh and greater aceh regencies in the province of aceh, indonesia to arrange the students’ placement in schools. this program for the students is called field pre-service teaching (fpt) which is aimed at establishing and developing teaching competencies as the prerequisite of teaching practice in schools. the students can only register for fpt once they finish taking and passing a semester-long micro teaching course. the fpt consists of 16 meetings in which the students are given the opportunities to teach in safrul muluk, habiburrahim habiburrahim & ardiansyah ardiansyah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 145 a classroom in a designated school. the fpt will be graded towards each respective student’s final gpa. even so, there is no guarantee that the students taking the micro teaching class will get good scores and pass the course or will be able to deliver an ideal teaching environment in the classroom during fpt. teaching ability is defined as teachers’ ability to stimulate and create a supportive classroom environment which includes cognitive, affective, and psychomotor aspects, involving planning, evaluation, and assessment phases to accomplish learning objectives (hasibuan & moedjiono, 2010). in a similar vein, kyriacou (2009) delineates teaching ability as a distinct and comprehensible responsibility by teachers in which teachers’ knowledge, decision-making, and actions are paramount during the process in the attempt to foster students’ learning. as real teaching at school poses challenges to pre-service teachers, the micro teaching course, designed to imitate a classroom environment, can help develop the students’ professional competencies required for the work of teachers in any type of educational institution. through this course, the students get the opportunity to selfevaluate what works and what does not in relation to their teaching skills competence (volet, jones, & vauras, 2019). on the backdrop of the above descriptions, the researchers conducted a study about the correlation between micro-teaching course and the teaching ability during fpt of the students of the faculty of education and teacher training, uin ar-raniry, aceh, indonesia. the question posed in this study was: “is there any relationship between micro-teaching and field pre-service teaching of the students of the ftk of uin ar-raniry?” to answer the above question, the study aimed to test the following hypotheses: h0 = there is no significant relationship between micro-teaching and field pre-service teaching of the students of the ftk of uin ar-raniry. ha = there is a significant relationship between micro-teaching and field pre-service teaching of the students of the ftk of uin ar-raniry. 2. literature review 2.1. micro-teaching micro-teaching is perhaps one of the most important innovations in the area of pedagogy related to the practices and the results of teachers’ works. undoubtedly, the works of teachers have not been given enough credits. despite demanding requirements of knowledge, skills, and professional attitude, in reality in many countries, the teaching profession is still taken lightly. as a matter of fact, educational experts and theorists alike agree that having high quality teachers may undoubtedly provide a pathway to students’ academic success (vagi, pivovarova, & barnard, 2019). the implementation of micro-teaching has been considered advancement in the area of teaching instruction. cooper and allen (1970) state that micro teaching is: micro teaching course: does it affect students' teaching ability? 146 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 a teaching situation is scaled down in terms of time and numbers of students. usually, this has meant a fourto twenty-minute lesson involving 3 to 10 students. the lesson is scaled down to reduce some of the complexities of the teaching acts, thus allowing the teacher to focus on a selected aspect of teaching (p. 1). in the same vein, mahmud and rawshon (2013) define micro-teaching as a teaching training tool that offers students the opportunity to put their knowledge in the area of instructional methods and strategies into practice, under organized and structured conditions. micro-learning can therefore be defined as a teaching scenario that is conducted on a specific amount of pre-determined time with a limited number of students under a controlled classroom environment, where the instructor or lecturer only explains the principle of teaching skills (hamalik, 2009). initially developed in 1960s at stanford university, micro-teaching is designed to provide students with the chance to engage in real-like teaching situations to enhance teaching appearance through open classroom interconnected dialogue. since then, it has been modified to suit the need of the university in the form of teacher training programs in order to stimulate focused, constructive criticisms from members of the class and instructor, with the intention to improve students’ teaching and learning strategies, which in the end results in the improved acquisition of required teaching skills and positive strengthening of students’ teaching experiences. in other words, micro-teaching is able to set a trial environment for student teachers to teach (saban & coklar, 2013). for prospective teachers, micro-teaching provides chances for the students to put their pedagogical skills into practice in front of their classmates in a positive and supportive atmosphere. in micro-teaching, these student teachers can develop their skills to create lesson plans, select teaching goals, draw the students’ attention, talk in front of an audience, offer questions, arrange teaching time, and assess their teaching (kiliç, 2010; hirshberg, flook, enright, & davidson, 2020). as for the teachers themselves, several foreseeable benefits that micro-teaching generates include the facilitation of refreshment of pedagogical programs as part of teachers’ professional development agenda. another incentive that micro-teaching provides to teachers’ instructional skills is the provision of personalized teaching experiences and the improvement taking place in the educational curriculum. 2.2. the significance of micro-teaching as mentioned in the earlier section of this research paper, for prospective teachers in indonesia to be able to develop teaching skills, they must take part in micro teaching as one of the courses purposely designed to enable the students to possess essential teaching skills. due to its significance, micro-teaching has been adopted and implemented, not only as a prerequisite of fpt (field pre-service teaching) at the faculty of education and teacher training, uin ar-raniry, but also as in-service training for teachers to improve their advance teaching skills. safrul muluk, habiburrahim habiburrahim & ardiansyah ardiansyah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 147 some of the benefits that prospective teachers can get from micro teaching class include the competency to create lesson plans, determine teaching goals, build a sense of confidence to speak in front of students, develop questioning strategies, develop and strengthen assessment and evaluation techniques, and manage time effectively (kılıç, 2010). morse and popovich (2009) add that micro-teaching does not only helps to develop students’ teaching skills, but also assists in selecting the most effective teaching methods and strategies under certain circumstances, enabling them to consider and implement a variety of teaching skills. from the discussion above, we can highlight that there are at least three benefits of micro-teaching for prospective teachers. micro teaching plays a role in mastering teaching skills, helps identify the extent of students’ teaching skill strengths and weaknesses, and helps students to get comprehensive, accurate, and objective information from observations of the classroom training process. 2.3. pre-service teaching pre-service teaching course or field pre-service teaching (fpt) is a teaching activity taking place in schools carried out by students as one of the mandatory courses that must be taken in order to graduate. the main purpose of this course is to integrate theoretical knowledge gained in micro-teaching class with teaching practice in schools (damrow & sweeney, 2019). besides teaching at school, the students are also involved in typical administrative tasks in schools. hamalik (2009) asserts that fpt should be directed towards the encouragement of the students’ professional teaching competencies. fpt provides a realistic evaluation of the students’ teaching strengths and weaknesses, and helps them develop classroom management strategies (parkay & standford, 2011). pre-service teaching or fpt, a 4credit academic program at the faculty of education and teacher training of uin arraniry, is a mandatory course aiming at providing real experience and expanding the students’ knowledge and skills in four competencies: pedagogic, professional, individual, and social competencies, which in the end enable them to undertake, among others, administrative duties in schools. the students are also expected to take part in counseling sessions, religious guidance, and other affairs in schools. as part of the course, the students are required to learn about the government’s general and basic educational policies and to know the traditions in the education sector that have been considered to make an invaluable intellectual contribution to the education sector of the country. in addition, prospective teachers also need to be aware of the area of educational socio-psychology which helps them to closely interact and relate with their students (meutia, elyza, & yusnila, 2018). to be able to encourage, excite, and trigger students’ motivation is an important and integral part of teaching skills that must be possessed by prospective teachers. in a similar vein, lynch (2016) suggests that the experience gained from preservice teaching enables prospective teachers to identify their strengths and weaknesses micro teaching course: does it affect students' teaching ability? 148 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 in certain subjects. pre-service teaching also allows future teachers to determine the age group of students they are comfortable teaching, to apply their prior knowledge, and also to shape their teaching skills under professional teachers. to sum up, pre-service teaching provides the opportunity to potential teachers a first-hand account of what teachers do on a day-to-day basis in school. 3. method as this study examined the connection between two variables, the students’ scores in micro teaching class and field pre-service teaching, this study was considered quantitative correlational research. creswell (2012) asserts that score prediction and relationships among variables are explained by correlational research. as this research investigated the relationship between the two variables (scores from micro teaching course and ftp), a bivariate correlation model was used to examine and analyze the two variables. it is a statistical technique used to determine the existence of relationships between two different variables (i.e., x and y). 3.1. research design this study used explanatory design. creswell (2012, p. 340) states that an explanatory design is used when the researcher “is interested in the extent to which two variables (or more) co-vary, that is, where changes in one variable are reflected in changes in the other. explanatory designs consist of a simple association between two variables or more than two”. furthermore, he suggests that the main characteristics of this design are that the data of two variables are collected simultaneously and at least two scores for each individual in the group – one for each variable should be obtained by the researcher. benitez, henseler, castillo, and schuberth (2020) also assert that explanatory research is aimed at understanding clausal relationships among theoretical frameworks of interest for a certain community. 3.2. sampling technique the data used in this research were obtained from the instructional development center (idc) at the ftk of uin ar-raniry. the data included the scores of the students of the english education department who had taken micro teaching class and had conducted fpt. as such, out of 247 students, 141 students fit into the criteria and became the population of this study. the students’ scores in the micro teaching class served as the independent variable and their scores in fpt served as the dependent variable. in determining the sample of this research, the researchers selected 43 students (30% of the total population) by using a random sampling technique. two to three students of each micro-teaching group (consisting of 6-10 students per school) who had completed fpt were selected as the sample of this research. safrul muluk, habiburrahim habiburrahim & ardiansyah ardiansyah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 149 after selecting the sample, the researchers collected their scores to be analyzed. reports of the students’ scores in micro teaching class and fpt obtained from idc became the main source of data used in this study. 3.3. technique of data analysis to test the hypotheses, the researchers performed statistical analytical calculations of the data consisting of two variables: the students’ micro-teaching scores (independent variable (x)) and the students’ pre-service teaching scores (dependent variable (y)). the researchers used the product moment statistical formula in the spss 16.0 application to find the correlation value p (sig. 2tailed), with the significance level was set at 0.05. if the p-value was equal or less than 0.05, h0 is rejected and ha is accepted. once the p-value was identified, the researchers conducted another statistical calculation to interpret the pearson correlation coefficient, r, between the two variables to see the correlational strength between the variables. the following is the formula of the pearson correlation coefficient (hatch & farhady, 1982): ∑ ∑ ∑ √[ ∑ ∑ ] ∑ ∑ notes: : correlation coefficient of variable x and y x : micro teaching scores y : teaching practice (fpt) scores n : number of sample after the pearson correlation coefficient or r was identified, the researchers compared the value with the table of correlation coefficient (see table 3) which enabled the researchers to determine the strength of the correlation between the two variables in scales of very strong to very weak, and either a positive or negative correlation. 4. findings 4.1. the results of data analysis to investigate the correlation between micro teaching and field pre-service training (fpt), two datasets were used, the independent variable (x) (the students’ micro-teaching scores) and the dependent variable (y) (the students’ pre-service teaching scores). the following table highlights the raw scores in micro-teaching (x) and fpt (y). micro teaching course: does it affect students' teaching ability? 150 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 table 1 students’ scores in micro-teaching and field pre-service teaching courses. no initials x y 1 a 85.15 95 2 b 75.8 92.33 3 c 80 92 4 d 87.15 91.65 5 e 83.3 94 6 f 87.65 89.7 7 g 87 91 8 h 89 85 9 i 87.5 90.65 10 j 89 96.7 11 k 92.5 90 12 l 82 92.5 13 m 88.05 87.7 14 n 84.15 97.3 15 o 86 93.85 16 p 78 91.5 17 q 90 94.41 18 r 84 86 19 s 84.25 89.3 20 t 87.3 85 21 u 86.25 88 22 v 86.05 91 23 w 81.25 92.7 24 x 88 90.9 25 y 88.75 94 26 z 80 94 27 aa 93.25 88 28 bb 92.5 91 29 cc 89.1 90 30 dd 86 93.8 31 ee 91 90 32 ff 86.25 89 33 gg 88 91 34 hh 86.5 91.03 35 ii 87 88 36 jj 84.1 91 37 kk 88.05 95 38 ll 86 88.7 safrul muluk, habiburrahim habiburrahim & ardiansyah ardiansyah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 151 39 mm 85.25 94.2 40 oo 87.95 96 41 pp 86 95 42 rr 87.53 90 the spps 16.00 statistical application was used to analyze the above datasets. pearson product moment was used to identify the significant correlation of the two variables. the statistical calculation is presented in the following table. table 2 descriptive statistics results. mean std. deviation n micro teaching score 86.2926 3.61129 43 fpt score 91.4051 2.95473 43 table 3 pearson correlation results. micro teaching (x) pre-service teaching (y) micro teaching (x) pearson correlation 1 -.201 sig. (2-tailed) .196 n 8 43 pre-service teaching (y) pearson correlation -.201 1 sig. (2-tailed) .196 n 43 43 *correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). it can be observed from the table that the pearson product moment revealed that sig. (2tailed) or p-value was .196 and pearson correlation (r) was -0.201. first, it can be seen that the value of p is higher than .05 (p>.05), which statistically means that there was no significant correlation between the students’ micro-teaching scores and the ability of field pre-service teaching. secondly, the pearson correlation coefficient or r is (-0.201), in which it can be interpreted that the level of strength of the correlation between the two variables was weak. the pearson’s r value (rxy) is consulted in the below table. micro teaching course: does it affect students' teaching ability? 152 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 table 4 correlation coefficient table. correlation coefficient (r) interpretation* 0.80 – 1.00 very strong 0.60 – 0.79 strong 0.40 – 0.59 moderate 0.20 – 0.39 weak 0.00 – 0.19 very weak (or no correlation) *this is also used for negative correlation with opposite interpretation from the table, it can be concluded that when the value is close to 0, it means that the correlation is weak. in contrast, when the r value is close to +1, it means that there is a strong correlation between the variables (coolidge, 2012). the calculation of r value above was -0.201, meaning that it had a weak correlation on the negative side. the interpretation of this result was the two variables had a weak negative correlation. 5. discussion based on the result of data analysis on the correlation between the students’ scores of micro-teaching course and field pre-service teaching, it was found that pvalue was .196, meaning that p-value was higher than .05 (p>.05). as such, it showed that there was no significant relationship between the students’ micro-teaching scores and their ability of pre-service teaching, answering the research question proposed. therefore, h0 was retained and ha was rejected. the result was also supported by the second statistical analysis of pearson’s r (0.201) corresponding to the correlation coefficient table (table 3). the r value in this analysis indicated a negative result and a weak association. therefore, the study revealed that there was no significant relationship between the students’ micro-teaching and their pre-service teaching ability. the correlation coefficient analysis also found that the correlation between the two variables was declared negative and weak. the result of this study was similar to the one conducted by najjah (2014) who looked at the influence of micro teaching scores on the teaching ability of biology department students at state insitute for islamic studies walisongo, central java, indonesia. she found that there was no significant correlation between the two variables. on the other hand, another study showed a contrasting result from this present study. widiarini, tripalupi, and meitriana (2015) conducted a study on the students of economics education of ganesha university of education, bali, indonesia. they found that the students’ micro teaching scores were correlated with pre-service teaching ability (p = .007; p<.05) in which the correlation was positive and weak (r = 0.272). in the context of this study, however, it can be implied that micro-teaching may not be the only contributing factor affecting the students’ teaching skills in pre-service safrul muluk, habiburrahim habiburrahim & ardiansyah ardiansyah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 153 teaching. other factors influencing teaching skills and professionalism may also be related to teachers’ beliefs (barizi & idris, 2009), as well as teachers’ educational backgrounds, teaching experiences, and work ethics (widiastusi, 2011). 6. conclusion the study investigated the correlation between micro-teaching scores and the ability to teach during pre-service teaching. the pearson product moment was used to analyze the correlational results between two variables: the students’ micro-teaching scores and their scores during pre-service teaching. the study concluded that there was no significant relationship between micro-teaching and field pre-service teaching of english education department students of the faculty of education and teacher training of uin ar-raniry. the findings revealed that p-value was .196 (p>.05). the level of the correlation coefficient between the two variables was negative and weak as revealed by pearson’s r (-0.201). in this case, these results also imply that microteaching may not be the only factor that influences the students’ teaching skills during pre-service teaching program in schools. references advisory committee on teachers education and qualification. 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(master’s thesis), universitas negeri yogyakarta, yogyakarta, indonesia. englisia november 2019 vol. 7, no. 1, 41-52 acehnese undergraduate students’ strategies in preparing for toefl prediction: a preliminary study ayuna netta universitas muhammadiyah aceh, banda aceh, indonesia ayuna.netta@unmuha.ac.id ika kana trisnawati* universitas muhammadiyah aceh, banda aceh, indonesia ika.kana@unmuha.ac.id manuscript received september 2, 2019, revised november 2, 2019, first published november 30, 2019, and available online january 20, 2020. doi: 10.22373/ej.v7i1.5779 *corresponding author abstract this study focused on the strategies of undergraduate students in preparing for the toefl prediction. the study distributed questionnaires to the students of universitas muhammadiyah aceh, gathering a sample of 15 students of different majors. the findings revealed that the students’ most used strategy was self-study, involving learning with various english materials. this study suggests that future research focus on the reasons influencing test-takers’ decision in test preparation strategies. keywords: students’ strategies; test preparation; toefl prediction introduction as a language used worldwide, english has greatly penetrated into various aspects of life, including education, making it a lingua franca (common language) in international relations (crystal, 2003). the use of english is seen as very important in the academic settings, so much so that higher education nowadays has decided to apply english language proficiency tests, i.e. toefl (test of english as a foreign language), ielts (international english language testing system), and toeic (test of english for international communication) in order to determine students’ acehnese undergraduate students’ strategies in preparing for toefl prediction: a preliminary study 42 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 eligibility, especially for entry and exit requirements (ng, 2007). in the case of toefl, this particular test has been widely employed to measure the english language proficiency of foreign students intending to study in any english speaking countries, such as canada and the us (hughes, 1989; roberts, 2000; vu & vu, 2013). the toefl test scores have a significant role in deciding whether a nonenglish speaker prospective student can be admitted into the universities in those countries (vu & vu, 2013; phakiti, 2016). this is also the case in indonesia where many universities require their students to sit for the toefl test in order to evaluate their english competence and also to evaluate their admission or graduation (hambali, 2008; ermawan, arifin, & salam, 2014; mahmud, 2014; munadia, 2016; samad, jannah, & fitriani, 2017). the toefl that the universities in indonesia administer, however, is called toefl prediction, or toefl-equivalent which has a similar format to the toefl itp (institutional testing program) (mahmud, 2014). the toefl itp gains its popularity and is preferred by indonesian universities and institutions because of several reasons: the accessibility of learning materials, the availability of designated test centers, and the affordable price (hambali, 2008). still, the universities have then tried to administer the toefl prediction for a much lower price for their students since the test result will only be used for internal purposes (mahmud, 2014). despite being used locally, toefl prediction has a high-stake purpose as in the official toefl, which is to determine the students’ future (suryaningsih, 2014) such as their eligibility for undergraduate thesis examination; thus, the students try hard to pass the required minimum test scores. studies have shown that toefl, albeit only the prediction version, is a challenging task for many indonesian students in which a substantial number of students still fail to reach the standard scores, turning them into repeated test-takers (hambali, 2008; ermawan, arifin, & salam, 2014; mahmud, 2014; samad & fitriani, 2016). therefore, the growing use of toefl prediction for graduation requirements in most indonesian universities has become of great concern to students and also lecturers because the majority of the students are still struggling to ayuna netta & ika kana trisnawati englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 43 achieve the minimum threshold (munadia, 2016; samad & fitriani, 2016). in order to obtain the minimum cut scores of such an english proficiency test, liu (2014) asserts that students generally apply test-taking strategies. these strategies may include test preparation courses within any educational institution (liu, 2014; ma & cheng, 2015) or online course (sudrajat & astuti, 2018). in the context of this study, the university under study which applies toefl prediction policy was universitas muhammadiyah aceh (unmuha), a private university situated in banda aceh, the capital of aceh province, indonesia. unmuha has regulated its undergraduate students to sit for the toefl prediction as one of the requirements for thesis defense under the decree of the rector of universitas muhammadiyah aceh no. 065/2013 and under no. 105/um.m/kep/2016 for the minimum cut scores of toefl prediction of 410 for non-english majors and of 450 for english major. the regulations for such a policy, as ermawan, arifin, and salam (2014) have highlighted, may lead the students to have diverse responses; and therefore, the students’ views on the test will likely affect the way they handle the test, including their motivation, their preparation, and their performance in the test (stricker & attali, 2010). it is therefore important to note that the students’ preparation for the toefl prediction test is an aspect that needs to be considered by the universities and their language centers administering the test as well as the lecturers who wish to accommodate the students’ learning strategies and needs for the test in english language teaching. hence, in an attempt to fill the gap in the studies concerning the toefl test, this preliminary study sought to investigate the following question: “what are the strategies used by the students at universitas muhammadiyah aceh in preparing for the toefl prediction?” this study aimed to provide the insights into the test preparation carried out by the university students in an effort to further their testtaking performance. acehnese undergraduate students’ strategies in preparing for toefl prediction: a preliminary study 44 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 literature review overview of test a test is defined as a way to measure an individual’s capability, knowledge or performance in a particular field (brown, 2004). in general, the word “test” in today’s educational settings refers to examination, a literal meaning derived from its original latin word “testum”, which means a bowl usually used to analyze things (“test”, 2017). when a test is used to assess learners’ ability or performance, it will yield some information, or scores, that will let test-makers understand the learners’ competence (zucker, 2003; brown, 2004). thus, a test needs to be well-designed in order for the test to adequately depict the capability of a test-taker. ideally, however, a test should be constructed under several criteria: practicality, validity, reliability, authenticity, and washback (zucker, 2003; brown, 2004). a test is said to be practical if it provides affordable price, easy administration, proper test time, and easy scoring; a valid test means that the test is able to measure what it is intended to measure; a test is reliable when it shows the same results across different test times; an authentic test provides questions that are in context, relevant, and close to real life; and washback refers to the impact of the test (zucker, 2003; brown, 2004). overview of toefl toefl is a standardized language test commonly known as a product of educational testing service (ets) which aims to measure non-english speakers’ proficiency (stricker & attali, 2010). toefl is immensely popular in higher education as evidenced by over 10,000 universities from more than 150 countries which use the toefl scores in the selection process of the admission of their prospective students (ets, 2019a). toefl was first initiated in 1963 by the national council on the testing of english as a foreign language, a council founded by above 30 public and private organizations (wainer & lukhele, 1997; stricker & attali, 2010). toefl was later taken over by ets together with the college board in 1965, and further joined by the graduate record examinatios in 1973 (wainer & lukhele, 1997; stricker & ayuna netta & ika kana trisnawati englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 45 attali, 2010). in 1975, ets then became the sole administrator of toefl under the direction of the toefl board (spolsky, 1995 as cited in roberts, 2000; stricker & attali, 2010). since its initial creation, toefl has undergone several formats, from the first 1963 format to paper-based testing (pbt) in 1995 to computer-based testing (cbt) in 1998 to the internet-based testing (ibt) in 2005 (roberts, 2000; stricker & attali, 2010; vu & vu, 2013). in addition to these, ets also designs toefl itp taking the format of its pbt predecessor, intending to be used for placement or evaluation in local/institutional settings only (ets, 2019b). the toefl prediction referred to in this study follows the format of toefl itp, comprising three sub-batteries: listening comprehension, structure and written expression, and reading comprehension. following toefl itp, the questions in toefl prediction are designed in a multiple-choice format consisting of 50 items in the listening section, 40 items in the structure section, and 50 items in the reading section. the test is administered for about 115 minutes and is scored between 310 and 677 (ets, 2019c). toefl test preparation studies messick (1982) conceptualizes test preparation as “any intervention procedure specifically undertaken to improve test scores, whether by improving the skills measured by the test or by improving the skills for taking the test, or both” (as cited in liu, 2014, p. 1). by this definition, it can be said that when a test-taker hopes to improve his/her test scores, he/she can carry on any type of activity prior to the test in order to be fully prepared. to this end, the strategies included in test preparation may generally be focused on (1) test-taking orientation, involving familiarity with test format and procedure; (2) coaching, involving intensive course; and (3) training, aiming for enhancing cognitive skills (anastasi, 1981, as cited in liu, 2014, p. 1). test preparation strategies have been researched in several cases. roberts (2000) investigated the way 14 korean learners of english prepared for the official toefl. his study revealed that the learners tried to improve their toefl scores by learning on their own by using several toefl preparation books or manuals (e.g., acehnese undergraduate students’ strategies in preparing for toefl prediction: a preliminary study 46 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 barron’s how to prepare for the toefl, cambridge preparation for the toefl test) that are available in book stores. these manuals are intended to provide the learners with questions typical of toefl and to let them practice the model tests (roberts, 2000). a study by liu (2014) surveyed the strategies of 14,593 chinese test-takers who had taken the toefl ibt. her findings concluded that two most used strategies in preparing for the test included listening to english programs and watching english movies. in addition to self-study, test preparation may also include training at toefl preparation courses. masfufah (2018) examined 11 students taking a toefl preparation class at an indonesian private college. most of her respondents admitted that the preparation class helped them learn english for the test better. in addition, ma and cheng (2015) studied a number of chinese students who joined a preparation course before sitting for toefl ibt. the students viewed that preparation course provide efficiency in learning for the test because they could get familiar with the test format quickly and obtain the satisfactory scores. an online toefl course is another way to prepare for the test as shown in the study by sudrajat and astuti (2008) who garnered data from 505 students taking an online preparation course. most respondents stated that they gained sufficient motivation and confidence in learning english grammar needed for the toefl test. method this is a preliminary study designed to identify the strategies of the university students when preparing for the toefl prediction. the study used a descriptive quantitative approach, employing a questionnaire survey to collect the data. the questionnaire was adapted from hsieh (2017), who investigated the students’ strategies on toeic, and consisted of questions about the demography, toefl testtaking experiences (e.g., number of time taking the test) and toefl preparation strategies of the students. the sample for the study was selected by using purposive sampling technique under the following criteria: 1) senior year students of universitas muhammadiyah aceh, 2) wanting to sit for toefl prediction test, and/or 3) having taken toefl prediction test. ayuna netta & ika kana trisnawati englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 47 the study took place at the language center of universitas muhammadiyah aceh, a private university in banda aceh, aceh province, indonesia. the enumerator disseminated the questionnaires to the students who visited the center from april 15 – 20, 2019. the enumerator first asked for the students’ consent prior to their responding to the questionnaire, and eventually gathered a total of 15 respondents who were willing to participate in the study. participation in this study was voluntary and anonymous. the collected responses were then taken for analysis which included the frequency counts and the percentage. findings & discussion the following table 1 shows the demographic background of the respondents in the study. as seen here, the number of male and female students are almost equal although males outnumber females a bit (53.3%), with the average age of 22.9 years. most students are from the economy department (53.3%) and already beyond the senior year (2014 and 2015; 40% each). table 1 demography of the respondents variable frequency % gender male 8 53.3 female 7 46.7 age 21 2 13.3 22 3 20 23 5 33.3 24 5 33.3 major economy 8 53.3 law 2 13.3 public health 2 13.3 engineering 3 20 intake year 2014 6 40 acehnese undergraduate students’ strategies in preparing for toefl prediction: a preliminary study 48 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 2015 6 40 2016 0 0 2017 3 20 in terms of the experiences in sitting for the test, the majority of the students had taken toefl prediction (66.7%), with most of the students had only taking the test once. these results are shown in table 2 below. table 2 toefl test-taking experiences of the respondents variable frequency % experience in taking toefl yes 10 66.7 no 5 33.3 number of times taking toefl 1 7 46.7 2 6 40 3 2 13.3 the following table 3 describes the responses of the students when asked about the preparation strategies used for the toefl prediction. table 3. toefl preparation strategies of the respondents strategy frequency % taking english courses at the university 3 15 taking english courses at the language schools outside university 1 5 taking toefl-prep courses at the cram school 3 15 taking toefl practice tests (from toefl books) 1 5 self-study (e.g., read english books/newspapers, listen to english songs, watch english movies, etc.) 12 60 as seen in above table, test preparation strategies vary among the respondents; however, the frequently used general strategy was self-study (60%), ayuna netta & ika kana trisnawati englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 49 involving a variety of english materials (e.g. listening to english songs and watching english movies) to help them in preparing for the toefl test. in this case, findings similar to these were also indicated in a study by roberts (2000) who found that most of the korean students studied toefl on their own and at private courses. some students also practiced toefl from toefl preparation books (or manuals); some used those written in korean while others in english. in addition, some also mentioned that they used authentic materials in english to prepare for toefl. regarding toefl preparation books, the students remarked that the books helped them to further the skills needed in the toefl test, to enhance the strategies in the toefl test-taking, and to measure the level of toefl readiness. in this current study, however, only one student indicated that he/she learned from toefl books to prepare for the test. the majority of the students here admitted to studying general english on their own with english-related materials. these same strategies were also highlighted in the research of ermawan, arifin, and salam (2014) that included taking toefl preparation training, practicing with toefl books, watching english movies, and listening to english songs. the findings in this present study were also corroborated by another study by liu (2014) which surveyed 14,593 chinese test-takers who had taken the toefl ibt. her study revealed that three most used general strategies included listening to english programs (25%), watching english movies (24%), and reading english books (18%). in this study, the students at unmuha seemed to prepare for the toefl prediction by choosing their own way of learning, which may involve reading books and listening to english-related materials. they would rather self-study, for various reasons that are unable to assume here, than study at toefl preparation courses available in and outside campus. despite the aforementioned supported evidence for common toefl test preparation strategies, this study still faced some limitations. one limitation revolves around the number of participants involved; it is clear that this initial study needs larger data in order to have a grasp on general strategies in preparing for the acehnese undergraduate students’ strategies in preparing for toefl prediction: a preliminary study 50 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 toefl test. another limitation is related to lack of information on the factors affecting the participants in choosing the said strategies. it is impossible to draw conclusions on why they study on their own or why the take a toefl preparation course, for example. however, regardless of these limitations, this study still offers useful insights into the university students’ efforts in improving their toefl test performance. in addition, the implications of the study include future studies to focus more on the factors affecting the test-takers in using specific or general strategies and english language teaching and learning to provide more understanding on english language proficiency testing. conclusion test preparation strategies are the ways to enhance test-takers’ performance which may involve a number of different materials. in this study, the majority of the students at universitas muhammadiyah aceh chose to improve their test scores by studying on their own or in other words, self-study, rather than joining a general english course or a toefl preparation course. the students’ self-study included reading books, listening to songs, and watching movies all in english. the findings of this study, however, cannot further confirm the underlying reasons as to why the students preferred to self-study. therefore, it is suggested that further research focus on the reasons or factors influencing the choice of test-takers’ preparation and also the success or failure of test-takers’ performance. acknowledgement this study was successfully conducted under the research grant no. o83/l13/aka/lt/2019 of the ministry of higher education, research and technology of the republic of indonesia. references brown, h. d. (2004). language assessment: principles and classroom practices. new york, ny: pearson education. ayuna netta & ika kana trisnawati englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 51 crystal, d. (2003). english as a global language. new york, ny: cambridge university press. educational testing service (ets). (2019a). the toefl test. retrieved from http://www.ets.org/toefl educational testing service (ets). (2019b). toefl itp® assessment series. retrieved from http://www.ets.org/toefl_itp educational testing service (ets). (2019c). test content. retrieved from http://www.ets.org/toefl_itp/content ermawan, e., arifin, z., & salam, u. (2014). an analysis on graduates’ perceptions towards test of english as a foreign language (toefl). jurnal pendidikan dan pembelajaran, 3(10). hambali, m. (2008). shortcut strategies in analyzing sentence structures in toefl. lingua: jurnal bahasa dan sastra, 9(2), 82-88. hsieh, c. n. (2017). the case of taiwan: perceptions of college students about the use of the toeic tests a condition of graduation (research report no. rr-1745). princeton, nj: educational testing service. liu, o. l. (2014). investigating the relationship between test preparation and toefl ibt® performance (research report ets rr-14-15). princeton, nj: educational testing service. ma, j. & cheng, l. (2015). chinese students’ perceptions of the value of test preparation courses for the toefl ibt: merit, worth, and significance. tesl canada journal/revue tesl du canada, 33(1), 58-79. mahmud, m. (2014). the efl students’ problems in answering the test of english as a foreign language (toefl): a study in indonesian context. theory and practice in language studies, 4(12), 2581-2587. masfufah, s. (2018). indonesian college students’ perceptions of toefl preparation class. edulite: journal of english education, literature, and culture, 3(1), 6678. munadia. (2016). an analysis of efl students’ difficulty in the toefl structure and written expression section. (unpublished bachelor’s thesis). banda aceh, indonesia: uin ar-raniry. ng, j. n. k. (2007). test of english as a foreign language (toefl): good indicator for student success at community colleges? (doctoral dissertation). oregon state university, oregon, united states. roberts, m. (2000). an examination of the way a group of korean language learners prepare for the test of english as a foreign language (toefl). (master’s thesis). university of toronto, toronto, canada. samad, i. a. & fitriani, s. s. (2016). english proficiency: a challenge and an opportunity in facing asean economic community. proceedings of the 6th annual international conference, syiah kuala university press, 339-344. acehnese undergraduate students’ strategies in preparing for toefl prediction: a preliminary study 52 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 samad, i. a., jannah, m., & fitriani, s. s. 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(2013). is the toefl score a reliable indicator of international graduate students’ academic achievement in american higher education? international journal on studies in english language and literature, 1(1), 1119. wainer, h. & lukhele, r. (1997). how reliable is the toefl test? (toefl technical report, tr-12). princeton, nj: educational testing service. zucker, s. (2003). fundamentals of standardized testing (research report). san antonio, tx: harcourt assessment, inc englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2021. vol. 8, no. 2, 31-40 translating german philosophy into english: the case of martin heidegger martin arnd university of zagreb, zagreb, croatia martarndt@web.de manuscript received j u l y 3 , 2020, revised april 23, 2021, first published may 3, 2021, and available online may 17, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v8i2.7287 recommended apa citation arnd, m. (2021). translating german philosophy into english: the case of martin heidegger. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 8(2), 31-40. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.7287 abstract language endangerment and language loss have become of focal interest for linguists and cultural anthropologists who bemoan the loss of linguistic diversity. the coinage of the term ―linguicide‖ indicates the inherent problem that is related to mondialisation, universalization, and urbanization, which in itself is a highly controversial subject. the recent discoveries of martin heidegger‘s black notebooks cast a new perspective on his work, revealing his revulsion at universalist ideologies and his antimodernism – and, most fatefully, his antisemitism: jews who are to him the incarnation of rootlessness, distance from the soil, and thus subversion. heidegger was born in a rural provincial german – and for many remained so, walking in the countryside, hating tv, airplanes, pop music, and processed food that all conspire to distract us from the basic wondrous nature of being, overwhelming us with information, killing silence, and never leaving us alone, and thus keep us away from the confrontation with ―das nichts‖ (the nothing), which lies on the other side of being, that is, however, unknown to the chatter (das gerede), which can be perceived in the newspapers, on tv and in the cities heidegger hated to spend time in. although he was a nazi to the end, this does not mean that nothing can be learned from him or problems connected to his work. this library research deals with the complexity of translating this german philosopher into the english language. it draws not only on typical examples from heidegger‘s pathbreaking philosophical work sein und zeit and presents attempts at translating it, but also points out their shortcomings and drawbacks. additionally, it presents solutions to the problems that emerge from heidegger‘s idiosyncratic language. generally speaking, it reveals the almost unbridgeable language barriers that can only be overcome at the expense of depth and authenticity. homogenization can be seen as a way of leveling down ideas and concepts that end in language death. keywords: authenticity; hermeneutics; language; rationalization; translation https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.7287 translating german philosophy into english: the case of martin heidegger 32 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 1. introduction being and time (1927) was written in the climate of expressionism (wheeler, 2020). the will to change linguistic customs and to purify language dominated the european post-first world war generation whose members frequently became neologists and subverters of traditional grammar. the german language was well-suited for that purpose, as it is endowed with a peculiarly mobile syntax and with the capacity to fragment or to fuse words and word-roots almost at will, creating speech-acts of the most revolutionary kind and engaging in counter-action. martin heidegger (1889–1976) opened a pandora‘s box of misclues and misunderstandings that still hamstrings his work to this day; when it comes to the needless confusion that dogs heidegger‘s philosophy (not only among analytical philosophers but among heideggerians as well), much of the blame must be laid at heidegger‘s own doorstep, but also on some of his translators. for some eighty years heidegger‘s readers have had to endure an avalanche of confusion in trying to sort out exactly what heidegger meant. many of heidegger‘s works have been translated into the english language (maly, 2000). 2. the ontological starting-point the einführung in die metaphysik (introduction to metaphysics) was the first book by heidegger to be translated into english, in 1959, even before being and time (1962). here he asserted that the word ―being‖ is then finally just an empty word. it means nothing actual, tangible, and real. its meaning is an unreal vapor. in the german text it reads: ―die einzelne tatsache, daß das sein uns nur noch ein leeres wort und ein verschwebender dunst ist‖ (heidegger, 1958, p. 54). in his preface to the seventh edition of being and time heidegger wrote: for the elucidation of this question [of being] the reader may refer to my einführung in die metaphysik, which is appearing simultaneously with this reprinting (raffoul & nelson, 2013, p. 207). sein und zeit (1927) first appeared in the spring of 1927 in the jahrbuch for phänomenologie und phänomenologische forschung (yearbook for phenomenology and phenomenological research) edited by edmund husserl in association with m. geiger (munich), a. pfänder (munich), a. reinach (göttingen), and m. scheler (berlin). the first translation of heidegger‘s path breaking and almost classical work was made in 1962 by john macquarrie and edward robinson who suggest convincingly ―being and time is a work of many interwoven themes, where words are used in strange ways made stranger still by the shift to another language‖ (macquarrie & robinson, 1962, p. 503). heidegger is fond of the ambiguity of language and in the multiple meanings of the words he chooses. translators can never be sure in a given case which of these meanings heidegger wishes to prefer. already the first page poses difficulties. temporality (die zeit) should be interpreted as the horizon ―eines jeden seinsverständnisses” (for any understanding whatsoever of being). time is seen as the primary horizon of ontology. the translator remarks that throughout this work the word martin arndt englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 33 'horizon' is used with a connotation somewhat different from that to which the englishspeaking reader is likely to be accustomed. we tend to think of a horizon as something which we may widen or extend or go beyond; heidegger, however, seems to think of it rather as something which we can neither widen nor go beyond, but which provides the limits for certain intellectual activities performed ―within‖ it (macquarrie & robinson, 1962, p. 19). how can we account for this difference? did heidegger, an expert of greek culture, perhaps, remember the greek meaning underlying the word ‘horizon‘ which is ὁρίδων (to limit, then in german: gesichtskreis is field of vision, replacing the german word endkreis meaning finitor, i. e. someone who ends or limits something is a surveyor. heidegger is constantly using words in ways which are by no means ordinary, and a great part of his merit lies in the freshness and penetration which his very innovations reflect. he tends to discard much of the traditional philosophical terminology, substituting an elaborate vocabulary of his own, which is then ridiculed by his contemporary karl jaspers as ―heidegger-gegacker‖ (gadamer, 1995, p. 51). a heidegger-dictionary (e. g., dahlstrom‘s (2013) the heidegger dictionary) and a glossary of german expressions and terms (munday) may provide the reader with a preliminary insight into heidegger‘s eccentric terminology, stretching from ―abblenden‖ meaning to dim down; ―abgrund‖, ―abyss‖, ―zweideutig‖ meaning ―ambiguous‖. but already the translation for ―abgrund‖ (abyss) does not render the connotation with ―grund‖ (ground) and reason where the english word (greek: ἄβυσσον) has a completely different metaphorical background. we must bear in mind heidegger‘s hermeneutical principle stated already in 1925 in his prolegomena zur geschichte des zeitbegriffs (preliminaries to the history of the concept of time). we do not say what we see, but see what we say (kisiel, 2002, p. 44). to give another example: “aufsässigkeit‖ is translated as obstinacy which can be paraphrased as the quality of being unreasonably determined, especially to act in a particular way and not to change at all, despite what anyone else says (obstinacy). the etymological grimmsche wörterbuch refers to ―hostilis, repugnans, gebildet wie ahd. antsâʒic, mhd. widersæʒec und wie ansäszig, landsäszig”, establishing the context of ―hostility‖, ―rebellion‖ and ―revolt‖, of ―disturbance‖ and destruction of the easy-going contact with the world, even of mean treachery. it has a much more dramatic connotation than obstinacy. this ―aufsässigkeit” culminates in the experience of the ―nothing and nowhere within-the-world‖, a phenomenon that the world as such is that in the face of which one has anxiety. but short of death, i can experience a crucial failure of meaning, one that issues in what heidegger calls ―angst”: how should this highly existential word be translated? is it ―dread‖ or ―anguish‖ to best relate to the unfocused fear, (peters, 2014) as it was expressed by søren kierkegaard in 1844: kierkegaard used the example of a man standing on the edge of a tall building or cliff. when the man looks over the edge, he experiences a focused fear of falling, but at the same time, the man feels a terrifying https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ends https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/limits https://dictionary.cambridge.org/de/worterbuch/englisch/quality https://dictionary.cambridge.org/de/worterbuch/englisch/unreasonable https://dictionary.cambridge.org/de/worterbuch/englisch/determined https://dictionary.cambridge.org/de/worterbuch/englisch/especially https://dictionary.cambridge.org/de/worterbuch/englisch/act https://dictionary.cambridge.org/de/worterbuch/englisch/particular https://dictionary.cambridge.org/de/worterbuch/englisch/change https://dictionary.cambridge.org/de/worterbuch/englisch/despite https://dictionary.cambridge.org/de/worterbuch/englisch/else translating german philosophy into english: the case of martin heidegger 34 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 impulse to throw himself intentionally off the edge. that experience is anxiety or dread because of our complete freedom to choose to either throw oneself off or to stay put. the mere fact that one has the possibility and freedom to do something, even the most terrifying of possibilities, triggers immense feelings of dread. kierkegaard called this our ―dizziness of freedom‖ (braungart). here a complete collapse of meaning in the very midst of my life lets me see the absurdity, the utter groundlessness, of my engagement with meaning. in this condition, says heidegger, one may sense an invitation or summons ―the call of conscience‖ to understand and accept the groundlessness of oneself and thus to assume authorship of one‘s own life. to take that decision is to ―double‖ one‘s ex-sistence: already structurally thrown open (erschlossen), i take it over and become resolutely thrown-open (entschlossen). the utter insignificance which makes itself known in the "nothing and nowhere", does not signify that the world is absent, but tells us that entities within-the-world are of so little importance in themselves that on the basis of this insignificance of what is with-in-the-world, the world in its worldhood is all that still obtrudes itself (macquarrie & robinson, 1962, p. 232). the individual feels ―unheimlich‖ – another highly connotative word should it be translated as ―forlorn‖ connected with the german(ic) word ―verloren” meaning ―lost‖ or not better as ―uncanny‖ (macquarrie & robinson, 1962, p. 233) – or as ―not being at home‖ (heim in german). many connotations and connections in the german text are lost when translating heidegger, however scrupulous the translation may be. the loss will grow with the distance between the german language and the language into which the text is translated into (i.e. a translation into dutch is closer to the original than english, and english closer than a translation into chinese….). the german word ―unheimlich” is the antonym to words that denote ―haus” (home), ―wohnort” (residence) and ―heimat” (homeland, native, home country): in the experience of nothimgness, familiarity and the teleological structure of everyday life collapse (schrader & buzon, 2017). is not the german word best suited to characterize this experience of estrangement – comparable to the greek experience of becoming a ξένος? how can language be spoken in a way more than just banalising hearsay? in being and time heidegger demands from philosophy the preservation of: the force of the elemental words in which dasein expresses itself, and to keep the common understanding from leveling them off to that unintelligibility which functions in turn as a source of pseudo-problems (macquarrie & robinson, 1962, p. 220). what happens if heidegger‘s aim is not understanding, but experiencing which requires the suspension of conventions of common logic and unexamined grammar in http://www.lexikon-definition.de/haus.html http://www.lexikon-definition.de/heimat.html martin arndt englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 35 order to begin all over again? later heidegger called his early work sein und zeit ―ein kaum vernehmbares versprechen” (a scarcely audible promise), but in german ―versprechen‖ signifies both ―promise‖ and ―error of speech‖: would it then not be the best way to publish all of heidegger‘s works bilingually? heidegger underscores that words and language are not just shells [hülsen] into which things are packed for spoken and written intercourse. in the word, in language, things first come to be and are words matter. heidegger suffered from the “allgemeine sprachvernutzung” (abuse of language) (heidegger, 1958, 2:54). idle talk and mass communication follow the trace of inauthenticity, making up the brave new world of journalism. most of his words retain as much as possible of their root meanings in their greek, latin, or old origins. 3. the linguistic maze as we saw, in a genuine mood of anxiety, not only is one aware of the finitude of human existence: it is claimed that the totality of beings sinks into nothing (shariatinia, 2015). the only thing that remains and overwhelms us while the beings slip away is this ―nothing‖. anxiety reveals nothing. for heidegger angst (anxiety) discloses that the world that makes the handiness of things possible is itself ―nothing‖: everything within the world becomes utterly insignificant. “dasein” realizes that she is not at home while pursuing her projects, that she is ―nowhere‖ and that her commitment is a flight from authenticity. heidegger spoke about ―pseudo-problems‖. this term was also used by the logical positivist rudolf carnap (1931: überwindung der metaphysik durch logische analyse der sprache (the elimination of metaphysics through logical analysis of language) in his uncompromising attack on heidegger‘s philosophy and language as, e.g. formulated in heidegger‘s interpretation of “nichts” (nothing-ness) in was ist metaphysik (what is metaphysics?). erforscht werden soll das seiende nur und sonst – nichts, das seiende allein und weiter – nichts; das seiende einzig und darüber hinaus – nichts. wie steht es um dieses nichts? – gibt es das nichts nur, weil es das nicht, d.h. die verneinung gibt? […] das nichts ist ursprünglicher als das nicht und die verneinung. – – wo suchen wir das nichts? – – wie finden wir das nichts? – – wir kennen das nichts. – – die angst offenbart das nichts. – – wovor und warum wir uns ängsteten, war ‚eigentlich‗ – nichts. in der tat. das nichts selbst. being is to be studied – and nothing else, being alone and nothing else; only being und beyond that – nothing. what is the matter with nothing? is it only, because there is the nothing, that is: the negation….the nothingness is more primordial than the nothing and the negation. –where do we seek the nothingness? – where do we find the nothingness? --we know the nothingness. – anxiety reveals the nothingness. – what we are afraid of was virtually nothing. indeed, the nothingness itself. my own translation. translating german philosophy into english: the case of martin heidegger 36 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 the nichts is not nihil. nothingness is not negation of being. the very word teaches us that: no-thing-ness signifies a presentness, an existential "thereness" which is not naively enclosed in or circumscribed by any particular extant, specific object. to carnap (sarkar, 1992) who was followed by the oxfordian logical positivist a. j. ayer such a sentence is the final proof of heidegger's vacuity, consisting of non-sensical sentences comparable to ―caesar is a prime number‖. heidegger is simply duped by grammatical fallacies (e.g. thinking that ―nothing‖ is an entity as it can be used as a noun). his sentence has the same grammatical form as the sentence ―the rain rains‖ – a sentence which carnap, or at least his translator, regarded as a ―meaningful sentence of ordinary language‖. in carnap‘s view, heidegger offends the logical standards of language and produces pseudo-problems (scheinprobleme). heidegger treats the indefinite pronoun ―nothing‖ as a noun, as the ―name or description of an entity‖. he implies, and later affirms, the existence of the nothing, when the ―existence of this entity would be denied in its very definition‖. if all this were not enough, the sentence is, according to carnap, meaningless, since it is neither analytic, nor contradictory, nor empirical. it is metaphysics, and metaphysics seriously damages our spiritual health in carnap‘s view. whereas carnap wanted to rationalize, heidegger‘s aim was to intensify. that is why heidegger drew on specific resources of the german language, not avoiding connotations. while carnap wanted to make language in philosophy as clear and unambiguous as possible, heidegger wanted to restore language to its expressive power. heidegger‘s technical lexicon can be quite confusing, because he gives common words uncommon meanings. whereas carnap (and the other logical positivists) is easy to translate, heidegger is rather difficult to translate, if not altogether impossible. this confrontation between heidegger and carnap has sometimes been objectified into a continental-analytic divide in philosophy with the british philosophers criticizing their continental colleagues for their self-indulgent use of language and their lack of clarity, which was seen as due to the continentals‘ lack of contact with real scientists. this philosophical division correlated in the positivists‘ mind with cultural and political obscurantism. ryle is said to have said, ―when the nazis came to power, heidegger showed that he was a shit, from the heels up, and a shit from the heels up cannot do good philosophy, heidegger is even called a ―bullshitter‖ (cohen, 2013, p. 22). heidegger collaborated with national socialism and used the prestige and some of the vocabulary of his philosophical thought to support hitler and his murderous. heidegger was willing to undermine and to break the power of reason that closes off the experiences made with the nothing-ness and being-ness. heidegger raised a plea for the use of language in such a way that it will reveal being rather than conceal it. a word as such never gives direct guarantee as to whether it is an essential word or a counterfeit. so the philosopher‘s task is to speak in such a way that authentic experience is communicated that, since it draws on the highly connotative german language, makes it often ―untranslatable‖. the problem starts off with the title: should “sein” really be martin arndt englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 37 translated as ―being‖ or rather not as ―being-ness‖ in order to stress the ―ontological difference‖ between ―sein‖ and ―seined‖? being (sein) has not the character of some possible entity. modern research focuses on the phenomenological method applied by heidegger, which means that the question after being is identical with the question, what it means to be and not concerned with mind-independent entity. being is not something ―out there‖, but phenomenologically correlated with ―dasein‖ (wolfson, 2019). he always philosophizes within a phenomenological view of things as ad hominem (κατὰ τὸν λόγον) – that is, in correlation with human concerns and interests. heidegger holds to the strictly phenomenological position that the ―in-itself-ness‖ of such things is not located somehow ―within‖ those things when taken as separate from human interests. rather, the in-itself-ness of a tool is precisely its status as usable in relation to the intentions of the person who is using it. for heidegger, sein in all its forms is always written under phenomenological erasure – that is, under the aegis of a phenomenological reduction of things to their meaningfulness to man. is capitalization (being) enough? ―sein‖ is distinguished from ―seiendem” (beings) such as physical objects or that entire collection of things that constitute the physical universe. the substantive “das seiende” is derived from the participle “seined” and means literally 'that which is'; “ein seiendes” means ―something which is‖. there is much to be said for translating ―seiendes” by the noun ―being‖ or ―beings‖ (for it is often used in a collective sense). we feel, however, that it is smoother and less confusing to write ―entity‖ or ―entities‖ (macquarrie & robinson, 1962, p. 21) certainly, ―being-ness‖ sounds awkward to an english ear, but it is more in accordance with heidegger‘s ontology, whereas ―being‖, as gilbert ryle 1929 translated fatefully, suggests a reified substance, a hyper-entity, some sort of eternal presentness or vorhandensein, ―out there". ryle who introduced wittgenstein in oxford also made the mistake of viewing the heideggerian term ―in‖ as a preposition for a spatial universe, thus missing the meaning of the verb ―innan‖ as used by heidegger which is the german equivalent to (latin) ―habitare‖, ―diligere‖, meaning ―to be acquainted and familiar with‖ (groth, 2017, p. 30) and thereby to make sense of things one encounters. all too often anglophone scholars leave heidegger‘s technical terms untranslated (e.g., dasein, ereignis, geschick), or else resort to a ―deutschlish‖ discourse—half german, half english. other scholars insist on repeating heidegger‘s technical language over and over again—pristine, unchanged, and very under-interpreted. to write in german about heidegger's german is arduous enough. to do so in english, a language natively hostile to certain orders of abstruseness and metaphoric abstraction, is well-nigh impossible. 4. linguistic monism is heidegger only accessible to germans? is the proper translation of ―sorge”, the descendant of ―bekümmerung” (anxious concern), as the ontological structure of existence really ―care‖, as many translators suggest? heidegger puts the word in translating german philosophy into english: the case of martin heidegger 38 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 inverted commas to remind the reader that the customary meaning is not intended. ―burdach calls attention to a double meaning of the term ―cura‖ according to which it signifies not only ―anxious exertion‖ but also ―carefulness‖ and ―devotedness‖ [sorgfalt, hingabe] (macquarrie & robinson, 1962, p. 243). denoting the primary relation to the world, heidegger chose ―sorge” as the appropriate word, avoiding e.g. the indifferent-sounding word “interesse”. i am structurally a matter of minding (besorgen, fürsorge), of being concerned about whoever and whatever comes into my ken. in my everyday ex-sistence i do not perceive things as objects standing over against me. rather, i am involved and concerned with them. i mind people and things as meaningful in different ways. the ―object‖ of minding is the meant, and the meant is always meaningful. ―dasein” is in essence hermeneutical, as the primary character of encountering the world is meaningful. why are we condemned to making sense of things? the living thing is always at-the-point-of-death: zum ende, zum tode (being-atthe-point-of-death), which forces us to structure the world meaning-fully. but the heideggerian term ―sorge‖ implies in accordance with the etymological findings of the grimmsches wörterbuch in addition to "taking care of‖ the meaning of ―sorrow‖ (worrying about something), since the knowledge of death permanently possess us humans. heidegger‘s preference for ―sorge‖ over ―interest‖ grounded in the reign of the god saturn, god of time that decides over the dasein‘s existence. it is not only an uplifting project (entwurf), but also ―geworfen” (being thrown), making it being drawn downwards into melancholy. to overcome the language barriers a german-english glossary for the more important expressions is suggested, and sometimes new terms have to be coined to correspond to heidegger's. a lexicon may include the various senses and contexts in which terms appear as well as a substantial number of descriptive quotations. for example, if the reader wishes to understand heidegger's doctrine of intentionality or his doctrine of transcendence, or the relationship between the two, he or she will most readily reach this goal by pursuing the indications in the lexicon. the translator joan stambaugh from 1996 (state university of new york) uses ―the thrownness of this (i.e. the daseins) being‖ for ―geworfenheit” (macquarrie & robinson, 1962, p. 25), but shies away from using the very uncommon, but more heideggerian phrase ―being-thrown-into-nothingness‖ to denote the arbitrary or inscrutable nature of the ―dasein‖ as a state of thrown-ness in the present with all its frustrations, sufferings, and demands that one does not choose. the very fact of one's own existence is a manifestation of thrown-ness (geworfenheit); a kind of alienation that human beings struggle against. sein und zeit attracted many youths and adolescents on account of its resistance to the banality of daily life and the suggestion of a non-daily life which was associated with ―authenticity‖ that heidegger‘s evoked by using the word ―eigentlich‖ which in the german language is in itself highly ambiguous, covering aspects of ―really‖ or ―on its part‖, or something like ―genuinely‖ or ―authentically‖ would be more appropriate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/dasein martin arndt englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 39 it is not always possible to tell which meaning heidegger has in mind. though concerned with a seemingly abstract notion, the book pretends to deal with the ―most concrete‖ which appeared attractive and appeals to the longing for a critical change. this break with the present is also reflected in heidegger‘s unconventional and seemingly eccentric language. from heidegger‘s view language is not just a tool to transport information, but a magically gifted capacity for creativity and innovative breaks with the conventional usages of words based on an expressive, but eccentric language, full of untranslatable, etymological allusions. how can it be avoided that a translation is merely the distortion of the original? one approach is to get at what he was trying to articulate, and then to express that in an answerable style. translators: ● invent glossaries ● insert german expressions in square brackets on the occasions of their first appearance or on that of their official definition ● use bracketed expressions to call attention to departures from our usual conventions ● bring out etymological connections which might otherwise be overlooked ● introduce footnotes of our own ● discuss some of the more important terms on the occasion of their first appearance ● feel compelled to make numerous concessions to the reader at the expense of making heidegger less heideggerian. these ―solutions‖ reveal the complexity of translating heidegger. intelligibility is given priority to authenticity at the expense of rendering heidegger heideggerian. 5. conclusion the above article raises questions of ultimate philosophical relevance. what is the nature and status of translation? the need for translation is a mark of cain, a sign of the fallenness of man, a witness to man‘s exile from harmonia mundi, a mark of his fallenness. the imprecision of translation reveals the division of mankind. language is a sign of human alienation, as it raises barriers, as becomes clear through the dispute between carnap and heidegger. is language the road to truth if it is splintered into multiple tongues? who knows which tongue reveals the cosmic word and truth, though heidegger gave priority to greek and german? what is the function of translation? is it not the attempt to liberate the language imprisoned in a work in his recreation of that work and thus break through decayed barriers of his own language (walter benjamin)? a translation must retain a vital strangeness and ―otherness‖ and enrich the target language by allowing the source language to penetrate and modify it so that no language can presume to be the only road to truth. is language, however, the only access to truth or is not the suspension of speaking and talking the gate to meaning? according to angelus silesis the deaf and dumb are nearest of all living men translating german philosophy into english: the case of martin heidegger 40 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 to the lost vulgate of eden. but, before becoming too self-complacent, one should consider the possibility that heidegger adopts kabbalistic modes of speaking (groth, 2017). there is still much left to make heidegger intelligible and translatable. references cohen, g. a. (2013). finding oneself in the other. new jersey, nj: princeton university press. dahlstrom, d. o. (2013). the heidegger dictionary. london, uk: bloomsbury academic. gadamer, hans-georg. (1995). hermeneutik im rückblick. tübingen, germany: j.c. b.mohr. groth, m. (2017). translating heidegger. toronto, canada: university of toronto press. heidegger, m. (1) einführung in die metaphysik, gesamtausgabe, ii. abteilung: vorlesungen 1923-1944, band 40, p. 54 (introduction into metaphysics). ii. division: lectures 1923-1944, vol. 40. heidegger, m. (2) (1958). einführung in die metaphysik. tübingen, germany: max niemeyer verlag. kisiel, t. (2002). heidegger’s way of thought: critical and interpretive signposts. london, uk: continuum. macquarrie, j., & robinson, e. (1962). being and time. oxford, uk: blackwell publishers. maly, k. (2000). translating heidegger‘s works into english: the history and the possibility. heidegger studies, 16, 115-138. peters, m. a. (2014). anxieties of knowing. educational philosophy and theory, 46(10), 1093-1097. raffoul, f., & nelson, e. s. (eds). (2013). the bloomsbury companion to heidegger. new york: bloomsbury academic. sarkar, s. (1992). rudolf carnap, 1891-1970: the editor‘s introduction. synthese, 93(1/2), 1-14. schrader, s. a., & buzon, m. r. (2017). everyday life after collapse: a bioarchaeological examination of entheseal change and accidental injury in postcolonial nubia. bioarchaelogy international, 1(1-2), 19-34. shariatinia, z. (2015). heidegger‘s ideas about death. pacific science review b: humanities and social sciences, 1(2), 92-97. wheeler, m. (2020). martin heidegger. the stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/heidegger/. wolfson, e. r. (2019): heidegger and kabbalah: hidden gnosis and the path of poiēsis. bloomington, in: indiana university press. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/heidegger/ englisia november 2019 vol. 7, no. 1, 26-40 visualization and comprehension: corroborating children’s reading ability moriyanti universitas iskandarmuda, banda aceh, indonesia moriyanti@unida-aceh.ac.id hayatul muna iain lhokseumawe, indonesia hayatul.muna89@yahoo.co.id nyak mutia ismail universitas syiah kuala, banda aceh, indonesia nyakmutiaismail2010@gmail.com manuscript received february 26, 2019, revised october 22, 2019, first published november 30, 2019, and available online january 20, 2020. doi: 10.22373/ej.v7i1.4508 abstract this study aimed at finding out the influence of visualization on students’ reading comprehension ability. quantitative approach was employed in carrying out this research. the data were collected through test as it was the main instrument of this study. the data analysis was carried out using manual statistics calculation to find out the mean score before and after the treatment. from the result, it was obtained that the most effect that visualization has is on the inferring; second, it is on details; then it is followed by main idea. the smallest influence is made on vocabulary. thus, it can be concluded that visualization while reading can help students a lot in terms of inferring, details, and main idea. keywords: reading comprehension; visualization; inference; details; vocabulary introduction english is viewed as a critical subject in academic life since it is utilized to exchange information during learning process, to help in the advances of science and innovation, and to build up worldwide relationship. on the other hand, english moriyanti, hayatul muna, & nyak mutia ismail englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 27 is considered as a troublesome subject for many indonesian students since it is totally not similar with indonesian language—either its arrangement of structure, articulation, or vocabulary. in line with this, alex (2010) states that english is unique in relation to indonesian, basically with regards to tenses and word arrangements. amongst all english skills, reading is considered the most fundamental ability among other language aptitudes (duke and pearson, 2002). nation (2004) additionally expresses that reading is a functioning procedure concerning the fact that in learning english as a second language reading is a functioning intellectual procedure of cooperating with printed materials and monitoring perception to develop meaning. it implies that in reading, a reader ought to be dynamic to get an unmistakable message from the content, not exclusively to read it with no comprehension. elosua, et al., (2012) embedded that reading is an intellectual process that attempts to recreate importance from the author of the text. it suggests that as the students read a text, they know the significance word by word as well as the author’s thought in the content. individuals may keep in mind the end goal of reading which is to get data or advance their insight to scrutinize an author’s thought or composing style. hedgcock & ferris (2009) state that reading is a mind boggling procedure of reasoning in allotting importance from printed material which includes the majority of the reader’s academic demonstration; for example, performance and comprehension that are brought in students’ mind can lead to the content comprehension as a whole. it can be seen that reading is not just taking a gander at words as realistic images, yet in addition searching for the importance from word to word or line to line to comprehend what we read. then again, reading is a procedure to comprehend the content substance and to get data from it (johnson & johnson, 2008). on the contrary, in the attempt to achieve this goal, there are various factors that lead reading comprehension to a difficult situation for students. first, loss of vocabulary is a tremendous impediment in acquiring a foreign language. schmitt (2009) confirms that one of the keys in studying a foreign language is mastery of its vocabulary. tienmensma (2009) says that kids who master more vocabulary will understand the texts easier. therefore, it is undisputable that the basic knowledge to visualization and comprehension: corroborating children’s reading ability 28 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 master a language is its vocabulary. later, the scholars’ motivation or mind-set towards reading comprehension is drastically low. gambrell (2011) shows that students who are surprisingly motivated to study will pay heed to read and preserve to read through the years. as a result, the teachers need to offer and stimulate the scholars with excellent substances, suitable techniques, and an effective learning ecosystem. several studies have been carried out on the use of visualization in reading to assist students to have better comprehension. the first is the one done by drolet (2010) in south korea. the result confirmed that the implementation of visualization (particularly english visualizations) in the magnificence become a success to help bridge the distance in literacy. merc (2013) conducted another related study in a university in australia. in this study, the respondents were 167 college students. the study found that the respondents with higher proficiency could recall more information provided in the visualization readings better. moreover, davis (2011) mentions that the new readers—particularly children—discover ways to examine the comprehension by certain processing strategies and it becomes easier by the help of pictures or visualization. based on the elaboration above, this study tried to shed lights on how visualization influences children’s comprehension. what comes as the gap in this study is that the application of reading through visualization should be seen as a promising opportunity in inclining students’ reading ability—specifically speaking, for children readers. the result of this study can be used as an empirical proof that visualization really helps children in advancing their vocabulary. and from the theoretical stance, the result is useful as additional literature in the employment of visualization in corroborating children’s reading performance. literature review the importance of visualization in reading there have been numerous approaches presented to help students in learning english. the assorted variety of visual guides assumes an imperative part in picking up reading. yang (2003) expresses that visual perpetual quality is novel to visualization: with visualization, students can undoubtedly go at their own pace and moriyanti, hayatul muna, & nyak mutia ismail englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 29 not lose the stream of the unique circumstance. for this situation, students do not just spotlight on the entry which are brimming with writings yet in addition have a remarkable device which are loaded with pictures encouraging the students to get additionally understanding to one's reading writings. likewise, visualizations are one of the profitable guides to assist students with being effective in reading comprehension. cary (2004) says that visualizations with their conversational exchange and contemporary settings, can exhibit for students credible language at all phases of obtaining. it is suggested that visualizations which have numerous composed discoursed are adequate real materials for understanding the language. for this situation, students can learn numerous parts of language, for example, syntactic, vocabulary and example perspectives. there are a few perspectives that are closely related with each other. they are main ideas, detail, vocabulary and inferring in reading comprehension. these viewpoints cannot be isolated from reading comprehension and they are asked in english examination. the main idea of a reading text is the focal idea or the core message. the term alludes to the ideas or points or thoughts being communicated through the reading passage(s). mikulecky and jeffries (1996) contended that main idea is the author’s idea regarding the point which is framed by both the subject and the thought. recognizing main idea and supporting ideas is an essential piece of reading cognizance. a reading tests regularly evaluate regardless of whether students can locate the primary ideas of the composed texts and distinguish the information in reading content. detail is one of the parts from reading viewpoints. visualizations can play an intense and compelling part in the english language classroom. it has positive effect on students' learning propensities. gambrell (2011) takes note of that students who are exceedingly has positive state of mind on reading will read and keep on reading additional time. through visualizations, students can increase considerably more information. having pictures and learning other writing in a roundabout way improved students to take in the assorted variety of culture in the writings. visualizations do not just offer readers to get the substance yet in addition get engaged through the visual guides. morrison, bryan, and chilcoat (2002) state that language securing has demonstrated that the visualization and comprehension: corroborating children’s reading ability 30 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 utilization of pop culture materials for students, particularly the utilization of visualization in second language classrooms is incredibly gainful to students. some of the time, pictures in visualizations can mirror the significance of one reading content. it is an extra guide which is extremely valuable for remote language students. it manages and persuades the students to comprehend the entire substance of the reading. indeed, visuals, particularly funnies are generally used to energize and build up students' advantage and abilities in reading. in view of this interchange, funnies are effectively available to non-local speakers of english, at any age gathering or more slender level (davis, 2011). besides, students’ accomplishment in a broad area of topics, can encourage reading by utilizing visualizations are identified with level of somebody's disposition and inspiration. truth be told, yang (2003) says that one of the best points of interest of utilizing funnies to instruct is the capacity of funnies to inspire students. then again, demeanor and inspiration are somewhat confounding to be characterized. inspiration and state of mind coordinate each other. actually, students who have inspirational mentality toward reading, have an expanding inspiration in themselves. inspiration is the thing that influences individuals to do to or not to accomplish something. then again, pearson and cervetti (2013) characterize that state of mind is a mental inclination that is communicated by assessing a specific element with some level of support or disgrace. it implies that the demeanor alludes to the critical level of the fact that somebody likes or dislikes a specific thing. thus, versaci (2001) finds that funnies will probably urge students to effectively partake in dialog than the type of customary writing. cary (2004) feels that visualizations give more significant insights for some, readers, including starting readers, as a result of their diminished content prepared by numerous photos. numerous students grasp visualization since the visualization is seen as being more reasonable than the content. moreover, one of the ways that esl/efl instructors can expand the measure of time of their students reading propensity is by utilizing visualizations which can be particularly helpful outside language classroom. in addition, derrick (2008) bolsters that not exclusively would visualization be able to books give language students contextualized fathomable information, they can moriyanti, hayatul muna, & nyak mutia ismail englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 31 likewise connect with the student and lead him or her to investigate more visualizations, magazine, daily paper, and other reading materials. likewise, instructors are utilizing visualizations for an assortment of purposes, including as a scaffold to full proficiency for english language students and battling readers. merc (2013) notices the utilization of certain visuals is helpful in reading classroom. accordingly, visualizations are an extra device in second and remote language classroom. for second language students, learning english outwardly, for example, visualizations, help to bring clear comprehension toward the materials given. visual guides altogether affect the students' achievement in the current classroom. it is as proposed by smith (2006) that there are a few components in visualizations: inscription, board, drain, air pocket, and inflatable. sub-skills in reading in reading, there are a few perspectives closely related to each other. they are main ideas, detail, vocabulary and inferring in reading comprehension. these viewpoints cannot be isolated from reading comprehension and they are asked in english examination. the main idea of a reading text is the focal idea or the core message. the term alludes to the ideas or points or thoughts being communicated through the reading passage(s). mikulecky and jeffries (1996) contended that main idea is the author’s idea regarding the point which is framed by both the subject and the thought. recognizing main idea and supporting ideas is an essential piece of reading performance. mikulecky and jeffries (1996) considered detail as the most urgent issue in reading comprehension. the readers require detail to fathom the content as a whole. a standout point amongst the most constant finding in research on reading is that the degree of students' vocabulary knowledge relates firmly to their reading comprehension and generally relates to their academic achievement (ness, 2009). further, it expects readers to note content throughout the pieces of information, to access the background knowledge, surmise what the significance is regarding the pertinent context(s). in promoting comprehension, especially for children, it is vital to deliberate issues such as visualization; which is specifically referred as image or picture in this study. looking at the images helps students to understand the meaning and visualization and comprehension: corroborating children’s reading ability 32 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 promotes comprehension in the inquiry-based classroom. this may be normal with rising bilinguals in the beginning stage of the target language acquisition, especially with youthful students who were recently figuring out how to interpret composed texts. with more profound examination, it turned out to be certain that students did not look at pictures. the pictures accepted diverse parts for different purposes while developing significance with multimodal educational writings. there are four functions of pictures in reading comprising pictures as access to significance and substance; pictures ignite dialogues; picture as an impetus to look for access to written texts; and picture as a multimodal supplement to written texts (moses, 2015). in the second and foreign language, the utilization of genuine material is emphatically prescribed. the material advancement ought to be produced in view of students' interests and needs. despite the fact that the foundation of every student cannot be tended to multilingual students either by assets or conditions. wright and sherman (1994) propose that visualizations are utilized to energize and build up students' advantage and abilities in reading. cunningham and stanovich (2003) say that examination has demonstrated that early accomplishment at reading is plainly one of the keys that opens a lifetime of reading propensities. it implies that students who read ceaselessly are more fruitful than students who don't. also, developing students’ reading propensities in their everyday life is exceptionally critical. in this way, expanding students' reading propensity should be possible relying upon educators' techniques in showing reading as one of the english abilities. there are three classifications proposed by nunan (2004) which are habitually utilized while fathoming reading writings or materials. they are as clarified below. at first, it is known as the top-up model. this model for the most part serves the lower-level reading process where students begin with essential learning about reading understanding. students take in reading from the essential subtle elements until the primary point in reading cognizance. in particular, students figure out how to perceive the sound and expression of the materials, make sense of and distinguish the syntactic tenets, lastly, manufacture the significance in endeavor to accomplish perception over the content. moriyanti, hayatul muna, & nyak mutia ismail englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 33 next, it is the supposed top-down models. despite what might be expected, the exercises from this model are empowering and reviewing the students’ experience learning, for example, making forecasts and looking through the content purposes. by applying top-down system in showing reading, the instructor should center on the significance exercises instead of on word acknowledgment. the last is interactive model. this model is helped out through consolidating both base up and top-down models. in this model, students are arranged and educated from the principal essential of some different viewpoints to the particular or general perspectives in reading appreciation. later to that, they are guided to take in the importance of the writings after they use the words and syntactic principles of the sections. method this study was conducted using quantitative approach using a test. there were 35 children aged between 8-10 years old with similar intelligence background, and they were divided into two groups consisting of 17 children and 18 children respectively. the first group were given a passage without pictures on it, while another group was given a passage but written in sequential visualization strip. both groups were given 60 minutes to answer 20 questions based on the text. later in the data analysis, the score were compared to see the mean score difference between both groups using weight formula as suggested by sugiyono (2007). later, the data obtained were analyzed using tabulation to find out the mean score of both group in all reading micro-skills such as main idea (5 questions), details (5 questions), vocabulary (5 questions), and inferences (5 questions). discussion the aim of two groups being compared is to see the impact of answering questions with and without visualization. group a has a passage without pictures on it, whereas group b was provided a passage with sequential visualization strip. the twenty reading questions for children were designed for the purpose of study and an adaptation of weight formula for reading mean score (sugiyono, 2007) was used. further, we tried to describe the mean score difference for each reading sub-skills visualization and comprehension: corroborating children’s reading ability 34 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 between both groups. the twenty questions of reading test assess four reading subskills, as follows; main idea skill, details skill, vocabulary skill and inferring skill. to be concise, the results of the data analysis are displayed in the following table. table 1. results on reading ability reading sub-skill group a average score group b average score main idea 77.5 76 details 65 83.5 vocabulary 75 63.5 inferring 60.5 85 the table illustrates the proportion of reading ability in four categories of reading sub-skill. there are four reading sub-skills assessed in both groups—group a and group b, as follows: main idea, details, vocabulary and inferring. overall, the average score of group a in reading sub-skills are found to be the highest (77.5) in main idea skill, when the inferring in reading sub-skills was the lowest (60.5). whereas, the highest average score of group b is 85 in main idea of reading sub-skills and the lowest average score is 63.5 in vocabulary in reading. in the terms of all reading sub-skills, inferring skills is the highest average score at 85 obtained by group b. the details in reading sub-skills of group b was also high (83.5) compared to group a which obtained the average score (65). on the other hand, the lowest average score of reading sub-skills is inferring skill which could be seen in group a at 60.5. concerning to the importance of visualization in picturing main idea, visualization helps create a bound between the readers and the text being read. from such connection, it is easier for the reader to see the big picture as a whole (furi, 2015). furthermore, the mental image drawn during the visualization process is very important in providing the sense of the passage. on the other hand, the skill to infer came to the lowest score compared to other scores. making inferences moriyanti, hayatul muna, & nyak mutia ismail englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 35 appears to be rather complex than other reading sub-skills. it is because in this subskills, working memory is involved holistically in the process. it starts searching from the short-term memory when the information first obtained until the last time it was utilized. so, the information could be long back gone through the text. then, it starts replaying the information whether it matches with the whole context or not (kispal, 2008). in short, this process is not an easy procedure for young learners who are reading an english passage; per se english reading is not carried out on the regular basis by these children. the following figure provides the responses from the group which was given the text accompanied with pictures: figure 1. responses on reading sub skills the chart illustrates the number of average score obtained on four reading sub skills (main idea, details, vocabulary and inferring) in group a and group b. both of groups are measured in average score. overall, group b got more average score in reading sub skills than group a in the chart given. both group a and group b had most of their average score on main idea skill while the least number of average score was obtained on inferring in group a compared to vocabulary skill in group b. in addition, the most significant difference in average score between the two groups was on inferring skill. in terms of main idea skill, students in group a achieved 77.5 on this as opposed to the group b at 76. similarly, group a was visualization and comprehension: corroborating children’s reading ability 36 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 higher on vocabulary skill than group b 75 and 63.5 respectively. in group b, the average score on inferring (85) was over twenty four point that of group a, which was only 60.5. moreover, group b also obtained the detail skill at 83.5 compared to group a (65). the learning process of reading materials with their visualization can attract the students to help them to comprehend the meaning of reading materials and develop the students’ comprehension in the inquiry-based classroom. in order to promote the students to have deeper comprehension, teacher can set up them for visualization. research asserts that visualization can promote students’ comprehension in reading through picture and image. but there are still unanswered questions about the reading sub-skills related to visualization. therefore, the purpose of this study is to evaluate how visualization influences children’s comprehension in reading. we tried to examine the children’s comprehension through reading test and divided into two groups—group a and group b. to further specify the data, the first group—group a, explaining the highest proportion of four reading sub-skills is main idea skill (77.5). in main idea skill, it involves in the focal idea discussed in reading passage. almost 17 children can understand the main idea through the passage without visualization because the usual reading tests assess the main idea from the passage for the test taker. as a result, they have background knowledge how to get the information regarding the main idea from the passage. anderson (2001) states that readers must know the main idea of paragraph in order to understand the information that they are reading. main idea helps the readers remember the important information of the text. moreover, many of comprehension questions ask readers to locate the main idea of a passage or paragraph. finding and understanding the main idea of a text is an essential reading skill. many of the reading tests often ask the students to be able to identify the main idea and identify the information of a text. developing this skill from the beginning of reading instruction will help the students to master the reading skill. moriyanti, hayatul muna, & nyak mutia ismail englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 37 on the contrary, 17 children from group a had difficulties in inferring skill (60.5) on the average. they also had trouble to search the hidden meanings from the passage that were stated implicitly. when readers find the answer for the inferring questions, they have to use the strategies to get the implicit information. in fact, coiro (2011) concluded that inferring process can help the reader to obtain the information which is not stated in particular. when the reader cannot find the answer of inferring questions within the passage, the conclusion must be drawn based on the information given from the passage (gear, 2008). moreover, reader can enhance and complete their ideas into the passage. reader can read back carefully and think about the implied meaning. in inferring, the language of any text, spoken or written, is not completely explicit. this requires actively interacting with the words in a sentence and among sentences (cohen, celeste, and marra, 2004). you must look for clues and try to guess what the passage is about. this is called making an inference. the readers will be able to infer meaning from what was read to help comprehend text. inferring also expands the understanding by helping reader discover what is implied, but not explicitly stated by the author. in reality, children of group a still confused on the inferring questions because of the lack of vocabularies and do not understand how to answer for the unstated answers. therefore, children of group a obtained the lowest average score in inferring skill among four reading sub-skills. for group b, children got the highest average score in inferring skill (85) through the visualization process. they can do inferring and conclusion from the passage provided by sequential visualization strip. the visualization strategy can increase the children’s reading comprehension because the children create the mental image of the passage (towell, powell & brown, 2018; wilhelm, 2013). as a result, inferring strategy is important part for children to get the hidden meanings from the passage. on the other hand, 18 students from group b got the low achievement (63.5) in vocabulary context compared with 17 students group a getting score 75 in average because not all vocabularies can be described in visualization, for example, the abstract vocabularies—knowledge, belief, calm; and the gender vocabularies— visualization and comprehension: corroborating children’s reading ability 38 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 lion, lioness, fox, vixen. moreover, reader needs to know the role of context in the acquisition of vocabulary knowledge. beck, mckeown and kucan (2013) assisted that the instructional context can help the reader to comprehend the difficult word, probably meaning of the word. as a result, the difficult words can be comprehended from the context and teacher can apply the instruction that related to learning vocabulary from the context in reading. conclusions in conclusion, it can be stated that among four sub-skills that were analyzed for its relation to the visualization, ‘inferring’ has the highest effect, followed by ‘details’, ‘’main idea, and ‘vocabulary’. visualization can help students enhance their reading comprehension especially when they need certain confirmation toward the contents that seem less understandable in the passage. from the test result, it can clearly be seen that the group of students who were treated using pictures during their reading class achieve higher score compared to the group who were not. consequently, it is suggested that the english teachers, especially those working with young learners, should employ more visualization in their class. the visualization could be presented in any forms as long as it is helpful and 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(2001). how comic books can change the way our students see literature: one teacher’s perspective. english journal, 91(2), 61-67. wilhelm, j. d. (2013). enriching comprehension with visualization strategies: text elements and ideas to build comprehension, encourage reflective reading, and represent understanding. new york, ny: scholastic. wright, g. & sherman, r. (1999). let’s create a comic strip. reading improvement, 36(2), 66-72. yang, g. (2003). comics in education. retrieved from http://www.humblecomics.com/comicsedu/index.html. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2021. vol. 8, no. 2, 138-147 creative techniques for online learning assessment sokhira lindavinde rambe institut agama islam negeri padangsidimpuan, indonesia vindesokhiralinda@gmail.com manuscript received o c t o b er 2 3 , 2020, revised january 31, 2021, first published may 3, 2021, and available online may 17, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v8i2.8111 recommended apa citation rambe, s. l. (2021). creative techniques for online learning assessment. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 8(2), 138-147. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.8111 abstract online learning has been becoming a solution for schools, institutions, and universities that cannot run face-to-face learning. during the online learning process, there are challenges that stakeholders including teachers and lecturers often face. one of the challenges is in choosing assessment techniques which in this case is related to english learning assessment. thus, the objective of this study is to elaborate some effective techniques for english learning assessment. qualitative research was applied as a research design conducted at the english education department of the institute for islamic studies of padangsidimpuan. ten lecturers of the english department were chosen purposively as respondents and interview was used as a data collection technique. then, data were analyzed through qualitative data analysis in which the data were described and elaborated in detailed ways. the findings revealed that there were many techniques that could be applied in english assessment methods. among the methods are online tests using google form application, discussion, and problemsolving, writing essays and summary, online presentation, multimedia presentation, mini-research, voice thread, storytelling, recording performance, online interview, and making content on social media. the study also unveiled that lecturers’ creativity is needed to create an objective and effective assessment for online learning. keywords: creative techniques; online learning; assessment 1. introduction online learning has been becoming a solution for people who are engaged with distance teaching and learning approach. indonesian government through the ministry of education of the republic of indonesia has forced teachers and students to have https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.8111 sokhira lindavinde rambe englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 139 online learning since the emergence of corona virus in march 2019. this policy is stipulated in the government rule number 4 in 2020 about the education rule during the emergency of corona virus disease (covid-19) deployment. indirectly, the schools as the agents of education have to follow the rules and change the daily routine from face to face learning to online learning. of course, the schools stakeholders have to prepare needs for its demand. related to the online learning, there have been lots of problems happening including the unavailability of supporting network (swan, 2017), the teachers’ limited knowledge toward the online learning systems, students’ lack of motivations (al-hujran et al., 2013), students’ economic aspects (rana, 2015), and ineffective learning assessment (gaytan & mcewen, 2007). in terms of learning assessment techniques, designing the students’ online learning assessment is very different from the face to face learning. through online learning, there are some assessment techniques that every teacher needs to pay more attentions. then, using various ways of assessment to assess students’ online learning is really suggested (christopher, thomas, & tallent-runnels, 2004; robles & braathen, 2002; sanchis, 2001). in fact, designing learning assessment for online instruction is a challenge for teachers because it creates issues about its effectiveness, cheating, plagiarism, and identity verification (byrd & lott, 2003; heberling, 2002; gaytan & mcewen, 2007). the first problem related to originality of the assessment is about cheating and plagiarism. due to the use of internet, technology, and other accessible devices, it becomes quite easy to get matters or contents, either in written, visual or audio form, on any topic of interest (hasan & khan, 2018). it means that the students can find lots of resources from the internet and copy the related information that they need for completing their academic works. with this phenomenon, there will be two possibilities that the assessment will be good or not. the fact that students copy the information from the internet during online learning can lead students to do plagiarism and cheating. to avoid students’ dishonesty in online learning, teachers are encouraged to provide sessions for discussion to know students’ general proficiency toward certain lessons. then, the teachers also should design a kind of assessment that leads students to write ideas or opinions with their own styles (singh & pan, 2004), yet again the originality of the ideas becomes problems for teachers to recognize whether the ideas belong to the teachers’ real students or other people. that is why discussion needs to be done during online learning to offer opportunities for students to participate and to determine students’ capacity related to the lesson. related to the techniques of assessment that lead students to create original ideas, teachers are suggested to use new and authentic assessment like project-based assessment (olt, 2002). another issue that appears and must be solved about online assessment is related to verification of identity (byrd & lott, 2003). in this case, obtaining pictures and signatures from all students are suggested to do by the teachers in the online learning (alexander, truell, & bartlett, 2002). moreover, teachers are suggested to hold creative techniques for online learning assessment 140 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 examinations using pictures or video based assessment like using zoom while doing the test. from the ideas stated previously, it is assumed that there will be a tendency that students will ask someone like friends, relatives, or hired person to do the test during the online assessment. to solve this problem, the teachers can use pictured or video-based assessment like recording the activity and having a test on zoom. the challenge from online learning assessment also comes from the teachers’ inability to ask students to do online group assessment (swan, 2017). group presentations are assumed to be difficult to do considering the students’ time to have real-time interaction and their varying internet capabilities and speed. then, it is also difficult for students to engage and participate due to their “isolated” homes. from the statements above, it is concluded that it is impossible for students to have online group assignment because they may come from different places that make them cannot meet, engage, and interact well. even, few of the students may come from isolated places where they cannot get good access from internet and technology. looking at the background of the problems elaborated above, this study aims to investigate creative ideas of online learning assessments as solutions for problems related to assessments during online learning process. two types of questions guided the ways of how the data were obtained; (1) what were assessment techniques used by the lecturers in online learning? (2) what were effective ways of assessment used for online learning? to answer those questions, qualitative principle of data collection and analysis were implemented. 2. literature review the discussion below is related to some kinds of assessment that can be used by the teachers to create effective online learning assessment. 2.1. modified traditional assessment there are many examples of traditional assessment tools which can be used, modified, and implemented in the context of online learning assessment. they are solving problems, thought-provoking discussion questions, essay exams, working well with each other, projects that require students to demonstrate proficiency in content knowledge, and communicating effectively (henning, 2003). for example, the teachers can ask students to make a project like field research while working together with friends. during the field research, the students need to record all activities including interviewing people and observing objects, and so forth. 2.2. e-learning assessment orlando (2011) proposed some techniques of e-learning environment. the assessments are: (a) blogs; a google application where students can post writings, essays, pictures, videos, links, and activities that teachers can easily grade and give feedback, (b) papers; students’ writing that can be published on blogs, journals and can sokhira lindavinde rambe englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 141 be commented by others, (c) group assignment; asking students to work in a small or big group to do certain task like solving real case study, (d) discussion; an activity when students comment each other like discussion on blogs, fb, and the like, (e) wikis; “a media for publishing group projects and task, and assessing teamwork cooperative work and team building”, (f) teaching modules of students, (g) voice thread; “making slides of powerpoint with videos, photos as well as giving narration to make a presentation in multimedia”, (h) digital storytelling; uploading “videos or photos then adding a voiceover to create five-to-ten-minute digital stories to illustrate a point”. 2.3. alternative assessments types of assessments included in this part are “authentic, performance, and portfolio assessments”. if they are applied well, they will give evaluation information related to students’ performance (christopher et al., 2004; gaytan & mcewen, 2002). regarding some types of assessments stated in the previous sections, this study tries to collect the data by referring the indictors of assessment given by the experts. in other words, there are three kinds of assessment aspects that would be investigated and analyzed from the research participants. 3. method a qualitative approach was applied in this study with the type of descriptive qualitative research. particularly, this study described kinds of language assessment used by the teachers in online learning. the research in this study was conducted in english education department or tadris bahasa inggris (tbi) of the state institute for islamic studies padangsidimpuan (iain padangsidimpuan). in fact, one of the institutions that have to run online learning is the english education department of state institute for islamic studies (iain padangsidimpuan). for lecturers, teaching students in online learning is a challenge task because they have to provide some teaching components including designing the assessment that can measure students’ learning achievement objectively and effectively. moreover, to limit the discussion in this study, two types of data were collected and analyzed i.e. data related to kinds of assessment that the lecturers used in online learning and techniques of assessment that they applied to get effective and objective assessment. ten lecturers of english education department were chosen as respondents and interviewed to get data needed. the research in this study was done through several stages of the process that began from (1) data collection; (2) presentation of data; (3) data reduction; and (4) conclusions based on the principles of qualitative data paradigm. the process of choosing the respondents was done by using purposive sampling technique because all of them did online learning and of course online assessment. then, data collection technique used was structured interview. creative techniques for online learning assessment 142 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 4. findings and discussion there are two parts of findings and discussions that were described in this study, namely teachers’ assessment techniques used by teachers and effective techniques of learning assessment in online learning. 4.1. language assessment techniques used by teachers during online learning related to this type of data, ten lecturers of english education department were interviewed and these are the elaboration of data related to it. as it is mentioned in the background of this study, there were ten techniques of language assessment that become indicators of assessment techniques used by the teachers. they were multiple choice quiz, essay test (henning, 2003), discussion or problem solving, summary, research based paper, recording and videotaping of performance, online presentation, storytelling, and creating content in social media like youtube, facebook, blogs (orlando, 2011; gaytan & mcewen, 2002). thus, kinds of assessment techniques used by the lecturers in online learning are elaborated below. 4.1.1. google form application test among the ten lecturers interviewed, three of them used quiz in a form of multiple choice quiz through google form. the lecturers used this technique to measure students’ theoretical knowledge and comprehension toward the material and contents of the lesson such as in pragmatics and education basic concepts. in fact, this technique was used for the mid and final term of tests because this test is regarded easy to correct and it helps lecturers to set students’ time during the test. 4.1.2. essay test the second technique of assessment was essay test in which six of the ten lecturers used this through whatsapp and google classroom application. the lecturers posted some questions (wh-questions) and asked students to answer with the set time and students answer the questions and send them on time. this kind of assessment was used for measuring students’ achievement in mid and final test. again, the lecturers perceived that it was easy to do and to handle. 4.1.3. discussion and problem solving then, as a weekly assessment assessed students in every meeting, it was found that classroom discussion and problem solving were chosen as a favorable technique. usually, the lecturers began the lesson by posting some questions, problems, and related issues on whatapp or google classroom and let students give their opinions. this was to see students’ involvement and understanding toward the subject being taught. also, the lecturers could see how many students participated and engaged in the learning process. in fact, the lecturers said that not all students wanted to attend the online learning and the discussion was used as an attendance or absence during online learning. sokhira lindavinde rambe englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 143 even, one of the lecturers used this technique as the most dominant measurement of students’ achievement in a semester. 4.1.4. online presentation in addition to weekly assignments, students’ online presentation was also used by seven lecturers. in a condition, the students worked in groups yet separately and each group member posted a video of his/her presentation and the lecturers asked the students to ask questions and comment to the answers. 4.1.5. writing summary while the groups were assigned to make an online presentation, the rest of students were assigned to write a summary as a report that the students have read the materials before learning it in online learning. through this assessment, the teachers would believe that students learnt autonomously before the lecturers discussed it. related to this technique, six lecturers applied it in online learning. 4.1.6. online interview online interview was also used by one of lecturers to measure students’ comprehension at final test. she did online interview via video call application to every student and she thought the result was very objective. authentically, with this test, the lecturer could see students who had good scores on test and vice-versa. in addition to the final assessment technique, there were also two lecturers who assigned students with mini research or research based papers. moreover, this study also found that there were differences between assessment techniques to assess theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge. it was known that techniques of assessment stated in the previous section were mostly used by the lecturers to measure students’ understanding and comprehension toward subjects related to theoretical knowledge like in the subjects of basic concepts of grammar, translation, tefl, and morphology. in contrast, it was also conveyed that the lecturers used different techniques assessment to assess students’ practical knowledge like measuring students’ competences in micro teaching, and research subjects. 4.1.7. skill performance/practice the following explanation is related to assessment techniques applied by the lecturers to deal with practical knowledge evaluation. related to practical knowledge assessment, asking students to do real practice or show their performance at certain skills was the most chosen technique comparing to others. in that case, the students were assigned to record their performance like micro teaching activity and load it on whatsapp and google classroom group or make it as social media content like in facebook and youtube. in fact, eight of ten lecturers used this technique and they creative techniques for online learning assessment 144 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 perceived that it is very objective to measure students’ certain skills. the description of techniques used by lecturers is shown on table 1. table 1 language assessment techniques used by teachers during online learning. no assessment techniques numbers of lecturers who used it 1 discussion/problem solving 8 2 practice/performance 8 3 online presentation 7 4 essay test 6 5 writing summary 6 6 multiple choice test with/out google form application 3 7 online interview 2 8 mini research/research based paper 2 table 1 shows that discussions in terms of problem solving and doing practice/performance were used by most of the lecturers (eight lecturers) in english education department of iain padangsidimpuan. then, from the ten lecturers, 7 lecturers used online presentation followed with essay test and writing summary. finally, a few lecturers used multiple choice (three lecturers), online interview and research based paper (two lecturers) as assessment techniques in online learning. 4.2. effective techniques of language assessment in online learning the second finding is related to effective techniques of language assessment in online learning. to get the data, ten lecturers were interviewed to know their opinions about effective techniques to be used as language assessment in online learning. effective techniques here mean types of assessment that can prevent students from cheating and plagiarism and can be used as an authentic test that produce reliable result and scores. looking at the lecturers’ preference to the use of assessment techniques mentioned previously, it is shown that many lecturers frequently choose to assess students using performance task, which is recorded through video, and they also preferred problem solving or discussion as weekly assignment. thus, this study regards those two techniques as the most effective techniques of language assessment in online learning in context of english department of the institute for islamic studies of padangsidimpuan. this study revealed that there were differences between language assessment used in measuring theoretical and practical knowledge. to assess students’ theoretical knowledge, all lecturers agreed with the effective use of online presentation as language assessment. in that case, every student takes turns to present one of contents or materials from the book and record their explanation through video. then, presenters sokhira lindavinde rambe englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 145 will load the videos on social media like youtube, facebook, and whatsapp group and the rest of students will ask questions and comments to it. many lecturers also perceived that carrying out a test via google form application is an effective technique to assess language in which multiple choices and essay test can be designed using automatically allocated time, random questions and certain set condition. in addition to the previous explanation, online interview is also regarded effective and two lecturers agreed with this technique because the lecturers can see and know objectively students’ ability in answering the test. in contrast, based on the interview results, it was known that essay test (whquestions) and writing summary of the content are regarded not effective because the students tend to cheat their friends and copy the answers from the resources. however, one lecturer thought asking students to answer the test using their own words is one of the solutions to avoid cheating and plagiarism in online test. again, the problem is sometimes the lecturers cannot recognize which students are categorized good and bad in language, so it cannot guarantee the authenticity of the test result. the second data elaboration is related to effective technique used to assess students’ practical knowledge. it was found that all lecturers agreed that doing real practice and showing their performance are the most effective techniques for language assessment. the students did practice like in micro teaching subjects and loaded it in social media like in youtube, facebook, and whatsapp group, so it is easy for lecturers and other students to see and give feedback. through this technique, the lecturers could see the authenticity of students’ skills, and competences on the content being taught. from the finding elaborated previously, it is stated that the lecturers preferred discussion and problem solving as a weekly assessment. it is really needed because the lecturers sometimes get difficulties to recognize their students. thus, with this weekly assignment, they can know at least general capabilities of their students in online learning. in fact, through discussion, the students can participate and engage the learning process actively and let the lecturers familiarize with their identity. thus, the online learning is not perceived as only product-oriented instruction but also processoriented learning. related to this idea, zacharis (2009) said that having problem solving will foster students’ participation and it creates students’ participation and communication in online learning environment. then, that making a video or recording of students’ performance and real practice was also the most favorable technique of language assessment related to practical knowledge, as orlando (2011) wrote in his book saying that turning students into teachers can be the best way to produce and assess learning. it means that asking students to practice teaching like in micro teaching and publish the result is the most effective way to make students successful in learning. wiechetek (2018) also saw the benefits of using instructional video in e-learning which is assumed that video content creative techniques for online learning assessment 146 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 published on global video-sharing websites can be a source of valuable information and can be used to increase effectiveness of learning processes. looking at the benefits of recording students’ performance and skills through video, it is perceived that there are advantages that lecturers and students can take. the lecturers could see students’ real and authentic ability in online learning and of course it avoids plagiarism and cheating among the students. then, students also can use video to record their interactive presentation in certain materials during online learning. that is why to assess students’ theoretical knowledge, lecturers also could ask students to make online interactive presentation. finally, video lets students view actual objects and realistic senses, to see sequences in motion, and to listen to narrations (wiechetek, 2018). moreover, this study also argues that giving an online test like via google form application to assess students’ knowledge and comprehension is also another alternative technique which this study perceives it as one of the effective ways to avoid material cheating and plagiarism during the test in online learning (kearns, 2012). this test is assumed effective because the test makers can randomize the questions which every test taker will have different question in different numbers. in line with this idea, budhai (2020) suggests to make various types of questions randomly as one of the ways to avoid cheating in online learning test. 6. conclusion there are some points that can be concluded from this study. the first, there should be effective techniques used by the lecturers to overcome problems related to online learning assessment like cheating and plagiarism which lead to less objective result and scoring. then, using more than one assessment technique is required in online learning like the use of portfolio as one of the assessment types. moreover, there should be an authentic principle of assessment given to students to get more reliable result of the test like the implementation of practice task to assess students’ learning. it means that an effective assessment must be related to learners’ involvement in real life activity such as real teaching practice if the subject is about teaching methodology. references al-hujran, o., aloudat, a., al-hennawi, h., & ismail,h. n. 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(2009). fostering students’ participation in online environments: focus on interaction, communication and problem solving. journal of college teaching & learning, 6, 25–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/08923640701341653 https://doi.org/10.5204/jld.v9i3.293 englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2023. vol. 10, no.2, 276-291 exploring al-ghazali’s concept of education: a study of speech acts through english language lens zurriyati zurriyati*1, alemina br perangin-angin2, fadhlur rahman1 1institut agama islam negeri lhokseumawe, indonesia 2universitas sumatera utara, indonesia manuscript received march 17, 2023, revised april 12, 2023, accepted april 15, 2023, and published online may 7, 2023. recommended apa citation zurriyati, z., perangin-angin, a. br., & rahman, f. (2023). exploring al-ghazali’s concept of education: a study of speech acts through english language lens. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 10(2), 276-291. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.17226 abstract the purpose of this study is to provide an in-depth analysis of the types, functions, and manner of speech acts utilised in al-ghazali's notion on educational concept. the study employed a content analysis methodology, which entailed gathering data from a variety of sources, including al-ghazali's writings and scholarly articles related to his works. the findings of this study reveal that al-ghazali's idea of education in is dominated by directive speech acts, followed by assertive acts and constative acts. the category of recommending acts makes up the vast majority of directive acts, whereas order acts are somewhat less common. further, al-ghazali’s use of speech acts tends to emphasize a competitive function, followed by a collaborative one. interestingly, neither convivial nor conflicting functions are presented in this study. the dominance of directive speech acts, highlight al-ghazali's preference for providing guidance and advice to his readers in a harmonious and respectful communication style. furthermore, al-ghazali's use of speech acts can be classified primarily as literal and direct speech acts, with subsequent employment of indirect and non-literal forms. these findings contribute to the teaching learning process including english language in applying speech act. finally, this study highlights the significance of considering the types, functions, and manner of performing speech acts propose to teachers and students in english language teaching learning process. *corresponding author: zurriyati institut agama islam negeri lhokseumawe jl. medan b. aceh, alue awe, kec. muara dua, kota lhokseumawe, aceh 24352, indonesia email: zurriyati@iainlhokseumawe.ic.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v10i2.17226 zurriyati zurriyati, alemina br perangin-angin, & fadhlur rahman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 277 keywords: speech act; al-ghazali’s concept; islamic education; teaching 1. introduction education aims to transform knowledge, attitudes, and values, and its importance is universally recognized (agbedahin, 2019). while educational institutions have a formal responsibility for character development, societal factors also play a crucial role. education is necessary for just social change and for freeing individuals from poverty, inequality (adams, 2002; kromydas, 2017), and violence (muluk et al., 2021; zainal et al., 2022). the topic of education is frequently discussed in society and has led to the emergence of various experts who provide solutions to problems related to the educational process (ottaway, 2013; boyson, 2023; withrington, 2016). al-ghazali, one of the renowned scholars in islamic tradition, has made significant contributions to the field of education (hamzah, 2017). education employs various languages and methods to facilitate effective knowledge transfer (musling et al., 2022; nurman et al., 2022; zakaria et al., 2022). one of the keys aims of education is to encourage learners to apply what they have learned in their actions, which is known as a "speech act” in linguistic terms (azhari et al., 2018). understanding the intent behind a statement or utterance is frequently essential for effective communication (richards & schmidt, 2014). yet, the relationship between the surface form of an utterance and its underlying meaning is not always clear. critical questions might come up to these issues, what does it truly mean for one action to be performed by another? are there actually two acts? one act under numerous descriptions? or a single act with multiple unique objectives? insofar as the semantic type of a speech impacts its language behaviour, the semantic kinds of some utterances are also perplexing (ward, 2016; petrey, 2016; silk, 2016). on the one hand, there is evidence that certain speech acts, such as the preceding example, function linguistically like requests: for instance, they can be modified with please, whereas simple questions cannot. therefore, by exploring al-ghazali’s speech act it is hoped that this study will provide a framework for understanding the different levels of meaning conveyed through language. equally important, al-ghazali's speech acts can be applied to various aspects of teaching and learn in since language teaching materials should benefit more from the concept of speech act sets and apply them more frequently in order to raise students' understanding of the nature of speech act methods used in the target language (cohen, 2022). therefore, this study aims to address three important research questions through a qualitative content analysis of al-ghazali's concept of education. first, what kinds of speech act are found in al-ghazali’s concept of education? second, what are the functions of speech acts included in al-ghazali’s concept of education? and thirdly, how is the manner in which speech acts are performed in al-ghazali’s concept of education? this study seeks to deepen our understanding of al-ghazali's concept of education and shed exploring al-ghazali’s concept of education: a study of speech acts through english language lens 278 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 light on the role of speech acts in islamic education by examining these questions. ultimately, this research may have broader implications for education, as it reveals how speech acts can be used to influence attitudes and behaviour in a variety of contexts. 2. literature review 2.1. speech act yule (2022) defines speech acts as the three categories of acts performed by a speaker when uttering a sentence, implying that the interpretation of a sentence's meaning depends on the speaker's intended communication. further, from austin’s seminal work, he expands on the concept of speech acts, distinguishing between constatives and performatives he posits that speaking about the world is also an act, involving three acts: (a) the act of communicating with appropriate grammar and words, which may or may not be real; (b) the illocutionary act, which is the act of uttering a phrase in a specific context, such as a promise, caution, or threat; and (c) the perlocutionary act, which is the act (s) the speaker performs by uttering those words, and the audience's future consequences of the comment (caponetto, 2020). further, austin notes that the three acts are identical and understanding what was said requires comprehending the full speech act in the complete speech environment. in the realm of communication, speech acts are regarded as acts that express a particular attitude, with the type of speech act being performed corresponding to the type of attitude being conveyed (ward, 2016). for instance, a statement conveys a belief, a request conveys a desire, and an apology conveys regret. the success of a speech act as an act of communication is determined by the audience's ability to correctly identify the attitude being expressed in accordance with the speaker's intention (richards & schmidt, 2014). the initial portion of austin's how to do things with words is characterized by ambiguity as he first creates a tripartite distinction, immediately retracts it, and then implies it again while focusing on the illocutionary act for the remainder of the lectures. according to austin, a performative adds meaning to a word by satisfying the speaker's goals when uttering the sentence, the speaker's authority, and the context-dependent conventions. for example, in the case of saying "i do," one would only be considered married if they were the groom or bride. speech act theory posits that it covers all human communication, yet its application appears more suitable for specific situations, such as education (cohen, 2022). the three primary components of a successful speech act, namely goals, conventions, and authority, are typically evident in formal education. in this context, the teacher's aim is to teach while the student's intention is to learn, and while there may be other goals in the classroom, these two are the most important (biggs, 2012). schools and universities have established rules, processes, deadlines, and tests, and there is a significant amount of roleplaying within chains of command (levin & riffel, 2019). within this chain of command, certain individuals are authorized to speak at particular times, such as teachers, zurriyati zurriyati, alemina br perangin-angin, & fadhlur rahman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 279 instructors, and pupils. hence, with established conventions, goals, and authorities, schooling already fits the basic conditions of speech act theory (pakula, 2019). secondly, schooling provides a context for all three aspects of the speech act. firstly, there is a plethora of information to convey in education, including subjects such as art, physics, philosophy, math, and literature. it also introduces students to other activities, such as making pledges or warnings, using illocutions. furthermore, education aims to make young people better, more autonomous, moral, and happy, thereby making society better for all. thus, education provides a rich context for the application of speech act theory's three components (cohen, 2022). in some situations, the three-dimensional nature of speech acts may not be applicable. for example, when encountering someone while out in public, passing on information is often conveyed through illocutionary cues such as tone and gesture, rather than through the actual words spoken, as posited by austin. thus, in everyday conversations, distinguishing between locutions, illocutions, and perlocutions can be challenging, particularly when attempting to distinguish between perlocutions and the illocutions that generated them (sbisa, 2019). however, such differentiation remains relevant and valuable in educational settings, where the speaker's utterances encompass all three dimensions of the speech act. when a student enters a classroom, they encounter new locutions, illocutions, and perlocutions, which can provide valuable insights into educational practices (putra et al., 2022; hidayat et al., 2022). additionally, the heightened significance of all three dimensions of the speech act in educational settings can serve as effective tools for examining and analyzing educational practices (armin & salmiah, 2021). while illocutions refer to the various ways that information is conveyed, perlocutions relate to the outcomes that are achieved in the future, such as in the students' lives, communities, and societies. by emphasizing the speaker's intention, hornsby's account of illocution allows us to better understand how emotions and attitudes can influence the success of a speech act. for example, if a teacher delivers a lesson with the intention of boring their students, then the illocutionary force of their speech act will likely fail to achieve the goal of educating the students. on the other hand, if the same teacher delivers the same lesson with the intention of engaging and inspiring their students, then the illocutionary force of their speech act is more likely to succeed in achieving the goal of education (cohen, 2022). therefore, by considering the emotional component of speech acts and focusing on the speaker's intention in performing illocutions, speech act theory can provide a valuable tool for analyzing and improving educational practices. in examining the distinction between illocution and perlocution, hornsby, a prominent scholar, proposes a solution that emphasizes the importance of reciprocity in speech acts (longworth, 2019). he further argues that relying solely on language tests, consequences, or convention is insufficient in isolating and understanding illocutionary speech acts. rather, the key to illocution lies in the audience's ability to receive and understand the speaker's words, demonstrating a reciprocal relationship. by taking into exploring al-ghazali’s concept of education: a study of speech acts through english language lens 280 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 account the correct conditions, hornsby proposes a working definition of illocution, stating that speech acts are illocutionary only if the criteria allow the audience to accept them. as an example, hornsby considers a math teacher stating "2 + 2 equals 4" and argues that it is illocutionary only if the class accepts it based on the correct conditions. in certain cases, speech acts are not solely acting of communication but also serve to affect institutional states of affairs in one of two ways (richards & schmidt, 2014). some speech acts officially judge something to be the case, such as judges' rulings, referees' calls, and assessors' appraisals. other speech acts, such as sentencing, bequeathing, and appointing, have the function of affecting institutional states of affairs in a different way. these acts can only be performed in specific ways and demonstrate the importance of understanding the various dimensions of speech acts in education and other settings (smith, 2017). moreover, schubert and rankema (2018) highlight the goal of speech act theory, which is to acknowledge that words, phrases, and sentences serve a purpose beyond conveying information. while information is encoded in language, people use language to accomplish various tasks. therefore, conveying information often involves more than what words themselves communicate. the term "speech act" should be regarded as a generic term for any type of language use, regardless of whether it is spoken or written. the illocutionary meaning of an utterance pertains to its social function (kim, 2019). thus, in the previous example, the social function of the utterance may be a request to close the window in the room. the perlocutionary meaning of an utterance relates to the intended effect or outcome produced by the speech act. for example, if the previous utterance results in the closing of the window, the speech act has had its perlocutionary effect. overall, understanding the different types of meaning in speech acts is critical in grasping their function in communication and in developing sociolinguistic competence (hymes, 2020). therefore, by considering the emotional component of speech acts and focusing on the speaker's intention in performing illocutions, speech act theory can provide a valuable tool for analyzing and improving educational practices. 2.2. al-ghazali’s concept of education according to wartini (2016), al-ghazali's philosophy of education represents the pinnacle of islamic thought on education, which emphasizes the integration and reconciliation of different intellectual schools. the main objective of education, according to al-ghazali, is to make human beings perfect and to bring them closer to god in order to attain happiness in both this world and the hereafter. the ultimate goal of education is utility, which encompasses both material and spiritual aspects and includes both individual and social phenomena. al-ghazali believed that the purpose of education is the formation, construction, and completion of manners, so that individuals can differentiate between good and bad and abstain from evil (ebrahimi et al., 2021). zurriyati zurriyati, alemina br perangin-angin, & fadhlur rahman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 281 to achieve this aim, the educational system must be derived from the quran, which is the primary source of beneficial knowledge (sheikh & ali, 2019). the quran is a divinely revealed guidebook that encourages individuals to study and reflect upon everything around them. the traditions of the prophet muhammad (peace be upon him) serve as a practical explanation and application of this divine knowledge, demonstrating the prophet's practice in reinforcing certain behaviours and deterring undesirable conduct (aidulsyah, 2020). imam al-ghazali believed that it is the prime duty of muslims to search for reality through knowledge in accordance with the quran, which is essential for establishing a person's relationship with allah. he also asserted that revelation is necessary to gain this knowledge, which is only attained when the heart or soul is pure and untarnished (samaeng, 2008). al-ghazali's concept of knowledge encompasses religious, secular, and scientific knowledge, and its sum total is a cultured person (khasawneh et al., 2022). to achieve this aim, an appropriate education system, including a suitable curriculum, effective teaching methods, and knowledge of teaching, is necessary. according to sugiana (2019), al-ghazali believed that the education of a child should begin with the qur'an, which he considered as the primary source of islamic teachings and the word of allah. therefore, he took significant steps to improve the curriculum of his time (muhammad et al., 2022). al-ghazali's emphasis on the qur'an in education was a ground-breaking concept in muslim education. in addition, al-ghazali's teaching procedures align with modern western educational practices (ardiansyah et al., 2022). he emphasized the importance of teachers preparing their lessons in advance and actively involving students in the learning process. this aligns with the principles and procedures taught in modern colleges of education. al-ghazali also recognized the significance of considering students' previous knowledge to enhance their learning experience. he believed that such an approach would greatly benefit students. throughout his teachings, al-ghazali emphasized the paramount importance of knowledge acquisition and committing oneself to the process (hillenbrand, 2020). one of al-ghazali's most comprehensive works was ihya 'ulum al-din, a multi-volume encyclopaedia covering various topics of interest, including education (siregar, 2022) in ihya, al-ghazali asserted that knowledge is not readily attainable unless one fully devotes oneself to the pursuit of information. he argues that a shallow familiarity with the subject matter yields no benefit. this assertion is corroborated by an al-hadist text emphasizing the need for honesty in all actions. al-ghazali also proclaimed that sincere dedication is imperative to achieving salvation and coming closer to god (wartini, 2016). al-ghazali recognized the significance of the family unit as a fundamental and influential factor in an individual's life. he further contended that the pursuit of knowledge should commence at birth and not wait until formal schooling. al-ghazali suggested that family members should teach each other, with parents and other adults exploring al-ghazali’s concept of education: a study of speech acts through english language lens 282 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 serving as primary instructors for children, but also encouraging children to teach their parents (khasawneh et al., 2022). further, al-ghazali advised students to complete their spiritual growth before venturing into the corporate sector, recommending immersion in religious studies (sugiana, 2019). according to al-ghazali, "wisdom is the goal of every believer." furthermore, he advised students to show respect for their teachers and encouraged teachers to be kind to their pupils. al-ghazali remarked that small class sizes are preferable to a single student, indicating that interaction among students can yield valuable learning experiences. regarding respect, al-ghazali posited that a person has three fathers: the biological father, the caretaker, and the educator, with the latter being the most significant. al ghazali stressed the importance of respecting one's educators in this context. al-ghazali recommended that teachers should treat their pupils with kindness, similar to how they would treat their own children (siregar, 2022; khasawneh et al., 2022). he advocated for the empathetic encouragement of good behaviour while also utilizing appropriate punishment where necessary. al-ghazali emphasized the need for teachers to be honest with their students about their progress and to teach only what students are capable of understanding, thus avoiding imparting knowledge beyond their comprehension. both teachers and students should remember that the ultimate aim of education is to draw closer to god (wartini, 2016). furthermore, al-ghazali advised teachers to practice what they teach to avoid confusing their students and to reinforce knowledge retention. he also suggested that teachers' reputations could be more impactful than their words in facilitating effective teaching. he, furthermore, urged educators and parents to consider individual variations in children's learning potential when allocating curricula. parents should assess each child's learning capacity and potential before planning their education. al-ghazali proposed that teachers should "speak to men according to their cognitive level, using pictures and examples," to facilitate effective instruction (sasmita, 2022). 3. method this study utilized content analysis to systematically and objectively analyse the speech act used by al-ghazali in delivering his notion on educational concept (krippendorff, 2019). through this study, the use of content analysis has allowed for a systematic analysis of al ghazali's speech act, providing valuable insights into the different levels of meaning conveyed through language, with potential applications in various aspects of teaching and learning. the analysis involved a systematic coding of each utterance based on the appropriate speech act category (directive, assertive, and commissive). the data was then subjected to further analysis to identify patterns and themes that emerged from the different types of speech acts using a three-step process. the initial phase of the research process involves data reduction, a methodical approach that prioritises pertinent zurriyati zurriyati, alemina br perangin-angin, & fadhlur rahman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 283 information for the purpose of addressing the three research questions. this process entails the collection of data from diverse sources, such as the writings of al-ghazali and scholarly articles related to his oeuvre. the ultimate goal of this undertaking is to sift through copious amounts of information and to endeavour in on the most relevant data points that will enable the researchers to arrive at a comprehensive and accurate analysis. by giving the code of each sentences utilized by al-ghazali then the kinds of speech act, functions and manner in which speech act are performed in al-ghazali’s concept of education would be found. further, the data reduction process that prioritises important data points will yield clearer and more refined descriptions, thus facilitating the researcher's ability to locate and access the necessary information with greater ease and efficiency. furthermore, data display is the next step after data reduction in the qualitative approach, the data of this process would be displayed in a chart (the different types of speech acts utilized by al ghazali) with a short description. the research could be verified in sense to be confirmed, revised and repeated by the same or different way. 4. findings and discussion specifically, the data was categorized into percentages to determine the qualifications, functions, and modes of performing each type of speech act. this approach was chosen to provide a more objective and measurable analysis of the data. the results of the speech act analysis are presented in the form of a chart that outlines the various moves and their corresponding percentages. chart 1. moves of types of speech acts as illustrated in the chart, al-ghazali predominantly employed directive speech acts in his discourse on education, accounting for more than 50% of his speech acts, with a total of 67%. the second most commonly used type of speech act was assertive, comprising 23% of his speech acts, while constative speech acts accounted for 10%, and 0 5 10 15 20 20 (67%) 0 7 … 0 0 0 3… 0 total: 30 (100%) types of speech acts exploring al-ghazali’s concept of education: a study of speech acts through english language lens 284 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 0 2 4 stating act explaining act describing act total: 7 (100%) kinds of assertive types of speech acts other types were not included. this implies that al-ghazali frequently employed suggestions, commands, and requests to instruct his audience in comprehending his ideas on education. moreover, he employed assertive speech acts to state, explain, and describe matters related to his concepts on education generally. it is noteworthy that the type of speech act employed by al-ghazali is dependent on the topic being discussed. thus, his discourse on education encompasses various types of speech acts. the moves and the types of speech acts employed by al -ghazali are displayed in the table below. chart 2. the moves of directive types of speech acts the chart above displays that the predominant directive speech act utilized by alghazali in his concept of education is the suggesting act, constituting 35% of the total speech acts. this finding implies that al-ghazali employed effective language by giving suggestions to influence individuals to comply with his instructions. following the suggesting act is the commanding act, accounting for 30% of the total speech acts, while the insisting act comprises 20%. additionally, the asking act constitutes 10%, and the ordering act is the least used, accounting for only 5%. chart 3. the moves of assertive types of speech acts 0 2 4 6 8 total: 20 (100%) kinds of directive types of speech acts zurriyati zurriyati, alemina br perangin-angin, & fadhlur rahman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 285 0 5 10 15 20 competitive convivial collaborative conflictive total: 30 (100%) function of speech acts based on the presented chart, it can be inferred that there are only three categories of assertive speech acts utilized by al-ghazali, namely explaining, describing, and stating. specifically, the explaining act was the most prevalent form of assertive speech act, accounting for 57% of the total units. meanwhile, the describing act constituted 29% of the total units, and the stating act had the lowest frequency, comprising only 14% of the total units. such findings suggest that al-ghazali primarily utilized the explaining act in his discourse regarding the concept of education. chart 4. the moves of constative type of speech acts according to the chart above, the research findings indicate that the constative type of speech act is predominantly classified into two categories: assertive act and informative act, which comprise 67% and 33%, respectively. furthermore, the moves of the analysis of function of speech act can be seen as in the following chart: chart 5. moves of function of speech acts 0 0,5 1 1,5 2 assertive informative total: 3 (100%) kinds of constative types of speech acts exploring al-ghazali’s concept of education: a study of speech acts through english language lens 286 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 as demonstrated in the preceding chart, the competitive function has been found to prevail in al-ghazali's employment of speech acts, constituting 57% of the instances identified in this study. furthermore, the present investigation has revealed that the utilization of various functions of speech acts by al-ghazali is contingent upon both the subject matter and the intended audience. hence, the functions of speech acts employed by al-ghazali can be categorized into a multitude of types. the schema of the various functions of speech acts can be discerned in the ensuing chart: chart 6. moves of the competitive function the aforementioned chart also reveals that the asking act accounted for the majority of competitive functions of speech act used by al-ghazali, comprising 47% of the total instances. the demanding act, on the other hand, constituted 35% of the competitive functions of speech act, while the ordering act was the least utilized, accounting for only 18% of the instances. thus, it can be inferred from the data that al-ghazali tended to place particular emphasis on employing the asking act in conveying his ideas pertaining to education. chart 6. moves of the collaborative function 0 2 4 6 8 asking acts ordering acts demanding acts total: 17 (100%) kinds of competitive function of speech acts 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 reporting explaining instructive commanding total: 13 (100%) kinds of collaborative function of speech acts zurriyati zurriyati, alemina br perangin-angin, & fadhlur rahman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 | 287 finally, the moves of the way of performing acts can be seen as in the following chart: figure 8. moves of way of performing act chart 7. moves of way of performing act according to the chart presented above, it is evident that al-ghazali employs four ways of performing acts in expressing his ideas pertaining to the concept of education in islamic teaching to the reader. the literal way of performing acts, which occurs when alghazali gives statements and explanations that prompt the reader to take action, is the most frequently used with a percentage of 43%. the direct way of performing acts ranks second with a percentage of 32%, as al-ghazali clearly articulates his intentions. in contrast, the indirect way of performing acts, which involves al-ghazali asking and ordering the reader indirectly, constitutes 18% of the data. lastly, the non-literal way of performing acts, which presents the reasoning behind the statements, accounts for only 7% of the data. based on the research findings, this study confirms that al-ghazali uses of speech acts in his concept of education is dominated by directive, assertive, and constative acts. the predominant category of the directive act is the suggesting act, whereas the ordering act has a relatively lower occurrence. in addition, al-ghazali’s statements/utterances related to the concept of education and identifies them as locutionary acts. al-ghazali is widely known for his prolific writing in arabic, a language that is central to the islamic tradition. however, with the translation of his works into english, a new avenue of inquiry has been opened, one that holds great promise for gaining a deeper and more nuanced understanding of his ideas. by analysing his concepts of education through the lens of speech act theory, it is possible to uncover new insights into the subtleties of his ideas, and their relevance to contemporary educational discourse. in particular, this study highlights the prevalence of recommending acts in al-ghazali's works, suggesting a collaborative approach to education, but also emphasizes a 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 direct indirect literal non-literal total: 60 (100%) the way of performing speech act exploring al-ghazali’s concept of education: a study of speech acts through english language lens 288 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, no.2, may 2023 competitive function, which speaks to the importance of self-motivation and selfimprovement. interestingly, the study finds that neither convivial nor conflicting functions are present in his works, underscoring the importance of maintaining a respectful and constructive dialogue. by using speech act theory to uncover the nuances of al-ghazali's ideas, this research illuminates the ways in which he used language to convey his notions about education. overall, this study offers a fresh perspective on alghazali's ideas, revealing a more comprehensive understanding of his philosophy, and demonstrating the power of language to convey complex ideas with precision and clarity. 5. conclusion this study's findings add significantly to our understanding of al-communication ghazali's style in conveying his concept of education. the study reveals that directive speech acts, particularly the suggesting act, dominate al-ghazali's notion of education. the prevalence of suggestive acts reflects al-ghazali's desire to provide readers with guidance and advice. this is consistent with islamic tradition, which places a high value on education and the transmission of knowledge from scholars to students. however, the investigation is limited to the identification of thirty illocutionary acts, comprising 67% directive acts, 23% assertive acts, and 10% constative acts. notably, the most frequent category of directive acts is suggesting acts, representing 35% of the findings, while the least frequent is ordering acts, accounting for only 5%. nonetheless, the study did not detect commissive acts, expressive acts, verdictive acts, declarative acts, and acknowledgment acts. the absence of these types of illocutionar y acts might be attributed to the methodological approach employed. the study also demonstrates that the scarcity of orders, as well as the absence of convivial and conflictive functions, indicate al-ghazali's attempt to maintain a harmonious and respectful communication. this is consistent with al-ghazali's emphasis on the value of cooperation and respect. further, the current study sheds light on al ghazali's communication style when it comes to conveying his concept of education. the study reveals that directive speech acts, particularly the suggesting act, dominate al ghazali's communication style. the scarcity of orders, as well as the absence of convivial and conflictive functions, imply al-ghazali's attempt to maintain a harmonious and respectful communication with the readers. therefore, the study's findings can be used to develop effective communication strategies in a variety of fields. in sum, this study highlight the ghazali’s concept of education is relevant to speech act to apply in english language teaching learning process. it is an important thing to use in linguistics field because ghazali’s concept reveals how speakers use language to perform various actions. accordingly, applying speech acts based on ghazali’s concept contributes to teachers and students to have better understanding the communication styles of influential figures in education fields, particularly in english language teaching. zurriyati zurriyati, alemina br perangin-angin, & fadhlur rahman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.10, 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(2022). politeness strategies employed in communication with santri and ustadz in an islamic boarding school in indonesia. al-hijr: journal of adulearn world, 1(2), 80–87. https://doi.org/10.55849/alhijr.v1i2.14 englisia november 2019 vol. 7, no. 1, 69-81 investigating efl learners’ morals toward character education at stkip muhammadiyah aceh barat daya rina syafitri universitas teuku umar, indonesia rinasyafitri86@gmail.com puan tursina stkip muhammadiyah aceh barat daya, indonesia forlangncyu12@gmail.com manuscript received september 1, 2019, revised november 10, 2019, first published november 30, 2019, and available online november 30, 2019. doi: 10.22373/ej.v7i1.5201 abstract being smart and having good grades are the dreams of students in learning process. however, to achieve those goals they have to be aware that affective or character aspect is equally important as cognitive and psychomotor aspect in the learning process. thus, this study aimed to reveal the learning process of efl learners’ morals toward education character. the research method of this study was quantitative; the questionnaire was used to collect the data. a total number of 34 participants were selected from each semester of english education department (eed) at stkip muhammadiyah aceh barat daya by using convenience sampling. the data were analyzed quantitatively by using percentage. the results revealed that (1) most of students had positive attitudes toward character education in the learning process and (2) the common positive responses implied by eed students toward character education were in terms of commitment, responsibility and discipline. in summary, most of the students had a good character toward the implementation of education character in the classroom while having courses. however, there were only a few of eed students who were still not able to imply a good attitude toward education character in the classroom. therefore, it is recommended for lecturers to give more attention toward the implementation of students’ education character in the classroom and continuously create strategies to develop students’ good character so that they will have good moral and knowledge. keywords: efl; learners; english teaching; education character investigating efl learners’ morals toward character education at stkip muhammadiyah aceh barat daya 70 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 introduction nowadays, many students do not seriously pay attentions toward their character education. they just want to focus on receiving information (knowledge) by reading and training in a specific area or field or studies, achieving good grades (skill) by doing some activities such as teaching, training, or direct experience that are able to help them in dealing with daily problems and challenges without being aware of their bad or good values as a person or as a member of society. these phenomena lead toward character degradation such as moral crisis, where moral crisis has been the ongoing issued in which racism, xenophobia, violence, dishonesty, sexual harassment, intolerant, terror, corruption and cheating happened so often around the world (al-hamdani, 2014). english is a foreign language in indonesia, it will affect the students who are studying english and requires them to be able to communicate and adjusts its culture. therefore, to observe and absorb the materials given in or out of the classrooms, they also need to encourage their character to be aware of what happens in their environment. developing character education is one of the solutions to help people build their good character also their good societies. fortunately, indonesian education system has been recommended to promote character education since elementary school until college students which is hoped it can be a bridge for the betterment students, especially their morality. in addition, curriculum 2013 has provided a role that the teacher at school is a counselor not only a teacher which means she or he is not only has a task to teach the lessons but also life and religious value. hence, the institution should include character education (students’ morality) in order to help students not only to become clever but also to become good (o’sullivan, 2004; putri, harto, & moecharam, 2017). a number of studies figured out the positive results of applying character education programs in the schools, including higher academic achievements, fewer suspensions as well as dropout, and fewer risks behavior of students (bergmark, 2008; berkowitz & hoppe, 2009; katilmis, eksi, & ozturk, 2011; parker, nelson, & burns, 2010). thus, in the efl classroom, there are many ways to support character education such as the lecturers need to integrate character education into subject rina syafitri & puan tursina englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 71 matters, create good approaches or strategies in teaching and learning process, provide activities and practices which refer to character education. to overcome students’ character education problems in learning process, the researchers formulated the research questions as follows: (1) do efl learners at stkip muhammadiyah aceh barat daya have positive attitudes toward character education in the learning process? and (2) what are the common positive responses implied by efl learners toward character education in the learning process? literature review definition of character education the word character in ancient greek has a meaning “to engrave” which emphasizes the engraved traits will affect us to behave in certain manners (o’sullivan, 2004). “good character “is a concept which includes knowing good, embracing good and doing well’ (katilmis et al., 2011, p. 854). character education is a plus moral education, which include the cognitive, emotion, and action aspects. a systematical and continuous character education, a student would be emotionally intelligent. this emotional intelligent is the important foundation for the students’ future, therefore the students will be more successful in facing every life challenge, including the academic challenge. according to suyanto as cited in agung (2011), there are many types of characters values that can be promoted to students, one of them is noble values which have nine fundamental characters the first is the character of loving god and all of god’s creation, second is independence and responsibility, the third is honesty and diplomacy, fourth is respect fullness and politeness, the fifth is generosity and helpfulness, the sixth is confidence and hard-working quality, the seventh is leadership and fairness, the eight is good manner and humble, and the ninth is tolerance, peace and unity. in addition, character education can be defined as a system to develop the students’ character values which include the component of knowledge, awareness or willingness, and action to be implemented into religion, self, common people, environment, and nation as a complete human. in the implementation of the character education at schools, every stakeholder of learning must be involved in the process, including the education components, which are the curriculum, learning investigating efl learners’ morals toward character education at stkip muhammadiyah aceh barat daya 72 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 and evaluation process, relationship quality, lesson handling or management, school management, co-curricular activities implementation, facilities, funding, and performance of any and all school’s component. to sum up, character education is an act to form a person to behave and have good morals in order to be able to judge which one is correct and which one is wrong. current issues of students’ behaviors according to anderson (2000) mentioned that the efforts of renewing, revamping, or re-introducing the character education will not be a project that could be accomplished with urgency. it surely has to be gradual progressions with the notion to embed the program into educational institution’s curriculum. furthermore, he emphasized that the teachers should deliver overwhelms impact, or teaching the students in these institutions. in other words, “the teacher is central to character education” (anderson, 2000, p.139). character education must be taken as a serious problem because it is a crucial thing and has everlasting effects on the children or the students in displaying their character in the future. moreover, the plans should be well started from elementary, middle and high school year, and even to college, meanwhile it is distinguishingly embracing a wide range of well-built character classes (berkowitz & fekula, 1999). as explained by edgington (2002), morals are needed to be promoted to students for the advantage of our country, and particularly, that our communities. either the students of the past or the present generations who have no attention to anything, would dive into some detrimental acts of drinking, indiscriminative kind of behaviors, substance abuse, stealing, and felony crimes. in the past, these behavioral irregularities quickly brought about some concerns for educators, teachers, parents, organizations like religious concerns, government entities, and all others (stiff-williams, 2010). it has also been noticed that the beneficial of character education might give a good effect, broaden the students’ knowledge and welcome others respectively without looking at people’s background. they also have spirit of caring, and are tolerant in perceiving things (pamental, 2010). rina syafitri & puan tursina englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 73 methodology research design a quantitative data was used to address the research problems in this study. creswell (2012) defines that quantitative research emphasizes on the measurement and analysis of causal relationship between variables not process. participants the present study involved 34 college students; 4 male students and 30 female students from english education department at stkip muhammadiyah aceh barat daya, susoh, abdya. they are selected by using convenience sampling. students’ age ranged between 18 to 25 years old. most of the students’ native languages are acehnese, while the rest of them use bahasa and jamenese. regarding to the length of time in studying english, half of them (55.9%) had experience in studying english more than 12 years. 20.6 % of them had experience in studying english between 9-12 years, and 11.8% of them had experience in studying english between 4-9 years. instruments for the purpose of the research questions, the researchers made questionnaire which consisted of 10 items in a 5-point likert’s format ranging from 1= never, 2= seldom, 3= sometimes, 4= often to 5= always. the questionnaire had two parts; the first part was the information background of the participants such as: name, student number, major, university, age, gender, address, e-mail, phone number, native language and the period of learning experience. meanwhile, the second part was the questions which were related to character education in which were adopted from syafitri (2019) and referred to students’ attitude and behavior in the classroom. although the participants were students at english education department, the questionnaire was written in bahasa in order to make the students easily understand all the questions well. half an hour was given to students to fill out the questionnaire. investigating efl learners’ morals toward character education at stkip muhammadiyah aceh barat daya 74 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 data collection procedure at the beginning of the course, the researchers explained the learning contract that must be followed by students. several parts of the contract contents explained some attitudes toward the character education that were investigated for instances: the risk of cheating on the exam, the risk of doing assignment with responsibly, the risk of not attending the class, etc. next, while having the class, again the researchers not only explained the lessons in the classroom but also reminded them about the morals toward character education for examples to know what they have to do and what they cannot do in the learning process. after that, at the end of the semester, the researchers administered the questionnaire to the students. to address the research questions, the percentage was used to calculate the data. results and discussions rq 1: do efl learners at stkip muhammadiyah aceh barat daya have positive attitudes toward character education in the learning process? table 1. efl learners’ responses towards character education no questions efl learners’ responses 1 2 3 4 5 1 cheating on the exam 23.5% 32.4% 41.2% 2.9% 0.0% 2 delivering ideas in the classroom honestly 0.0% 2.9% 67.6% 20.6% 8.8% 3 having commitment in academic policy 0.0% 2.9% 5.9% 35.3% 55.9% 4 doing academic tasks with responsibility 0.0% 0.0% 14.7% 35.3% 50.0% 5 giving academic message honestly and responsibly 0.0% 0.0% 11.8% 32.4% 55.9% 6 asking classmates to sign the attendance list 88.2% 2.9% 2.9% 0.0% 5.9% 7 cheating on the attendance list or other academic forms 91.2% 2.9% 0.0% 5.9% 0.0% 8 citing good references when writing scientific work 0.0% 0.0% 26.5% 17.6% 55.9% rina syafitri & puan tursina englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 75 9 attending to the classroom on time 0.0% 0.0% 32.4% 47.1% 20.6% 10 submitting assignment on time 0.0% 0.0% 14.7% 29.4% 55.9% note: 1= never; 2= seldom; 3= sometimes; 4=often; 5=always table 1 showed the students’ responses toward character education. the results of question no. 1 described that (23.5 %) of students never cheated on the exam, (32.4 %) stated that they seldom cheated on the exam, (41.2%) described that sometimes they cheated on the exam, (2.9%) of them often cheated on the exam and no one (0.0%) stated that they always cheated on the exam. it can be concluded that there was no student who cheated on the exam all the time however if they had a chance to do it, they would do it. thus, there were many strategies could be done in cheating such as using crib notes or written science terms on their shoes, wrists or other parts of their body even if on their tables, cheat-sheets, copy students’ answer, look at the textbooks, etc. (lord & chiodo,1995; shariffuddin & holmes, 2009; shon 2006;). in addition, vandehey, diekhoff & labeff (2007) revealed that even if the students had a code ethic in the classroom, they were not aware of it and it did not give any impact to do cheating. besides, individual factors namely age, gender, and gpa could be a trigger to do it. for example, a study conducted by smyth and davis (2003) figured out that male students do most cheating than female students. moreover, willingness to have good-grades, parental pressures, laziness, lack of responsibility, lack of character, poor self-image, and lack of personal integrity could be others influence to do cheating (mccabe, feghali, & abdallah, 2008). based on students’ responses of question no 2, it is revealed that there were no students chose the option of never delivered ideas in the classroom honestly. while (2.9%) of them chose seldom delivered ideas honestly. besides that there most of students (67.6%) chose sometimes delivered ideas in the classroom honestly, and (20,6 % ) of them often delivered ideas in the classroom honestly. however, only (8.8%) of them always delivered ideas honestly. the results indicated that few students tried to deliver ideas in the classroom honestly, meanwhile the rest of them might gave ideas in the classroom because of pressure such as an obligation task to get a good score, friends’ support and lack of confident so that they asked their investigating efl learners’ morals toward character education at stkip muhammadiyah aceh barat daya 76 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 classmates to help them. to encourage the students, the lecturers must create and build learner autonomy, thus if the students have autonomy learners then the students will be able to motivate themselves to deliver ideas in the classroom (gagne, 2003). next, students’ responses of question no 3 explained that no one of students (0.0%) mentioned that he or she never had a commitment in academic policy, (2.9%) of them seldom had a commitment in academic policy, (5.9%) of students mentioned that they sometimes had a commitment in academy policy, and (35.3%) of them often had commitment in academy policy. however, more than half students (55.9%) revealed that they always had commitment in academy policy. the results implied that all students at english education department obeyed the rules given by academic and they also had developed their awareness which means a person is willing to do the good because that person loves the good manner (agung, 2011). then, students’ responses of question no 4 stated that no one of students chose that they never and seldom did academic tasks with responsibility. in addition, (14.7%) of them sometimes did academic tasks with responsibility. moreover, (35.3%) of them often did academic tasks with responsibility and unsurprisingly, half of them (50.0%) at stkip muhammadiyah abdya stated that they always did academic tasks with responsibility. as a conclusion, even though only half of english education department students of stkip muhammadiyah showed that they always did academic task with responsibility, no one of them showed that they ever did academic tasks without responsibility. this behavior reflected the moral development was considered as developmental level of thinking in creating moral level from the lowest level towards the highest level for students especially for the stage of autonomous, at this stage a person acts or behaves regards to the reasoning and judgment itself, does not fully accept group criteria or support from outsider (al hamdani, 2014). thus, students’ responses of question no 5 explored that there were no one of students selected never and seldom categories in delivering academic messages honestly and responsibly. only (11.8%) of them showed that sometimes they delivered academic messages honestly and responsibly and (32.4%) of them often rina syafitri & puan tursina englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 77 always delivered academic messages honestly and responsibly. thus, most of eed students (55.9%) at stkip muhammadiyah abdya confirmed that they always delivered academic messages honestly and responsibly. in brief, it was pointed out that they knew how to behave well and responsible for what they did. the responses of question no 6 revealed that almost all students (88.2%) at stkip muhammadiyah abdya affirmed that they never asked their classmates to sign their attendance list. only (2.9%) of them stated that they sometimes and seldom asked their classmates to sign their attendance list. however, no one confirmed that he or she often asked their classmates to sign their attendance list. surprisingly, there was (5.9%) of them conveyed that they always asked their classmates to sign their attendance list. therefore, it is showed that they had a great moral of religious values and independent or autonomy learners’ values as part of character education (mutaqqin, raharjo & masturi, 2018). as a result, the students had maximally implemented the character education in terms of following commitment in academic rules. after that, students’ responses towards question no 7 explained that most of them (91.2%) informed that they never cheated on the attendance list or other academic forms. only (2.9%) of them confirmed that they seldom cheated on the attendance list or other academic forms. a good point that no one of students who conveyed that they sometimes or often cheated on the attendance list or other academic forms. however, (5.9 %) of them stated that they always cheated on the attendance list or other academic forms. to sum up, the students had maximally implied the character of it, it could be seen that most of them had been good but had not been part of being honest with the percentage (5.9%) in cheating on the attendance list or other academic forms. regarding to question no 8, it is revealed that similarly, no one of them confirmed that they never and seldom cited good references while writing scientific work. moreover, 6.5% of them sometimes cited good references while writing scientific work. in addition, 17.6% of them often cited good references while writing scientific work. thus, 55.9% of students explained that they always cited good references while writing scientific work. it could be assumed that they had a good investigating efl learners’ morals toward character education at stkip muhammadiyah aceh barat daya 78 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 character in doing their task by citing good references while writing scientific work. also, they encouraged moral reflection of themselves to do their own task (pala, 2011). based on students’ responses to question no 9, it is described that no one of students gave a response seldom and never attended to the class on time. 32.4% of them sometimes attended to the class on time, 47.1% eed students at stkip muhammadiyah abdya often attended to the class on time and 20.6% of them who always attended to the class on time. it could be described that not all of students had been implied to attend to the class on time but no one ever came to the class late. in brief, the students realized that discipline was a key factor to be successful in all aspects so that they really need to improve and train themselves to be more discipline if they want to be a successful person in the future (syafitri, 2019). finally, students’ responses of question number 10 confirmed that first, no one of them mentioned that they seldom and never submitted the assignment on time. second, (14.7%) of them sometimes submitted the assignment on time. third, (29.4%) of them often submitted the assignment on time and more than half of them (55.9%) described that they always submitted the assignments on time. in a conclusion, most of them had a good character in submitting their task on time. rq 2: what are the common positive responses implied by efl learners towards character education in the learning process? table 2. the highest students’ responses toward character education no questions percentage 1 1. cheating on the exam 41.2% 2. delivering ideas in the classroom honestly 67.6% 3. having commitment in academic policy 55.9% 4. doing academic tasks with responsibility 50.0% 5. giving academic message honestly and responsibly 55.9% rina syafitri & puan tursina englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 79 6. asking classmates to sign the attendance list 88.2 % 7. cheating on the attendance list or other academic forms 91.2 % 8. citing good references when writing scientific work 55.9% 9. attending to the classroom on time 47.1% 10. submitting assignment on time 55.9% regarding to table 2, it can be described first; mostly english education department students at stkip muhammadiyah showed a great character in terms of commitment in academic rules; namely (91.2%) of the students never cheated on the attendance list or other academic forms. moreover, (88.2%) of them never asked their classmates to sign the attendance list. thus, half of them (55.9%) always had a commitment in academic policy. second; more than half of them also showed a good character in terms of responsibility for examples (55.9%) of them gave academic task with responsibility and cited good references when writing scientific work. in addition, (50.0%) of them did academic tasks with responsibility. third; more than 50.0% of students had a good character in terms of discipline such as (55.9%) of them always submitted their assignment on time. finally, (67.6%) of them showed a good character in terms of persistence for instance: sometimes they delivered ideas in the classroom honestly. on the other hand, the percentage which was lower than (50.0%) was assumed as the weak of character education implied by the students and needed more practicing and training in their learning habits so that their attitude toward education character in terms of honesty became better. although, no one of students said that he or she always cheats on the exam, the percentage of students’ responses still counted as ≤ 50.0%, for instance: (41.2%) of them showed that sometimes they cheated on the exam. it could be indicated that some of them will cheat on the exam while they have a chance to do it. additionally, the lecturers should be more aware or be stricter and try to find other strategies to monitor the students’ examinations. another attitude was in terms of discipline, only (47.1%) of investigating efl learners’ morals toward character education at stkip muhammadiyah aceh barat daya 80 | englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 the students often attended to the class on time, in this case, the lecturers need more attention to train them be more discipline when they are going to have the class. conclusion it can be seen that most of english education department students at stkip muhammadiyah aceh barat daya showed a positive behavior towards character education in the learning process. additionally, the common percentage of positive behavior could be seen in term of commitment in academic rules, responsibility, and discipline. meanwhile honesty in examination and persistence still need to be practiced by students. to sum up, those good morals can be embedded if all roles (parents, teachers, and administrators as stakeholders take a part together in encouraging students to manifest those good values in their lives (agboola & tsai, 2008). references agboola, a., & tsai, k. c. (2008). bring character education into classroom. european journal of educational research, 1(1), 163-170. agung, l. (2011). character education integration in social studies learning. international journal of history education, 12(2), 392-403. al hamdani, d. (2014). the character education in islamic education viewpoint. journal pendidikan islam. 1(1), 98-109. anderson, d.r. (2000). character education: who is responsible? journal of instructional psychology, 27(3), 139-143. bergmark, u. (2008). ‘i want people to believe in me, listen when i say something and remember me’-how students wish to be treated. pastoral care in education, 26(4), 267-279. berkowitz, m. w., & fekula, m. j. (1999). educating for character. about campus, 4(5), 17-22. berkowitz, m.w., & hoppe, m. (2009). character education and gifted children. high ability studies, 20(2), 131-142. creswell. j. w. (2012). research design qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. london: united kingdom: sage publisher. edgington, w. d. (2002). to promote character education, use literature for children and adolescent. journal of social studies, 93(3), 113-116. gagne, m. (2003). the role of autonomy support and autonomy orientation in prosocial behavior engagement. motivation and emotion 2(3), 199-223. rina syafitri & puan tursina englisia vol. 7, no. 1, november 2019 | 81 katilmis, a.,eksi, h., & ozturk, c. (2011). efficiency of social studies integrated character education program. educational sciences: theory & practice, 11(2), 854-859. lord, t., & chiodo, d. (1995). a look at student cheating in college sciences classes. journal of science education and technology, 4(4), 317-324. mccabe, d.l.,feghali, t.t., & abdallah, h. (2008). academic honesty in the middle east: individual and contextual factors. research in higher education, 49(5), 451-467. mutaqqin, m.f., raharjo, t.j., & masturi. (2018). the implementation main values of character education reinforcement in elementary school. journal of primary education, 7(1), 103-112. o’sullivan, s. (2004). books to live by: using children's literature for character education. the reading teacher, 57, 640-645. pala, a. (2011). the need for character education. international journal of social scientist and humanity studies, 3(2), 23-32. pamental, m.p. (2010). dewey, situationism, and moral education. educational theory, 60(2), 147-166. parker, d. c., nelson, j.s., & burns, m.k. (2010). comparison of correlates of classroom behavior problems in schools with and without a school-wide character education program. psychology in the schools, 47(8), 817-827. putri, m.a., harto, s., & moecharam, n.y. (2017). promoting character education in efl classroom; using children literature as a teaching material. journal of english and education, 5(2), 163-169. shariffudin, s. & holmes, r.j. (2009). cheating in examinations: a study of academic dishonesty in a malaysian college. asian journals of university education, 5(2), 99-124. shon, p.c.h. (2006). how college students cheat on in-class examinations: creativity, strain, and techniques of innovation. plagiary: cross-disciplinary studies in plagiarism and fabrication, i, 10-20. smyth, m.l., & davis, j.r. (2003). an examination of student cheating in the twoyear college. community college review, 31(1), 17-32. stiff-williams, h. r. (2010). widening the lens to teach character education alongside standards curriculum. clearing house, 83(4), 115-120. syafitri, r. (2019). the perspective of student’s characteristic in english teaching at the faculty of agriculture teuku umar university. advances in social science, education and humanities research, 338, 238-245. vandehey, m., diekhoff, g., & labeff, e. (2007). college cheating: a twenty year follow up and the addition of an honor code. journal of college students development, 48(4), 468-480 englisia november 2015 vol. 3, no. 1, 9-22 the development of language policy in indonesia rahmi state islamic university ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia rahmi_zakaria@yahoo.com abstract indonesia has successfully implemented language policy by choosing malay language as its national language which enables to unite ethnics from a variety of vernaculars’ background. however, indonesia is not considered successful enough in preserving indigenous languages and promoting english as a crucial international language. in comparison with indonesia, malaysia and the philippines faced some challenges when applying a language of majority as national language. yet, both countries have more focuses to develop english in domestic level for global purposes. there are some sociolinguistic challenges for indonesian policy makers in terms of local, national and international languages. keywords: language policy; national language; bahasa indonesia; english; local language. introduction indonesia is the country which has the fourth largest population in the world which occupies thousands of islands across the country. the republic of indonesia is the largest archipelago in the world which stretches from sabang in the northern tip of sumatra islands to merauke in south-eastern papua. the archipelago officially consists of 13.677 islands which contains five major islands, those are sumatra, java, kalimantan (indonesian borneo), sulawesi and papua (the western part of new guinea) (turner et al., 1997). there are more than 250 local languages and dialects that are spoken in indonesia. most of them cannot be understood each other the development of language policy in indonesia 10 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 (weinstein, 1990) and bahasa indonesia is used nationwide as the tool of communication to understand each other. using bahasa indonesia as a national language has been part of language policy in indonesia. sometimes, the terms language policy and language planning are considered the same. actually, they are not the similar activities. the promulgation of a language policy directs language planning. a language policy is a part of ideas, laws, regulations, rules, procedures, and practices aimed to get the purpose of a policy (kaplan & baldauf, 2003) and governments have used it as a subject for decision making (winstein, 1990). at national level, many attempts are done by language policy makers. language policy accommodates the language needs of the nation from various communities and cultural background that exists, tests the resource that it has, investigates the function of language generally and particularly in the community life of a country, makes strategies that are needed in order to manage and develop language resources and connects all of these to be operated in some appropriate planning agencies (corson, 1990). particularly this paper will discuss the development of indonesia’s language policy in some periods, the comparison of language policy in indonesia and its two neighbouring countries and the remaining problems that should be reconsidered in developing indonesia’s language policy. the language situation in indonesia the colonial period and the choice of malay after world war i, indonesians searched means that could unite this heterogeneous people to struggle against the colonization of dutch that had occupied their region for about 350 years (weinsten, 1990). on october 28th, 1928, there were thousands of indonesian youth in jakarta who attended a youth congress which was signed by pledging an oath of allegiance to indonesia, singing a new national anthem and raising a new national flag. there were crucial beliefs that had been stated in the pledge. the first one, the indigenous people who live in indonesia have a common homeland only. the second one, whatever ethnic of the people who live in indonesia are, they belong to a single people. the last one, the unity language of indonesians is bahasa indonesia (malay) (simpson, 2007). rahmi englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 11 simpson (2007) also adds that malay was chosen as indonesian national language based on some reasons. firstly, across archipelago, malay was well known and used as lingua franca for hundred years. secondly, it was recognized as language of instruction in many areas in indonesia. thirdly, malay was spoken by minorities in indonesia, compared to javanese that was spoken by 45% of the total population and located in the centre of indonesia. if javanese was chosen as a national language, it would probably raise issues for the future of indonesia because other ethnic minorities refuse the use of javanese language representing the language of a group in a majority as the national language. the japanese period when the japanese occupied indonesia in 1942, the use of dutch in any situation was banned. they wanted to make japanese to be the language of administration and purpose, although it could not be a reality in such short period of colonization. immediately, bahasa indonesia had been the only language of education, administration and the mass media. before the japanese reached indonesia, dutch was used as the medium in all texts at high school and university. the translation of these dutch texts to bahasa indonesia was done. under the rule of the japanese, bahasa indonesia grew tremendously. it was designed to be a mature modern language as a short time as possible, for example 7000 new terms of language was produced during japanese rule (paauw, 2009). language policy and planning in the republic of indonesia after indonesia declared its independence on august 17th 1945, bahasa indonesia was stated as the official language by constitution (alisjahbana, 1976). the republic of indonesia had developed into four periods. firstly, the period of liberal democracy started from 1950. secondly, the period of guided democracy of sukarno era started from 1959. thirdly, the era of suharto which is called new order and it started from 1966. fourthly, the era of reform, which refers to era started from 1998 to current era. during these eras, a lot of political changes occurred, but, it was not the change of language policy and planning (kaplan & baldauf, 2003). the development of language policy in indonesia 12 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 furthermore, kaplan & baldauf (2003) divides indonesian language planning issues based on two aspects, those are indonesian standardization and modernization and language use in education. in terms of indonesian standardization and modernization, it is crucial to know that some essential changes occurred to create standard varieties of bahasa indonesia and bahasa malaysia. with regard to spelling reform, the new spelling for bahasa indonesia was made in 1967. in order to understand malay and indonesian easily, indonesia and malaysia formed a language committee. the agreement that had been produced from this attempt was the same spelling system that was well known in indonesia as “a perfectness general guide for the spelling of indonesian”. nowadays, indonesia and malaysia apply this spelling (dardjowidjojo, 1998). in 1988, from the fifth indonesian language congress, a new official indonesian grammar and dictionary were stated (moeliono, 1993). when technical terms are needed to express about modern science and technology, it becomes an important issue in indonesia because the words from foreign languages, especially english, have been borrowed. for example bahasa indonesia possesses “computer”, “disket”, “relevan” and “regresi”. to solve this, two types of books were published. firstly, the book is about “technical terms for almost all scientific branches”. secondly, “booklets on foreign terms have been taken in” (dardjowidjojo, 1998, p. 41). besides, bahasa indonesia has been promoted well through the mass media of the country. from 1964 to 1988, bahasa indonesia was used in all television programmes. bahasa indonesia was also the medium of radio, newspapers and magazines. english and local languages were used very little to protect indonesians and their language from foreign effects, and a law about the prohibition of the use of written foreign languages in public places like business names, advertisements and electronic and print media has been drafted. in addition indonesian language tests have to be passed by foreigners if they want to work in indonesia. the government also made consideration about the limitation of foreign media broadcast in indonesia (paauw, 2009). with relation to education and literacy, it has played an essential role in development of bahasa indonesia as a national language. in 1930, 30.8% of the rahmi englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 13 above 10 year-old indonesians were literate. however, in 1996, the numbers of literate people in indonesia increased to 87.26%. it was caused by the increasing numbers of elementary school and a larger number of people studying at school. bahasa indonesia was used as a medium of instruction from elementary school to university in the country. however, in the past, there were very limited numbers of textbooks translated into bahasa indonesia. therefore, the books in the university are still in english and dutch. in addition, after independence, very few books have been published in bahasa indonesia like scientific, economic and technological books (paauw, 2009). from the above explanation, it can be concluded that in general indonesia’s language policy in using bahasa indonesia as a national language has been successful, as what woolard (2000, p. 456) asserts “project of engineering an indonesian language has been deemed a miraculous success.” after finding out the development of language policy in indonesia, it will be more worthwhile if the development of language policy in other countries in the same region which is southeast asia can be explored in order to compare the similarities and differences. language policy development in malaysia and the philippines will be discussed in the following section because to some extent, these countries are quite similar to indonesia. for instance, from historical perspective those countries were also under colonization and related to citizen, they also consist of heterogeneous ethnics who speak various vernaculars. the comparison between language policy in indonesia and its two neighbouring countries in the philippines, there are 7.107 islands which only 2.000 are occupied. historically, the immigration of people from indonesia, china and malay to the philippines and the geographic of the country which consists of many islands had caused a lot of language groups. there are about 80 different dialects which are spoken by people there (peters, 1994). the years before the philippines obtained its freedom, tagalog was chosen as its national language. besides, continuing to use english was also considered at that time. before the japanese occupation, during and shortly after the world war ii, the development of language policy in indonesia 14 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 the philippines were under the rule of the united states. 21% of the population of the philippines speaks tagalog as its native language that is located around the political power in manila. the number of speakers of tagalog is bigger than those of any other native languages in the philippines. after the philippines gained its independence, the speakers of other languages tried to oppose tagalog, especially the speakers from cebuano and hiligaynon that are included in austronesian languages of the philippines as well. meanwhile, together with tagalog, english has been used in education and functioned as the main language of government and the mass media and even more newspapers are published in english than in tagalog (weinstein, 1990). also, schools applied vernaculars for the first years of primary education. then tagalog was used to teach social sciences and english was used to teach social science and mathematics. english is also used as an international communication language by which international scientific and technical knowledge is accessed by filipinos. in 1959, jose remero, education secretary, stated that national language, tagalog, would be named as “pilipino” (now spelt with an f (filipino)) so that it distinguished it from tagalog base and national identity could be given to it (dekker & young, 2005). in 1972, the constitutional convention called by president marcos had become a decline for the pilipino. the declaration of pilipino as a national language was refused by important majority. the promotion of tagalog was considered as degradation to other ethnic communities (weinstein, 1990). the continuing anti marcos was agitated particularly by urban and militant students and finally caused the downfall of him and also included substantial anti-us themes and symbols. as a result, the role of english as a crucial language was probably challenged due to the negative symbol on nationalist grounds. then, the use of tagalog (pilipino) was increased, particularly in cities. it was promoted continuously by manila elites through mass media. pilipino is used increasingly together with english. in december 1986, filipino was enshrined by cory aquino as the national language. filipino and english are used as official language for the purpose of communication and instruction (weinstein, 1990). rahmi englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 15 another country with some periods of language policy development is malaysia. malaysia has two different parts, and peninsular malaysia that covers 40% areas of the country, while the rest of the country consists of the states of sabah and serawak that lie in the northern part of borneo island. the population of malaysia is from different ethnic groups like malays, chinese, indians, the indigenous orang asli of the peninsula and various tribes of serawak and sabah (rowthorn et al., 2001). related to language policy, national language was built up by malaysian policy makers after being independent from british colonization. they attempted to limit the role and status of english, the language of ex-colonial masters, and bahasa melayu which was the language of dominant ethnic was selected as official language of government and education. in colonial era, malays used english as a main medium of instruction in education, but after the independence, english was only a second language that was not dominant anymore (gill, 2005). from the beginning, language had become a conflict’s focus between malays and chinese. malays aimed to make malay the only official language after 1967. while knowing that mandarin would not be an official language in malaysia, the chinese ethnic group, however, hoped that english would be used as official language as well. although chinese considered malay as a language that economically unused, malays still eliminated english and determined malays as an official language. after racial riots in mei 1969, the malaysian government made a strict and fast implementation of a national language policy which had purpose to put malay as the only language that would be used in schools and deleted english. it was based on the reason that malay should be upgraded so that malay’s political and economic status gain national unity (kaplan & bardauf, 2003). by the mid of 1990s, malaysian government asked tertiary institutions to use english as a language of communication. in addition, prime minister dr. mahathir muhammad stated repeatedly and urged to use more english and assured his citizens that promoting english will not be a threat for national language status (ridge, 2004). in his opinion, by 2020 malaysia would be an industrialized country. malaysians should not be only the consumers of the technology and discovery of the the development of language policy in indonesia 16 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 world, but also should give contribution to the development of science and technology in the future. to be competent malaysian scientists, he thought that english must be mastered fluently. he also stated that english should be used as medium of instruction of mathematics and science at university. this decision became a controversy among the malaysian academics. it is believed that professor can teach in english, but the students’ english proficiency is still doubted. finally, when the policy was run, it did not give the result as expected (omar, 2007). in 2003, a significant change of the language policy in schools was declared. all schools in malaysia would teach the students science and mathematics by using english. that was a drastic switch that did not need any more years and steps. teachers had to join training of teaching the subjects in english and the retired proficient teachers in english were asked to teach at schools again. while teaching was running, textbooks were written. as a consequence of this policy, all schools were bilingual. the protests were raised by many sides, particularly chinese teacher’s association which argued that chinese culture was eliminated. they believed that mathematics is more understandable to be taught in chinese language with their tradition (omar, 2007). to conclude, there are some points that can be drawn in terms of language policy in indonesia and its two neighbouring countries, the philippines and malaysia. compared to both countries mentioned above, english does not play an important role in society in indonesia. from elementary school to university, english is the subject of foreign language. nevertheless, most of indonesians, including educated scholars, are not be able to use english fluently to read and understand the scientific reading that is written in english. orally, they have worse ability. in malaysia and the philippines, english is used both in education and community. english has functioned as an inter-ethnic lingua franca and the mean that is used to communicate internationally. so that it opens the opportunity to access world’s literature (paauw, 2009). also, indonesia did not consider former colonial language, dutch, as higher as english that was considered by malaysia and the philippines as the important excolonial language. so that it was easier for indonesia to delete dutch than both countries to eliminate english (dardjowidjojo, 1998). rahmi englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 17 with regard to its political elites, weinsten (1990) asserts that indonesia made language policy to refuse hegemonic status of javanese language which was the major group in indonesia and chose an aboriginal lingua franca that cannot be a threat to any ethnic. by contrast, in malaysia, the elite representative of the major ethnics stated the policy by choosing their own language as the official language. the pluralistic ethnic is still a sensitive fact that this nation had. it is signed by unequal and different status between major and minor ethnics. in the philippines as well, the preference of political elites to select a certain indigenous language as the only official language created hostility from other ethnics. the remaining problems in indonesia in spite of success in applying national language policy in indonesia, there are some other issues that are vitally important to be taken into account. first of all is the threat of extinction of local vernaculars due to the success of its national language. when considering the fact that “indonesia is the second most multilingual nation in the world, led only by papua new guinea” (ravindranath & cohn, 2014, p. 65), it can be concluded that it lies the richness of special cultural heritage behind those multilingual people. if the spoken local languages disappear, the uniqueness of local heritage in indonesia will be gone as well. in other words, rustipa (2013) supports this idea by mentioning that not only should national language be used and promoted, but also local languages for the sake of vernaculars and cultural identity maintenance. but, after world war ii, the policy forcing the uniformity of national language use, has caused the shift in patterns of language use nationwide. consequently, the shifts have threatened the existence of vernaculars, particularly in eastern part of the country where the local languages are only spoken by a small quantity of people (masgrave, 2014). besides, kozok (2008, as cited in rustipa, 2013) claims that the inclination of younger generations to use “colloquial indonesian” also becomes a threat for vernaculars. in this type of language, many words from foreign languages and local languages (mainly javanese, sundanese, and balinese) are borrowed. colloquial indonesian is also strongly affected by jakarta malay which is spoken by people in the capital city of the country and then adopted by many people from other provinces who work and stay there for a while, and when the development of language policy in indonesia 18 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 they return to their hometown they bring and use this language in their daily life. jakarta malay adoption also occurs due to the media which exposes its dialect across the country through popular magazines, radio and television programmes. furthermore, in this globalization era the emergence of english as lingua franca is undeniable. as coined in kachru’s model, english is not only owned by inner circle (like the uk or usa), but also by outer circle (such as singapore or malaysia) and expanding circle (for example in indonesia). so, in expanding circle as in indonesia, english is considered as an important international language for its community without having any special official status and is usually taught as foreign language subject at school (lauder, 2008). canagarajah (2005) argued that in terms of language policy planning, english is considered in other communities as a necessarily powerful tool for global relationships. to be able to communicate globally, english also gains special status as the first foreign language from language policy makers in indonesia. however, despite its essential status, the policy makers worry that english language may give drawbacks to national culture and identity (idris, 2014). consequently, less promotion related to english language was done so that the majority of people, even educated intellectuals have lack of ability in english (lauder, 2008). there had been actually an attempt from indonesian government through government regulation number 20/2003, article 50 as a basis to develop schools with international standard where bahasa indonesia and english were used as the languages of instruction in order to prepare graduates with international quality. however, the implementation of this regulation was controversial because some challenges were faced, such as the lack of fund, competent teachers, and modern facilities. it was also considered using english as the language of instruction as unconstitutional because it was against the 1945 constitution, paragraph 3, article 31 which mentions that government should establish a national education, not international education, and it also violated 1945’s basic constitution which states that national language is bahasa indonesia. when english is used in education, it means bahasa indonesia which support nationalism was being ignored (ipnugraha, 2013). therefore, on january 8th 2013, government regulation number 20/2003 was canceled and the implementation of international standard school had to be rahmi englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 19 stopped (huda, sukmawati, & hidayat, 2013). again, english is not promoted widely in indonesia because there is a concern that this would threaten nationalism. to conclude the above discussion, as what kaplan and bardauf (2003) explain, although in linguistic parts the development of standard spelling, grammar and dictionary that indonesia has made a lot of good progress, there are plenty of sociolinguistic matters that are necessary to be concerned about. in terms of indonesia’s national language itself for example, how it can still be updated, modernized and spread and if the work related to varieties of formal indonesian had been done, what about the informal ones. also, how books and other media can be presented more broadly in order to develop literacy in bahasa indonesia. related to vernaculars, how regional languages that are diverse can be supported in order to maintain them from disappearance. concerning international languages, the focus should be on how teaching english and other essential international languages can be increased in order to get knowledge internationally based, how english material stocks can be provided in schools to help language teaching, how the latest training for teachers is held to help them to transfer the knowledge successfully by using bahasa indonesia and english and how english can be made as a crucial first foreign languages effectively for the students, especially the students who live outside the central areas of indonesia. however, these issues are huge. especially when considering that there is fear from indonesian policy makers to promote english due to its potential effect of decreasing the function of bahasa indonesia. although this effect can be true to some points, it also cannot be forgotten that english is necessary for indonesians to respond to globalization challenges. therefore, language policy which is beneficial both to bahasa indonesia and english use should be reconsidered. furthermore, the reality that is occurring now is indonesia is a developing country. although in suharto era some parts of this region had been developed, they were only the central parts such as java, while other far regions like borneo, aceh and papua were ignored. the ignorance is considered as one of the factors that had triggered unstable politic and economy so that these factors gave contribution that make the government not able to deal with the language problems mentioned above. the development of language policy in indonesia 20 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 conclusion indonesia which has lots of local languages chose malay (bahasa indonesia) as a national language. malay was a lingua franca for hundred years in indonesian archipelago and was the language of minor group there. by not choosing a language from a major ethnic like javanese, indonesia can apply its language policy effectively without any conflict. compared to indonesia, its neighbouring countries, malaysia and the philippines, faced some conflicts in running their language policy due to their selecting of major ethnic’s language as national language which is considered as the arrogance of the elites in the government who are the representatives of major ethnics. however, these countries also use english as their official international language which give benefits economically, educationally and scientifically. meanwhile, indonesia does not use english as an essential official international language in its policy. as a result, most indonesians cannot master english which give disadvantages for the development of the country in the global world. the issues that are necessary to be reconsidered by indonesian policy makers are how important international language like english can be inserted more precisely, especially in education so that indonesians can compete globally together with other nations. then, besides having its national language, it should not be ignored that indonesia has hundreds of vernaculars. so, it is important to not only improve the use of bahasa indonesia but also preserve and promote vernaculars which represent cultural heritage of this country. 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(1976). language planning for modernization: the case of indonesian and malaysian. paris: mouton. canagarajah, a. s. (2005). introduction. in a. suresh canagarajah (eds.), reclaiming the local in language policy and practice (p. xv) london: lawrence erlbaum associates, publishers. corson, d. (1990). language policy across the curriculum. clevedon: multilingual. dardjowijojo, s. (1998). strategies for a successful national language policy: the indonesian case. int’l. j. soc. lang. 130 (1998), 35-47. rahmi englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 21 dekker, d., & young, c. (2005). bringing the gap: the development of appropriate educational strategies for minority language communities in the philippines. current issues in language planning, 6(2), 182-199. gill, s. k. (2005). change in language policy in malaysia: the reality of implementation in public universities. current issues in language planning, 7(1), 8294. idris, t. (2014). language policy and the construction of national and ethnic identities in indonesia. us-china education review b, 4(10), 691-705. ipnugraha. (2013). pioneering of schools with international standard to respond the globalization. journal of education and learning, 7(3), 153-158. huda, e., sukmawati, n. e., hidayat, a. (2013, january 2013). rsbi dihapus, pendidikan berkualitas semakin murah?. vivanews retrieved from http://fokus.news.viva.co.id/news/read/380839-rsbi-dihapus--pendidikanberkualitas-semakin-murah kaplan, r. b., & baldauf, r. b. jr. (2003). language and language-in-education planning in the pacific basin. dordrecht: kluwer academic. lauder, a. (2008). the status and function of english in indonesia: a review of key factors. makara, sosial humanoira, 12(1), 9-20. moeliono, a. m. (1990). the first efforts to promote and develop indonesian. in j. a. fishman (eds.), the earliest stage of language planning (pp. 128-142). berlin: mouton de gruyter. musgrave, s. (2014). language shift and language maintenance in indonesia. in p. sercombe & r. tupas (eds), language, education and nation-building (pp.87-105). monash university. s.i.: palgrave macmillan uk omar, a. h. (2007). malaysia and brunei. in a. simpson (eds.), language & national identity in asia (pp. 337-359). oxford: oxford university press. paauw, s. (2009). one land, one nation, one language: an analysis of indonesia’s national language policy. university of rochester working papers in the language sciences, 5(1), 2-16. peters, j. (1994). philippines. melbourne: lonely planet. ravindranath, m & cohn a. c. (2014). can a language with millions of speakers be endangered?. jseals, 7, 64-75. ridge, b. (2004). bangsa malaysia and recent malaysian english language policies. current issues in language planning, 5(4), 407-423. rowthorn, c., benson, s., bindloss, j. (2001). south-east asia. melbourne: lonely planet. the development of language policy in indonesia 22 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 rustipa, k. (2013). local language as a means to build tolerable community in indonesia. dinamika bahasa dan ilmu budaya, 8(2), 58-70. simpson, a. (2007). indonesia. in simpson, a. simpson (eds.), language & national identity in asia (pp. 323-324). oxford: oxford university press. turner, p., delahunty, b., greenway, p. (1997). indonesia, melbourne: lonely planet. weinsten, b. (1990). language policy and political development. norwood: ablex. woolard, k. a. (2000). review of shifting languages: interaction and identity in javanese indonesian (j. joseph errington. language in society, 29(3), 456460. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2021. vol. 8, no. 2, 148-160 directive speech acts in the school slogans yasir mubarok * universitas pamulang, pamulang, indonesia dosen02264@unpam.ac.id dhea nur anggraeni universitas pamulang, pamulang, indonesia dheanggraenii@gmail.com sugiyo sugiyo universitas pamulang, pamulang, indonesia aloy_910@yahoo.co.id manuscript received s e p t em b er 1 9 , 2020, revised march 25, 2021, first published may 3, 2021, and available online may 17, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v8i2.7960 recommended apa citation mubarok, y., anggraeni, d. n., & sugiyo, s. (2021). directive speech acts in the school slogans. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 8(2), 148160. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.7960 abstract the purpose of the research is to identify directive illocutionary acts in school slogans. this study aims to investigate several categories of directive illocutionary speech acts in the school slogans at mts negeri 3 tangerang. in conducting this research, we used qualitative descriptive methods by referring to searle's speech acts theory. the results showed that three kinds of directive speech acts are utilized in the school slogans; advising twenty utterances, commanding one utterance, and requesting two utterances. based on the results, the most dominant type of directive speech acts used was advising with 20 occurrences. it means that the school provides a lot of advice to their students (addressee) through these school slogans. in addition, context and co-context have a very important role in understanding the slogans, thus the slogan found contains more to the philosophy of life and educational values. keywords: directive; speech act; school; slogan 1. introduction a slogan is a sentence or phrase that expresses an idea in spoken or written text (masela, 2018). language has an important role in a slogan. slogan language serves to * corresponding author https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.7960 yasir mubarok, dhea nur anggraeni, & sugiyo sugiyo englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 149 influence readers. in addition, slogans contain stories to invite or ask readers to do something (hidayati, 2019). therefore, the use of language in school slogans is a very important aspect. it can motivate students to be enthusiastic about learning and more disciplined. according to searle (1969), speech acts is all linguistic communication contains linguistic acts. therefore, language is not only a symbol but also has other meanings that serve to express thoughts or ideas to the reader. yule (as cited in nadeak, sunggingwati, & valiantien, 2017) contends that speech act is the speaker's action which is carried out by means of an expression such as a promise, complaint, praise, apology, or request. it can also be seen in the school slogans. school slogans are not only used as language materials like advice, motivation, and warnings but are also used to shape student attitudes. there are some previous studies examining the directive speech acts (e.g. della & sembiring, 2018; fitria, 2019; oktoberia & hamzah, 2012; tesaindra, 2017). mostly, the studies are more viewed from the perspective of the movies and their results are more dominated by the commanding type. in this research, we want to prove whether with the different object, namely school slogans, the results will be the same. in addition, this research also focuses on the directive speech acts analysis, especially in the school slogans, because the research that examines directive speech acts analysis in the school slogans is still rarely found (masela, 2018). moreover, the researchers want to know whether the results of the directive speech act analysis on the school slogans are the same as the analysis of films. as yule (2020) said that the physical context (the location) and the linguistic context will determine the analysis results. 2. literature review 2.1. speech acts the speech act is a sub-discipline of pragmatics that investigates the language from the aspects of actual usage (rahma, 2018). in connection with speech acts, there are three kinds of speech acts that a speaker can uses, namely (1) locutionary speech acts, (2) illocutionary speech acts, and (3) perlocutionary speech acts (austin, 1962). the locutionary act is the literary meaning of an utterance (yi-xuan, 2016). specifically, locutionary act is the saying of the words with the intended meanings (huang, 2017). in addition, according to huang (2007) the basic act of speaking is a locutionary act. second, the illocutionary act is when we say a thing, we commonly tell it with some aims in mind. briefly, an illocutionary act attributes to the kind of function the speaker aims to fulfil or the action type the speaker expects to achieve in the course of producing an utterance. in short, it is an act accomplished in speaking. here is an illocutionary act such as refusing, swearing, ordering, apologizing, joking, thanking, promising, blaming, giving permission, congratulating, accusing, nagging, and naming (huang, 2007). directive speech acts in the school slogans 150 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 lastly, the perlocutionary act is the effect an utterance may have on the addressee. perlocution is an act in which the illocution produces a certain effect at or exerts a certain effect on the receiver. for example, when a bank robbery occurs, a robber might say the words to the cashier to open the safe. the effect of this action is known as the perlocution effect (huang, 2007). referring to the explanations above, the researchers are interested in carrying out a research study related to speech acts, especially illocutionary speech acts. because the illocutionary speech acts happen when the speakers say a thing, the speakers commonly tell it with some aims in mind and it is very interesting to analyze. as mentioned by searle (1976), the basic unit of human linguistic communicationis the illocutionary act. 2.2. illocutionary acts illocutionary acts is the action intended to be carried out by an interactor (speaker) in uttering a linguistic expression, both explicitly and implicitly (huang, 2014). searle (in mey, 2009, p. 1004) classifies illocutionary speech acts as follows: first, assertive. assertive is a types of speech acts that do the speaker to the fact of the expressed proposition and thus give a truth-value. they express the beliefs of the speaker like stating, reporting, concluding, claiming, and asserting. in performing this speech act, the speaker reflects the world as he or she believes it is, so making the words suit the world of belief for example "the berlin wall came down in 1989." second, expressive. expressive is a type of speech acts that expresses the speaker's attitude or psychological state such as such as praising, thanking, congratulating, blaming, and apologizing. there is no direction of suit for this class of speech act for example " well done, elizabeth!." third, directive. directive is a type of speech act that reflects the speaker's attempt to get the other person to do something. they express the speaker's wish/desire for the recipient to do something such as commands, requests, questions, advice, and orders. in using this type, the speaker aims to get some future action on the part of the recipient, thus making the world fit the words of the receiver for example "put the cake in the oven." fourth, commissive. commissive is a type of speech act that binds the speaker to an action in the future. they express the speaker’s motive to do something such as refusals, threats, offers, promises, and pledges. in the case, the world is fitted to words through the speaker himself or herself for example "i’ll never buy you another computer game." fifth, declarative. declarative is a type of speech act that affects immediate change in some current circumstances. for they lean to depend on complex extralinguistic institutions for their successful performance, they can be named “institutionalized performatives”. in performing this type, the speaker carries about changes in the world; that is, he or she effects a correspondence both the world and the propositional content such as nominating a candidate, excommunicating, opening a yasir mubarok, dhea nur anggraeni, & sugiyo sugiyo englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 151 bridge, firing from employment, and declaring war. as to the direction of fit, it is both words-to-world and world-to-words for example "i object, your honor." 2.3. context pragmatics analysis studies the meaning of words in the context, analyzing the parts of meaning that can be illustrated by knowledge of the social and physical world, and socio-psychological elements affecting communication, and knowledge of place and time in which the words are expressed (cutting, 2002). it concentrates on the meaning of words in interaction and how speakers express more information than the words they utilize. the speaker's meaning is dependent on suppositions of knowledge that are distributed by both speaker and listener or hearer: the speaker sets up the linguistics message and aims or implies meaning and the listener infers the meaning and interprets the message (brown & yule 1983; thomas 1995 as cited in cutting, 2002, p.2). according to leech (as cited in arrosid & munandar, 2018), context is the background knowledge or information that is presumed to be divided by speakers and listeners and which gives to the listener's explanation of what the speaker means by a particular utterance. in this context, hymes (as cited in zand-vakili, kashani, & tabandeh, 2012) classifies it into eight aspects, namely, settings (where the speech situation is taking place), participants (parties involved in the speech), ends (the speech acts' purpose), act sequences (form and content of speech acts), keys (spirit, tone, and manner in which a message is conveyed), instrumentalities (the linguistic and nonlinguistic tools used to make the speech act possible), norms (norms or rules in interaction), and genre (the kind of the speech act) which is known as speaking. moreover, context; it must be the case that we interpret the words (the "text") in a specific situation (the "context") with pre-existing assumptions about a likely message. the meaning of the text is not in the words alone, but in what we think the writer/speaker intended to communicate in that context. in these two examples, the influence of the context is crucial. in these cases, it is largely the physical context, the location where we find words, phrases, and etc. when we see the word bank on a building's wall, we interpret it in terms of a financial institution in that context. however, if you read about an overgrown steep bank by the river, you will have a different interpretation of the word bank. in this second interpretation it is the linguistic context, the peripheral words, also known as co-text, which helps us realize what is meant. both physical context and linguistic context play important roles in how we make sense of any text (yule, 2020). furthermore, cutting (2002, p. 3) divides context into three types. the first is the situational context in which the speaker knows what she/he sees around him/her. the second is the context of background knowledge that speakers and listeners know about the world and each other. finally, the co-textual context is what she/he knows about what she said. directive speech acts in the school slogans 152 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 2.4. slogan short text that summarizes an idea and is associated with a person company, product, or organization is a slogan. the slogan is written by somebody as a medium to states the text meaning. slogans also become part of language because they communicate and interact with meanings (qoriah, 2018). khulel (2012 as cited in hapsari, islam, & ulum, 2015, p. 26) “slogan is an unforgettable phrase, clause, or sentence used especially in educational institutions as a repetitive expression of an idea”. in the school, slogans can be on a variety of topics relating to schools such as child education slogans, anti-bullying slogans etc. in brief, educational slogans provide a representation of the educational values itself. educational slogans are also a simple way to advertise the purpose and a school's mission (masela, 2018). 3. method in this study, the researchers use a descriptive qualitative analysis method. we identify twenty-three school slogans. the researchers are interested in analyzing the meaning of these slogans, especially illocutionary acts; directives. according to austin (in amalia, wuryandari, mulyana, & waljinah, 2019), someone not only has to do with saying something, but also does an act related to saying something. therefore, slogans are not only written, but also slogans are indirectly an invitation to do so. hereafter it describes types of directive illocutionary acts of twenty-three school slogans that are used by mts negeri 3 tangerang, indonesia. the first step is collecting the slogan. then, the second step is to classify types of directive illocutionary acts of those slogans, and the last step is analyzed and described it. 4. findings and discussion as mentioned above, this paper focuses on directive illocutionary acts that are used by mts negeri 3 tangerang. based on the scope of the study, directive illocutionary acts are classified into five categories such as advising, requesting, commanding, ordering, and questioning. based on data sources, the authors found twenty-three school slogans, which can be categorized into three classes of directive illocutionary acts. the frequency and distribution is fully presented in table 1. table 1 directive illocutionary acts in school slogans. no. types of directive illocutionary acts frequency 1. advising directive illocutionary act 20 2. requesting directive illocutionary act 2 3. commanding directive illocutionary act 1 4. ordering directive illocutionary act 0 5. questioning directive illocutionary act 0 total 23 yasir mubarok, dhea nur anggraeni, & sugiyo sugiyo englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 153 based on data sources, the researchers found twenty-three school slogans. from twenty-three school slogans, there are only three types of directive illocutionary acts, namely advising, requesting, and commanding. meanwhile, the ordering and questioning directive illocutionary acts are not found in school slogans at mts negeri 3 tangerang. as seen in table 1, the advising directive illocutionary act is more commonly found in school slogans, which are around twenty slogans. furthermore, the commanding illocutionary act is found to be only one slogan. for the requesting directive illocutionary act, 2 slogans were found. in the following sub-section, each of the categories is demonstrated in more detail. 4.1. advising advice is speech that is used by a person to provide an idea to the minds of others. this means that advice is a set of ideas and conclusions obtained from the speaker's condition to solve the speaker's problem (ruminda & nurhamidah, 2018). when giving advice, the speaker does not need to pay attention to whether the recipient will act or not. it can serve to merely inform (kaufmann, 2011). additionally, the advice is the utterance we make to others to give our opinion on what they must or must not do (kreidler, 1998). data 1 no indonesia english 1. “membaca buku dapat merubah hidupmu selamanya” “reading can change your life forever” as shown in data 1, it is the advising directive illocutionary acts that the speaker does not need to pay attention to whether the receiver will act or not. through a slogan "membaca buku dapat merubah hidupmu selamanya", the speakers (the school) intend to suggest to the addressee (students) that reading books can change a person's life by giving new knowledge and adding insight to oneself. data 2 no indonesia english 2. “baca satu buku dapat sejuta ilmu” “read one book to get a million knowledge” as can be seen in data 2, the slogan above can be regarded as belonging to the advising directive illocutionary acts. speech is used by somebody (the school) to provide ideas to the minds of others (students).through the slogan "baca satu buku dapat sejuta ilmu", the speaker intends to suggest to the addressee that reading a book directive speech acts in the school slogans 154 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 will get a lot of knowledge. by reading one book, we will get a lot of knowledge. even though the target students may not do it. in fact, it is important to make the suggestion to them (the students). therefore, this slogan can be classified as a directive. data 3 no indonesia english 3. “membaca membuat hidup jadi lebih mudah” “reading makes life easier” as illustrated in data 3, the advising directive utterances above are said by the school to the students. the slogan advises the listener (students) to read books in order to have broad knowledge and thoughts to make life easier. data 4 no indonesia english 4. “kejujuran adalah kebijakan yang paling mulia” “honesty is the most noble policy” as presented in data 4, the slogan above can be categorized into the advising directive. a directive is a kind of speech act that commits the speaker to do some future action. the speaker delivers suggestions to someone else to do something. besides that, the speaker intends to encourage their readers to be honest people. because being honest is a noble and important attitude for everyone to have. so, they have to be honest in every action, both big and small. data 5 no indonesia english 5. “pendidikan bukanlah milik orang yang kaya. pendidikan adalah milik orang yang mau belajar mencari kebenaran, menemukan kekuatan, dan mampu membawa perubahan” “education does not belong to the rich. education belongs to people who want to learn to seek truth, find strength, and be able to bring about change” as given in data 5, the speakers explain to the listener about what they must or they must not do. the slogan proposes the listener that education does not belong to the rich, but it belongs to people who are willing to learn and are able to bring changes in the future. the utterance can be categorized in the act as a suggestion or advice. data 6 no indonesia english yasir mubarok, dhea nur anggraeni, & sugiyo sugiyo englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 155 6. “buku adalah jembatan untuk menghubungkan pengetahuan dengan kehidupan nyata” “books are a bridge to connect knowledge with real life” as seen from data 6, the sample above can be categorized as the advising directive. the slogan suggests to the listener that in the book there are so many sciences which this knowledge can be useful for real life. data 7 no indonesia english 7. “membaca buku membuka jendela dunia” “reading opens windows to the world” as listed in data 7, the sample above can be categorized as the advising directive. the slogan suggests to the students that reading books are a way to open our horizons so that they can find out more about the world that they didn't know before. 4.2. requesting requesting is an expression of what the speaker wants the recipient to do or not do. requesting does not assume the speaker's control over the intended person (kreidler, 1998). similar to kreidler (1998), rue states (in ruminda & nurhamidah, 2018) that the requesting is asking somebody to act or not act something or to express a need or desire for something. in addition, searle (ruminda & nurhamidah, 2018) claims that “the essence of request is to try to get the listener to do something and there is no need to commit or oblige him or her to do it.” in short, requesting is a type of speech acts that is a human politely asking someone for something. data 8 no indonesia english 8. “awali semua dengan doa” “start all with prayer” based on the data 8, the sample above can be categorized as the requesting directive. the word “start” in the slogan above means to begin (something or to do something) (collins, 2021c). from the definition above, it can be concluded that the speaker attempts to request the target to ask students to start something with a prayer. in harmony with kreidler (1998), ruminda and nurhamidah (2018), they said that request does not assume the speaker's control over the target person and the requests are only to try to get the listener to do something and there is no obligation to commit or oblige directive speech acts in the school slogans 156 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 them to do so. in short, requesting is speech acts that are human politely asking for things to others like on the data above. data 9 no indonesia english 9. “kembangkan bakatmu untuk meraih cita-citamu” “develop your talents to achieve your goals” as shown in data 9, the sample above can be categorized as the requesting directive. the word “develop” in the slogan above means to grow or bring to a later, more elaborate, or more advanced stage (collins, 2021b). it can be concluded that the speaker, especially the school advises their students to develop the talents to achieve their goals without coercion. it is harmony with the requesting directive theory that the requesting is asking somebody to act or not act something or to express a need or desire for something. 4.3. commanding commanding is a speech act that is normally used by someone with power (ruminda & nurhamidah, 2018). kauffman (kaufmann, 2011) commands are taken as ordering source, while the modal base is consisted by what the speaker and the hearer jointly take to be possible future courses or event. similarly, kreidler (1998) demonstrated that a command is effective only if the speaker has a certain level of control over the actions of the receiver. data 10 no indonesia english 10. “budayakan senyum, sapa, salam, sopan, santun” “cultivate smiles, greetings, courtesy” as summarized in data 10, the slogan “budayakan senyum, sapa, salam, sopan, santun” carries an assertive illocutionary force that is an indicator of the commanding directive. the commanding directive illocutionary act is the word “cultivate”. according to the collins dictionary, the definition of “cultivate” is to develop or improve (something) by giving special attention to it (collins, 2021a). from this definition, it can be concluded that the speaker is to command the addressee to always smile, greet, be polite when interacting with other people. in addition, it is for character building so that good social interactions are established, such as respecting elders, teachers, and friends. in summary, the utterance of the speaker (the school) shows that the speaker wants the hearers (students) to cultivate smiles, greetings, courtesy. yasir mubarok, dhea nur anggraeni, & sugiyo sugiyo englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 157 the speaker does the command in utterance data 10 directly because the speaker has higher power than the hearers. in brief, the speaker invokes the power of the position through that slogan. kreidler (1998), ruminda and nurhamidah (2018) argue that a command is effective only if the speaker has a certain level of control over the actions of the receiver and it is usually used by someone who has power. from all the data above, it can be concluded that there are only three types of directive illocutionary acts, namely advising twenty data, requesting two data, and commanding one data. while, the ordering and questioning directive illocutionary acts are not found in school slogans at mts negeri 3 tangerang. the results show that the advising directive illocutionary act dominates in school slogans at mts negeri 3 tangerang. this indicates that the school as the speaker provides a lot of advice to students to read a lot and so on. furthermore, these slogans are a simple way to advertise the purpose and a school's mission especially in the students' building character. in contrast to previous papers, della and sembiring (2018), tesaindra (2017) found that the most dominant type of directive speech act used was command type on the movie. this proves that context plays a very important role in the way of understanding any text like the directive illocutionary acts analysis in the school slogans. in the previous papers, most authors stated that the most dominant type of directive speech act used was command type. this proves that context plays a very important role in the way of understanding any text (slogans). in line with yule's statements, he argues that the physical context, the location where we find words, phrases, etc, and linguistic context (the surrounding words, also known as co-text, that helps us understand what is meant) play an important role in a text (yule, 2020). because the slogans are in school so that the words, phrases, or sentences in the slogan emphasize advice or suggestion rather than command. in addition, hymes (as cited in zand-vakili et al., 2012) said that participants (the school and their student), ends (the school's purpose especially in the students' character building), norms (norms or rules in the speech acts) also play an important role in understanding a text, especially the school slogans. as a whole, social factors and dimensions of contexts support directive speech acts. in summary, it can be concluded that the school slogans found contain more to the philosophy of life and educational values. 6. conclusion this research unveils that there are three kinds of directive speech acts utilized in the school slogans; advising twenty utterances, commanding only one utterance, and requesting two utterances. the most dominant type of directive speech acts used was advising with twenty occurrences. this study has demonstrated that the school as the speaker provides a lot of advice to hearer (students) to read a lot and so on. besides, advice is used by the school to provide an idea to the minds of students to solve the students' problem. when giving advice, the school does not need to pay attention to directive speech acts in the school slogans 158 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 whether the recipient will act or not. it can serve to merely inform only and it is represented in the school slogans. commanding utterance is the following category that appears in the school slogans. the school uses this category of speech act when they instruct or order their students. this speech act is normally used by someone with power, in this case, the school to their students through the school’s slogans. however, only one commanding directive illocutionary act was found. this proves that the task of educational institutions is to provide encouragement and motivation to their students. so that the results of the research are more dominated by advising than commanding directive illocutionary act. it illustrates that the school gives much advice to their students on what they must or must not do via the school slogans. the last category found in the school slogans is requesting. from the research results, requesting found two utterances. the school utilizes this category of speech act is to try to get the students to do something and there is no need to oblige them to do it. in short, requesting is used by the school to ask their students for something cordially. finally, the school slogans found contain more to the philosophy of life and educational values because context plays a very important role. the results might have been different if the context were different. as research conducted by kurniawan (2018), the results show that the majority of airlines' slogans emphasize more only profit, because the focus of the airlines' slogans itself is on business. references amalia, a. d., wuryandari, e. l., mulyana, e. r., & waljinah, s. 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(2012). the analysis of speech events and hymes’ speaking factors in the comedy television series: “friends”. new. media and mass communication, 2, 27–43. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2020. vol. 7, no. 2, 102-115 music(s) of the world as an online efl resource: a japanese efl classroom experience kim rockell komazawa university, tokyo, japan kimusiknz@gmail.com manuscript received february 7, 2020, revised april 9, 2020, first published may 18, 2020, and available online may 21, 2020. doi: 10.22373/ej.v7i2.6325 recommended apa citation rockell, k. (2020). music(s) of the world as an online efl resource: a japanese efl classroom experience. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 7(2), 102-115. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v7i2.6325 abstract this research considers how the study of musical performances from around the world can be drawn upon as a useful resource for language instruction, particularly in efl japanese university classrooms. this study shares the insights gained from literature reviews combined with the researcher‟s teaching experiences on the advanced english elective course of “computer-assisted ethnomusicology.” this work was carried out over a five-year period between 2013 2018 at a university in the tohoku region of japan, based on a course that focused on the music and culture found in oceania, south east asia, east asia, africa, and north america. this study identifies the language resources present within the ethnomusicological content, and identifies the ways it can help awaken learners to the rich variation that exists among the cultures of the world, and highlighting the way local and global features combine in the „glocal‟. in addition to digital applications, approaches introduced in the study also include the combination of high and low contact activities based on ethnomusicological resources. this helps to emphasize how massive open online courses (moocs), and open-source multimedia make it possible to approach musical song texts and discourses that surround musical practice and performance and apply these to efl teaching. keywords: music; performance in education; e thnomusicology; efl; multimedia; call 1. introduction in universities throughout japan, industry-standard textbooks based on british and american english continue to support the delivery of undergraduate english language courses (mishima, 2017; sugimoto & uchida, 2018). however, in addition to core english classes, many institutions offer instructors the freedom to design and mailto:kimusiknz@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v7i2.6325 kim rockell englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 103 deliver elective subjects in english (lassegard, 2016; susser, 2017). samples of the offerings i have encountered over the last decade include teaching english through manga, 3-d printing, film, global english, cyber culture, and culture and society. my own work has explored teaching english through music (rockell, 2015a, 2015b, 2016; rockell & ocampo, 2014). the initial promising results of this work with music generally prompted me to consider ethnomusicology as a possible vehicle for language education in developing my own elective courses. i am motivated to learn more about how ethnomusicological resources such as traditional japanese “noh” drama are usefully appropriated in the context of efl university classrooms in japan and curious about the pedagogical implications of this practice. it may be helpful at the outset to outline ethnomusicology for those readers less familiar with the discipline. it can be thought of as a branch of socio-cultural anthropology that studies all human music in its cultural context with an emphasis on fieldwork. while its data can be represented through audio-visual, diagrammatic and notated musical examples, the lion‟s share of academic work in this field is presented in human language, and increasingly in english. work in languages other than english has also become readily available for english language readers since 2013 in the society for ethnomusicology‟s online serial publication translations. moreover, it can be noted that human language is inextricably bound to this discipline. this can be seen clearly in the tripartite model of one of ethnomusicology‟s preeminent scholars, merriam. merriam considers music as sound, concept and behaviour (barton, 2018; merriam & merriam, 1964; pugh-kitingan, 2017). here, human language appears in all three divisions: 1. sound – as song text or performance-related speech and chant 2. concept – in as much as frameworks of ideas, formal and folk evaluations and general thoughts about music are conceived of and expressed in spoken and written language. 3. behavior – in mediating performers‟ interaction, creating and maintaining hierarchies, supporting musical pedagogy and the transmission of performance traditions. hence it can be seen that human language is not only fundamental to ethnomusicology‟s practice as an academic discipline, it is also richly pervasive within the musical data under consideration. this linguistic richness, the intrinsically interesting and popular nature of music as topic, as well as my own serious engagement with it as a researcher led me to consider it appropriate as the basis of a university efl elective course. once determined to apply ethnomusicology to efl, my inquiry set out to answer the following questions. how can ethnomusicology be applied in efl? what is the role of language in ethnomusicology, and what language resources can be identified within its course materials? what approaches do these materials invite, and if presented digitally, what are the affordances of moocs and multimedia in this context? while numerous studies of music in efl have been conducted, few music(s) of the world as an online efl resource: a japanese efl classroom experience 104 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 ethnomusicologically-oriented studies, and in particular those considering online resources, have been carried out, leaving a gap which this paper begins to address. 2. literature review as an important background to the current research, i drew upon relevant literature including work on world englishes and teaching english as a foreign language (efl) pedagogy, music and performing arts in efl, and computer assisted language learning (call). the way global englishes are incorporated into english language classrooms is covered broadly by galloway and rose (2018), and the issues and challenges arising teaching english in a more specific context in indonesia is offered by yusny (2013). pennycook (2003) provides interesting insights on these issues from a sociolinguistic perspective, also approaching rap music and performativity, which are relevant to the current study. work by nunan, helped to contextualize the research within the asiapacific and gave insight into how the use of english as a global language tended to impact on regional educational policies (nunan, 2003). in addition to my own earlier work, which was referned to in the introduction, a number of studies that explore music and performing arts in efl have a bearing on this study and were helpful during the current research. a detailed survey of research on the use of music in english language learning was provided by engh (2013) and this work was usefully expanded on by mover (2017), who also begins to consider music, language and call. nadera (2015), considers the affective dimension of music in language learning, specifically how it impacts on students‟ motivation. in this connection, music has an important role within approaches based on suggestopedia, as recognized by kharismawati and susanto (2014), zaid (2014), and also younus and ahmad (2017), whose case study included music within suggestopedia approaches in pakistan. drama-focussed language teaching techniques, which can also include singing, were endorsed in studies by gaudart (1990) and also several years earlier in a book length contribution by holden (1984). the benefits celebrated by these authors are also echoed in more recent work based in the asia-pacific region (abdulrahman et al., 2019; sembiring & sarwono, 2018). call literature was relevant not only because of the online component of this study, but also because many of the students in the relevant classes were computer science majors at a boutique institution specializing in computer science. this is a relatively new and fast changing field. seminal work by lian, such as his 2004 technology-enhanced language-learning environments: a rhizomatic approach (lian, 2004), later work by levy and stockwell (2013) and more recent work by heft et al., deal with the key developments in computer-assisted language learning (icall) (heift, 2017; yaghoobi & razmjoo, 2016). these provided a very helpful overview when commencing the current study. kim rockell englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 105 3. method i conducted an experimental study combined with a qualitative methodology based on the iterative assessment of course taught regularly over a five-year period from 2013–2018. in approaching methodology, which can be “defined as a general research paradigm that outlines how a research project is undertaken” (ma, 2015, p. 567), i consider the idea of „research pathways.‟ in this project, the pathway lead to the reflexive analysis of observable behaviour, stated attitude and viewpoints, and degree of participation in working with the materials in the computer-assisted ethnomusicology (cae) class, as a participant-observer, without specific reference to individual participants, and mainly focused on the materials. it moved forwards from a stance of interpretivism, which sees knowledge as “personal, subjective and unique,” and appropriate for case studies such as this current paper (ma, 2015). qualitative research in efl has been recognized as helpful in examining human behaviour in depth, exploring new topics, and in approaching the “rich in description of people, places, and conversations, which is not easily handled by statistical procedures” (ma, 2015, p. 567). the benefits of this kind of study have retained researchers‟ interest over the past two decades (atkins & wallace, 2012; heigham & croker, 2009; mckinley & rose, 2019; read, 2003). in line with ma (2015), i conducted this work with the understanding that efl teacher-researchers including myself are an “important source of knowledge regarding their own classroom situations.” while the definition of ethnomusicology offered in the introduction referred to an emphasis on fieldwork, in the current study, this aspect was almost totally reduced to e-fieldwork (wood, 2008). several factors influence this including the boutique nature of the institution as a computer science university, its remote physical location in the tohoku region of japan, the prohibitive expense of overseas travel for students, and increasing concerns for their personal safety abroad (lassegard, 2013). the internet, however, provides a birds-eye view of the musical world and open source, audio-visual materials and examples are readily accessible. language resources identified were retrospectively examined and tabulated. samples from three sessions, which indicate the rich language content present in cae multimedia materials, are presented in the findings section that follows. these samples are then interrogated for affordances, based on the iterative assessment that took place during the course of the study. 4. findings and discussion this section begins by presenting the resources that were discovered and specific affordances they were found to process. the general titles alone of a single instance of open-source access are identified in the tables that follow. for completeness, materials from the other classes taught during a fifteen-week long university semester appear in the appendices and in some cases are referenced in the music(s) of the world as an online efl resource: a japanese efl classroom experience 106 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 text. positive applications of ethnomusicological materials identified during the study are related to the tabulated resources and presented as „six affordances.‟ these are unpacked and discussed further after table 4. note: for ease of identification, language resources in the following tables appear in bold type. for conciseness, abbreviations of terms such as ga (general american english) and rp (received pronunciation) have also been used in the tables, and also appear in bold type. table 1 computer assisted ethnomusicology (cae) lecture multimedia language content (mlc) session 1: introduction. table 2 cae lecture mlc session 2: basic concepts applied to world music in culture. audiovisual example title language what is ethnomusicology? narrated in irish english ethnomusicology comedy african american ebonics music at royal holloway: dr. henry british english rp (received stobart pronunciation) table 3 cae lecture multimedia language content (mlc) session 3: area focus 1 – oceania. audiovisual example title language electronically modified didgeridoo technical explanations in english text on screen high-tech didgeridoo ga english male narrator the dreamtime–northern territory standard/southeast british english aboriginals a musical journey for world peace rp british english narrator, interviews with aboriginal-australian politicians, audiovisual example title language music and instruments around the world general (north) american english ga (general american english) female narrator ethnic dance around the world ga english male narrator music technology developer adam standard/southeast british english place a musical journey for world peace written english text on stage. no other spoken language. takes place in india. journey into the cultures of the earth no spoken language kim rockell englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 107 aboriginal craft workers and aboriginal and non-aboriginal northern territory residents in australian english(es) the didgeridoo narrated in ga english contemporary australian group yothu torres strait aboriginal australian yindi english tiki taane nz no spoken language papua new guinea sing-sing festival interview in papua new guinean english, subtitles, and narration in hebrew palauan traditional dance cries and shouts from audience, performance introduction in palauan english solomon island instrument no spoken language solomon short film various solomon island languages and pijin, on-screen titles in english solomon island documentary interviews in english with former solomon prime minister, journalists, and church minister in solomon english(es) festival of pacific arts new zealand english and maori, interviews in english with the head of samoan delegation 4.1. cae materials' affordances the iterative assessment of the delivery of the kinds of materials illustrated in the preceding tables over a five-year period, helps me reach towards an understanding of how using these resources and presenting them from an ethnomusicological perspective can be a helpful vehicle for language education. the affordances that the materials revealed can be categorized in the following six ways: table 4 six affordances of cae materials. 1. examples of english speakers from (interviews, demonstrations and many different places examples of teaching etc.) 2. awakening anthropological (beyond a bi-cultural, them and us awareness model) 3. example of languages other than (accessible via english subtitles) english 4. intrinsically interesting (provide a springboard for discussion) music(s) of the world as an online efl resource: a japanese efl classroom experience 108 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 5. represented by a large literature (wide and varied texts for all kinds of language study activities) 6. a vast range of related semiotic (costumes, dance, gesture, etc.) resources 4.2. unpacking the six affordances these six affordances or benefits will now be unpacked in more detail based on the findings of ongoing observations as a participant-observer. 4.2.1. a variety of voices item one identified examples of speakers from many different places. in general, the musical and music-related audiovisual materials that students work with in class exposed them to a far wider variety of speakers than they encounter in their standard english classes. as explained, within the course, five of a total of fifteen sessions were devoted to specific world areas. these were presented as tables 1–3 above and in tables 5–11 in the appendices (appendices 1–7). a glance at these highlights the breadth of language that students experienced during the course as a result of accessing ethnomusicology materials. however, despite the breadth and apparent inclusivity, the most strongly represented voices in these materials are still those of adult males speaking general american english (ga), and the least represented are the voices of women and children. nevertheless, this selection definitely had the potential to open japanese students' ears to a broader world of english than they would otherwise experience using standard british and american efl materials. 4.2.2. awakening anthropological awareness the second affordance found was the potential to affect a change in thinking about human diversity and encourage students' thinking to go beyond a 'them-and-us' model. within the multimedia content of cae, such a model is still common and ga english is seen to interrogate and present less pervasive world cultures in many examples. nevertheless, there are also many examples that have the potential to affect change. these include the use of english by and for insider audiences, such as the malaysian punjabi bhangra english (appendix 7) and intergenerational ghanaian english between scottish ghanaian resident father and son; interesting multilingual environments such as the mixing of ga influenced english, portuguese and british cockney by buraka som sistema; and the empowering diplomatic role of english in helping young ewe tribe children from ghana explain their culture to a frenchcanadian filmmaker (appendix 5). 4.2.3. providing examples of languages other than english an examination of the course materials reveals many examples of musicians chanting, singing, and speaking directly in languages other than english, such as kim rockell englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 109 indonesian/malay and chinese, important languages in the asia-pacific region, in which this study took place (baldwin, 2019). these link the now ubiquitous diversity of the world's linguistic resources to keenly felt, individual, often local concerns involving language and identity (habiburrahim et al., 2020; nakaya, 2018; subandiyah et al., 2019). at the same time, subtitles in english help to provide a 'key' into them that helps to inform students and increase their interest and curiosity in these materials. although the intercultural implications of subtitling invite debate (espindola & vasconcellos, 2006; ortega, 2011), in this specific educational context, they at least make the material more approachable and help students gain initial access. 4.2.4. a springboard for discussion the fourth affordance found within the materials was that they are an effective springboard for many kinds of discussion. during the five years when the course was delivered, the split classroom emerged as the main approach (chen, 2016; kelsen, 2009). this involved the creation of a sufficient number of self-paced online quizzes using moocs, created using the platforms moodle and then later schoology during the fifth iteration of the course. online activities included cloze, true/false, comprehension, and open-ended opinion questions that related directly to the multimedia materials in sufficient number to keep students totally occupied at their computer workstations during a 90-minute japanese class period or koma and beyond. meanwhile, the discussion was facilitated by working intensively with 6-8 students at a time to discuss the materials in what was referred to as dynamic conversation corner (dcc). dcc took place near the front of the classroom and away from students' computer workstations. topics and conversation prompts were presented on a portable mini whiteboard. students usually stood and rotated partners, and during the relatively short window of time (approximately five minutes per group), many lively conversations took place. 4.2.5. wide and varied texts for all kinds of language study activities five of the fifteen cae course sessions contained textual examples related to ethnomusicological multimedia. these included an article on musical ensemble synchronization by peter keller of the max planck institute (keller, 2007), and knight's work on the exhaustive classification of musical instruments by german scientists hornbostel and sachs (knight, 2015). such texts contain much interesting and complex vocabulary that relates to the topics at hand, and these were used mainly as the basis of reading comprehension and vocabulary building exercises. students found many of these terms unique and interesting, and they diligently sought out definitions using online dictionaries. music(s) of the world as an online efl resource: a japanese efl classroom experience 110 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 4.2.6. introducing a vast range of related semiotic resources the cae audiovisual materials were found to be replete with a variety of semiotic resources too numerous to mention. notably, of these, students were surprised without fail when they saw instruments such as adam place's alpha sphere (place et al., 2014) (table 1), the single-player, multi-tube bamboo and stone instrument from the solomon islands (moyle, 1974) (table 3); the jewelry, head adornments, virile stomping and facial expressions of performances in oceania, and the undulating, trancelike torso rotations at male-only dance parties in the egyptian nile. these resources exhibited an unparalleled aesthetic richness that never failed to captivate students' attention during the course. 4.3. emergent discussion: the importance of the 'glocal' unpacking the six affordances of cae multimedia in the preceding findings section showed how the use of computers and the internet gave students an 'eye on the musical world.' it was interesting to note, however, that this expansive view came to support a glocal awareness, as the world's music(s) were made relevant for students at a local level. this is an aspect of curriculum design that i have always considered very important, and which continues to be recognized in the literature (downes, wold, belatchew, mustafa, & blount, 2017; lee et al., 2019). however, the delivery of cae over five years served to highlight the increasing importance of the glocal, which i will cover now as a further discussion, emergent from the study's main findings. two projects were developed within the cae course that addressed this. these were the domestic research project (drp) and english noh drama performance project. in drp, after having been awakened to a vast array of world music, students were asked to think about a song, musical style, event, performer, composer, music teacher, instrument maker, repairer or retailer, or anything at all related to music in their hometown, or where they currently stayed near their university. they were then encouraged to investigate further and write a report, seeing the familiar through fresh eyes. during the five years when the course was delivered, in most cases, students initially complained that there was no music in their hometown. however, on reflection, they frequently changed their minds when they realized that there was such music. typically, it was a unique local festival performance or a famous musician they did not realize had actually been born in their own home town. in this way, students came to see their local environments in more positive terms. for example, in the tohoku area, near the university where the course was delivered, a renowned local dish was 'sauce katsudon' [deep fried pork cutlet on rice with picante sauce and finely sliced cabbage]. students developed a renewed appreciation for this dish on learning about the locally produced 'sauce katsudon no uta' or song in praise of sauce katsudon, of which a limited number of cds are sold at an event center near the local city hall. writing reports about these kinds of things in english prepared students to share unique local knowledge with non-japanese speaking visitors to japan. kim rockell englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 111 finally, the culmination of the cae course was the preparation and performance of an english language noh play, which linked local japanese traditions to the global communication tool, english. this component of cae has been reported on in more detail elsewhere from the point of view of translingualism, intercultural art education, and as a practical drama workshop technique (rockell, 2018, 2019, 2020). while teaching cae, i learned that students had often heard about the 600-700-year-old traditional japanese theatre noh, which combines music, poetry, dance, and drama, but usually had no direct experience of it. in general, they considered noh as an important cultural heritage but claim to be uninterested. over several weeks, we rehearsed, created costumes, designed the set, and then gave dress rehearsal and final performances, which were open to other interested students and staff to attend. unlike the other activities in this course, which with the exception of the dcc tended to focus more on receptive language skills such as listening and reading, the english noh play involved energetic chanting in a loud voice and focuses on the production of spoken language. the noh script was an original work in english, maintaining the general framework and structure of a noh play in terms of scenes, roles, and syllable structure influenced by tanka poetry. the typically tragic theme, however, was contemporary and set in cyberspace. students who participated in this part of the course frequently claimed that their attitude towards noh changed for the positive and that they would like to seek out live performances of traditional noh or even take it up themselves. this outcome is an example of a glocal turn and increased engagement and interest in the locally-based activity as a result of cae. 5. conclusion this paper has highlighted the content-rich and aesthetically appealing nature of ethnomusicological resources, replete as they are with human language. however, it is the example they provide of englishes from around the world in local, international, and multilingual environments that appeared as most helpful for language learners in japan. the pedagogical implication here is that a reliance on standard british and american texts in japan is an anachronism in an age when such diverse resources are freely available and more often than not often available free on the internet. in seeking to expand students' horizons, cae resources reaffirmed the importance of local musical traditions, encouraging glocal thinking on the part of students. the importance of moocs and open source multimedia was also emphasized. clearly, it would have been nigh on impossible to construct and deliver the cae course without the benefit of the internet and the full access of students to individual computer workstations furnished with audio-headsets, which were all available during the study. the broad conceptual framework supported by merriam's tripartite model of music in culture clearly supports a tremendous range of language activity in the classroom, and the aesthetic dimension of cae multimedia is highly effective in engaging students' attention. considering the breadth of issues that arose in the course of this study, in music(s) of the world as an online efl resource: a japanese efl classroom experience 112 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 particular the six affordances listed earlier in the paper, it is strongly hoped that it will be possible to conduct more carefully nuanced future research on one particular aspect in order to make a continued contribution to our understanding of the music(s) of the world as an efl resource. references abdulrahman, t., azizah, f., & astiyandha, t. 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(2008). e-fieldwork: a paradigm for the twenty-first century? the new (ethno) musicologies, 8, 170. kim rockell englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 115 yaghoobi, m., & razmjoo, s.a. (2016). the potentiality of computer-assisted instruction towards ameliorating iranian efl learners' reading level. computers in human behavior, 59, 108-114. younus, n., & ahmad, m. (2017). a case study on the need of using sugestopedia in efl/esl classes in pakistan. al-qalam, 22(1), 27-37. yusny, r. (2013). elt in indonesian context: issues and challenges. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 1(1), 81-99. zaid, m. a. (2014). using suggestopedia in elt in saudi arabia: implications for pedagogy. paper presented at international conference on economics, education and humanities (iceeh'14), bali, indonesia. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2021. vol. 8, no. 2, 41-53 auditory and kinaesthetic learning styles and l2 achievement: a correlational study maximeliana masela universitas kristen duta wacana, yogyakarta, indonesia lianamasela03@gmail.com adaninggar septi subekti * universitas kristen duta wacana, yogyakarta, indonesia adaninggar@staff.ukdw.ac.id manuscript received ju l y 2 1 , 2020, revised february 5, 2021, first published may 3, 2021, and available online may 17, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v8i2.7529 recommended apa citation masela, m., & subekti, a. s. (2021). auditory and kinaesthetic learning styles and l2 achievement: a correlational study. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 8(2), 41-53. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.7529 abstract this study investigated undergraduate non-english major university students’ auditory and kinaesthetic learning styles and their relationships to second language (l2) achievement in english. it was conducted to resolve the conflicting findings in the literature on the directions and strength of the relationships between learners’ learning styles and their achievements and to investigate the field in relatively under-researched indonesian participants. the study used a survey as the method of data collection and found out that learners used auditory slightly more dominantly from kinaesthetic, yet both learning styles were merely used at low to moderate levels. the study further found very weak and statistically not significant associations between these learning styles and l2 achievements, suggesting that contrary to various learning theories highlighting the importance of learners’ learning styles in l2 learning, these learning styles may not be an important determinant of l2 achievement. based on the findings, possible future studies are suggested concerning the implications, contributions, and limitations of the study. keywords: auditory learning style; kinaesthetic learning style; l2 achievement; correlation * corresponding author https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.7529 auditory and kinaesthetic learning styles and l2 achievement: a correlational study 42 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 1. introduction arguably, second language (l2) learning and l2 learners’ individual differences (ids) are closely related. ids refer to the traits or characteristics of individual learners believed to influence their ultimate l2 learning attainment (dornyei, 2005). among several prominent id components such as learners' aptitude, motivation, anxiety, gender, and learning strategies, learners' learning styles have been quite widely discussed in the literature. learning styles are believed to influence the success of l2 learners (castro & peck, 2005). learning style is defined as learners’ profile of the habit of how they interact and respond to their learning environment (moenikia & babelan, 2010). it is also seen as an approach used by learners to transform information into their learning experiences and that is the way of how they learn better (ajideh, zohrabi, & pouralvar, 2018). concerning that, how the individuals learn a language is an important key to mastering an l2 (tabatabaei & mashayekhi, 2013). as language learning happens consciously and needs attentive engagements (tabatabaei & mashayekhi, 2013), knowing their learning styles can help learners use various supporting techniques to improve their l2 learning (liu & he, 2014). numerous previous studies about learning styles have been conducted, indicating the important role of learning styles in l2 learning. for example, vaishnav (2013) study found that learners’ learning styles strongly correlated with their academic achievement. in contrast, a study conducted by yildirim, acar, and bull (2014) found no correlation between learners’ learning styles and their academic achievement. in the indonesian context, studies conducted by aboe (2018) and naning and hayati (2011) reported no relationship between learning styles and l2 achievements of students of the english language department (eled). a contrasting finding, however, was found by setyoningsih (2019) in the indonesian junior high school context in which she found out that learning styles significantly and very strongly correlated with l2 achievements. our recent previous study (masela & subekti, 2020) involving indonesian 127 university students in a mixed-method study on visual learning style found that learners had a high level of visual learning style and preferred the use of various visual aids in l2 classes. despite the possible contributions of the previous studies, the learning styles of indonesian undergraduate students are under-researched. besides, as it is that english as l2 proficiency of indonesian senior high school graduates is quite unsatisfying (yulia, 2013), indonesian undergraduate students’ proficiency could also be further affected. there could be various factors affecting the lack of success in english instruction. for instance, class instructions not accommodating learners’ learning style could be one of them. learners may not be optimally facilitated in learning because teachers do not provide them with media or ways through which they could learn better. besides, learners may use a combination of learning styles rather than just one style, and so despite our previous study on visual learning style (masela & subekti, 2020), maximeliana masela & adaninggar septi subekti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 43 investigating other learning styles could still be meaningful. also, as seen in the conflicting findings on the relationship between learners' learning styles and their l2 achievements, conducting another study in this specific area could be worthwhile. considering the mentioned rationales, the present study seeks to find the answers to four research questions: q1. how is the level of university students’ auditory learning style? q2. how is their level of kinaesthetic learning style? q3. what is the relationship between their auditory learning style and l2 achievement? q4.what is the relationship between their kinaesthetic learning style and l2 achievement? 2. literature review learners learn differently and the way learners learn to influence their level of success (afshar & bayat, 2018; castro & peck, 2005). beside the visual learning style, the most widely used learning styles in l2 learning are auditory and kinaesthetic (bishka, 2010; dornyei, 2005; gilakjani, 2012). auditory learners learn best through oral language format. they are mostly using audios and lectures as auditory input because they understand information through speed, emphasis, and pitch (gilakjani, 2012; gilakjani & ahmadi, 2011). reading out loud in the classroom also helps them to gain information. they also learn better from interviews, discussions, and storytelling (pritchard, 2009). oluremi (2015) stated that when auditory learners want to recall their memory of something, they can hear from other people talk or just repeat that information and they will be able to remember it better. they learn better from interactions with others by listening and speaking and they whisper to themselves when they read something. they are also good at summarising orally from what they have read because, through it, they will understand and remember the information better. auditory learners have difficulty in written directions but they gain more through listening (oluremi, 2015). kinaesthetic learners learn from a hands-on approach. it means that by doing, these learners can understand better (gilakjani, 2012; gilakjani & ahmadi, 2011). some kinaesthetic learners prefer to walk around when they try to memorise something (dornyei, 2005). they prefer situations where they can be physically active. they prefer lectures with fieldwork outside the classroom, so they can be free to learn and have hands-on-experiences in learning. it is difficult for typical kinaesthetic learners to just sit and learn as they prefer moving around whilst learning (oluremi, 2015). as learning styles become a major concern in l2 learning (aliakbari & qasemi, 2012), studies in the field have been conducted in various research contexts. in thailand, brahmakasikara's (2013) study involving 67 undergraduate nonenglish major students taking an english foundation course named english iii found that most of the students passing english iii course were auditory learners (22.4%) with zero failure whilst kinaesthetic learners, at 11.9%, had the least number of students auditory and kinaesthetic learning styles and l2 achievement: a correlational study 44 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 passing the course, suggesting that in this research context learners with dominant auditory learning styles may be more advantaged in l2 learning. furthermore, studies in various middle school contexts seemed to produce inconclusive findings on the relationships between learning style and achievements. in the indian high school context, vaishnav (2013) found that kinaesthetic learning style was more popular among his 200 participants than auditory and further revealed that both learning styles correlated positively and significantly with learners’ academic achievement. the similar finding was obtained in setyoningsih's (2019) study involving 123 indonesian junior high school students. she found out that there was a statistically strong relationships between learners’ auditory learning style and l2 achievement, r(121) = .92, p < .05, and between their kinaesthetic learning style and l2 achievement, r(121) = .87, p < .05 (setyoningsih, 2019). however, yildirim et al.'s (2014) study in istanbul, turkey found a different finding from those of the mentioned two studies. they found no significant relationship between their 746 8 th grader participants’ learning styles, auditory, and kinaesthetic included, and academic achievement (yildirim et al., 2014). relatively uniformed findings seemed to be found in the indonesian english language education (eled) context on the relationship between learning styles and achievement. aboe's (2018) study in ternate, indonesia, found a very weak, statistically not significant relationship between auditory learning style and l2 achievement, r(73) = .03, as well as between kinaesthetic learning style and l2 achievement, r(73) = .16. another study was conducted by naning and hayati (2011). they found that the participants had a more dominant auditory learning style than kinaesthetic and further found that their participants' learning styles did not correlate with their l2 listening achievement (naning & hayati, 2011). in several other university contexts, learning styles were found to have no or weak relationship with academic achievement. in learning spanish and french as l2 in the united states, a study by bailey, onwuegbuzie, and daley (2000) involving 100 university student participants found that auditory learning style had very weak, not significant correlation with l2 achievement, r(98) = .05, whilst kinaesthetic had significant, weak correlation with l2 achievement, r(98) = .22. furthermore, involving 329 university student participants, a study by huang, hoi, and teo (2018) in china found that the participants preferred auditory learning style to kinaesthetic and further found that “no learning style preference was found to influence the students’ english proficiency” (p. 1069). huang et al. (2018) mentioned that cultural reasons specific to the chinese educational context may be attributed to this finding which contradicted several theories on the role of learning styles in l2 learning (castro & peck, 2005; dornyei, 2005). 3. method 3.1. research design maximeliana masela & adaninggar septi subekti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 45 this research uses a quantitative method by distributing questionnaires as the instrument of data collection (gray, 2014). there are numerous studies about learning styles that use quantitative methods (bailey et al., 2000; huang et al., 2018; vaishnav, 2013; yildirim et al., 2014), indicating the popularity of these methods in the field. the questionnaires were adapted from barsch's learning styles inventory (barsch, 1991) which originally consisted of 23 statements. of these 23 items, only 14 items indicating auditory and kinaesthetic learning styles were used. these 14 items were rearranged that the questionnaires had two sections; the first consisting of seven items indicating auditory learning style whilst the second consisting of six items indicating kinaesthetic learning style. there were three possible responses in the original questionnaire: “never”, “seldom”, and “often.” in this present study, however, the responses were modified into five: “almost always” equal to 5 points, “often” equal to 4, “sometimes” equal to 3, “seldom” equal to 2, and “almost never” equal to 1. the questionnaires were translated from the original english language to the indonesian language to facilitate the participants because the indonesian language was the language they were much more familiar with. it could also help ensure the reliability of their responses. before the questionnaires were administered to participants, they were piloted to five nonparticipant students to maintain the validity and reliability and were adjusted based on their feedback before distribution to the actual participants was done. the participants would need around five minutes to complete the questionnaires. 3.2. research participants the participants were 24 undergraduate students from non-english departments at a university in one of the cities in indonesia. they were general english level 3 students from various departments general english was a mandatory programme intended for undergraduate students from non-english majors. this programme had no credit and the purpose was to facilitate the undergraduate students with general english knowledge necessary before they took mandatory and credited english classes in their respective departments. this programme was held every semester and consisted of two meetings per week starting from the first semester after the students were accepted at the university. there are three levels of general english which are general english levels 1, 2, and 3. to get into the three levels, the students are required to take a placement test once they are registered in the university. based on the results of the test, the students are placed in one of the three levels. for the purpose of the study, level 3 was chosen because it was assumed that this group of students had more english exposure than those of the preceding levels and thus may respond to the questionnaire items related to their learning styles with more conviction. 3.3. ethical considerations the permission to conduct the research was granted by the head of the language training centre organising the general english programme as the gatekeeper (cohen, auditory and kinaesthetic learning styles and l2 achievement: a correlational study 46 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 manion, & morrison, 2007). as gatekeeper consent may not be ethically sufficient, informed consent forms detailing the purposes of the study and the participants’ rights, were provided on the first page of the questionnaires with the purpose that they knew all information about the research before they filled the questionnaires (israel & hay, 2006). the participants were given some time to read and understand the informed consent form before they decided whether or not to participate in the present study and fill the questionnaires. the participants’ identity such as names and scores were used for the research purpose only and were kept confidential. 3.4. data collection and analysis data collection was conducted in the odd semester of the 2019/2020 academic year. paper-based questionnaires were distributed to two general english level 3 classes. the obtained data from the questionnaires were then recorded in spss. based on the signed consent form, the course secretary provided the participants’ mid-semester grades, which were then also recorded in spss. to answer the first and second research questions on the levels of learners’ auditory and kinaesthetic learning styles, descriptive statistics in the forms of means and percentages were used. to answer the third and fourth research question, pearson product moment correlation was employed. 4. findings and discussions the target participants of the present study were 50 students from two classes of general english level 3. however, only 28 of them filled the consent forms and questionnaires whilst the others were absent on the day the questionnaires were distributed. out of these 28 participants, three participants did not have any midsemester grades due to various reasons and one participant did not respond to all items in the questionnaire, and so the data from these four students were excluded. 14 participants were male (58.3%), whilst 10 were female (41.7%). complete responses from participants have been included as an appendix to this study. the cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the seven auditory learning style items was at .60 whilst that of the kinaesthetic learning style items was at .53. cronbach’s alpha coefficient indicating reliability ranges from 0 to 1 and the closer a coefficient to 1, the more reliable the questionnaire is. concerning that, though it could be stated that the questionnaires used in the study were not very reliable, the coefficients were at an acceptable level. 4.1. research question 1. how is the level of university students' auditory learning style? as seen in table 1, the mean of participants’ responses was at 3.17 indicating that there was a tendency that the learner participants “sometimes” employed auditory learning styles. it could also be interpreted that in general, the participants used auditory learning styles moderately. the means of each item could also be observed in table 1. maximeliana masela & adaninggar septi subekti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 47 table 1 participants’ responses on auditory learning style items. means sd q1.1 3.24 1.20 q1.2 3.08 1.0 q1.3 2.88 .78 q1.4 3.28 .89 q1.5 2.96 .95 q1.6 2.36 1.15 q1.7 3.40 1.08 mean 3.17 as seen in table 1, item number 6 produced the lowest mean score whilst item number seven produced the highest mean score of all. first, item number 6 “i prefer listening to the news on the radio rather than reading about it in a newspaper” produced mean score 2.36. 66.7 % of the participants either “seldom” or “almost never” applied the auditory characteristics indicated in the item. this specific response should be interpreted with caution. first, the participants might have preferred reading than listening, indicating a less dominant auditory learning style. secondly, participants may consider this questionnaire item somehow not applicable to their condition. the participants who were in their late teenage age may not be familiar with the activities of listening to the radio or reading newspapers anymore and were more familiar with listening to podcasts or reading online news, thus the majority of the participants responding either "seldom" or "almost never". the second was item number 7 “i follow oral directions better than written ones” yielding the highest mean score of all at 3.40. 33.3% of the participants’ stated that they “sometimes” followed oral directions better than written ones, indicating that the participants liked oral directions better than written directions. auditory learners learn best when they obtain information in the audio form in which they can interpret it through the pitch, emphasis, and speed (gilakjani & ahmadi, 2011). besides, oral directions enabled auditory learners to gain the most information from what they hear and they understand the flow of that information (ajideh et al., 2018). as auditory learners are better in listening and speaking exchange when they want to remember something, they can recall what they heard before and it makes them better in discovering the information (gilakjani, 2012; gilakjani & ahmadi, 2011; oluremi, 2015). 4.2. research question 2: how is the level of university students' kinaesthetic learning style? as seen in table 2, the overall mean score of the participants’ responses was at 2.88 level indicating that they either “sometimes” or “seldom” employed kinaesthetic auditory and kinaesthetic learning styles and l2 achievement: a correlational study 48 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 characteristics indicated in the questionnaire items. this overall mean score was slightly lower than that of the auditory learning style at 3.17, indicating that even though both learning styles were used at a relatively same moderate level, learners used kinaesthetic learning style slightly less than their auditory. this finding was similar to the findings of several previous studies in various research contexts and educational levels (huang et al., 2018 in the chinese university context; naning & hayati, 2011 in the indonesian eled context; vaishnav, 2013 in the indian middle school context), suggesting a relatively uniformed finding across contexts and educational levels that auditory learning style was more widely used than kinaesthetic one. table 2 participants’ responses on kinaesthetic learning style items. means sd q2.1 3.64 1.08 q2.2 1.96 .93 q2.3 2.44 1.12 q2.4 2.60 1.19 q2.5 3.08 .95 q2.6 3.52 1.23 mean 2.88 as seen in table 2, item number 1 produced the highest mean score whilst items number 2 produced the lowest mean score, and thus these two items would be commented further. item number 1 “i enjoy working with tools” produced a mean score of 3.64. among 24 participants, 66.7% of the participants stated that they “often” or “sometimes” enjoyed working with tools, indicating that these learners learned better when they physically engaged in "hands-on experience” activity (gilakjani, 2012). these hands-on activities could be in the form of classroom demonstrations such as role-plays and fieldwork outside the classroom where they are given space to interact with others (gilakjani & ahmadi, 2011). item number 2, "i find myself playing with coins or keys in the pocket", had the lowest mean score of 1.96. 79.1% of the participants either “almost never” or “seldom” played with coins or keys in the pocket. the participants’ responses in this item should be interpreted carefully. first, though the activity of playing with coins or keys in the pocket could be considered kinaesthetic, there may be several factors as to why the majority of the participants either almost never or seldom did it. first, this specific kinaesthetic activity was simply not the participants’ liking, meaning they preferred doing other kinaesthetic activities or those of other learning styles. secondly, it may have something to do with the possibility that playing with coins or keys may be an maximeliana masela & adaninggar septi subekti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 49 unlikely activity done in their classes and their indonesian english teachers may not encourage that if that could cause some distracting noises during instruction. 4.3. research question 3: what is the relationship between learners’ auditory learning style and l2 achievements? table 3 shows the result of the correlation between learners’ auditory learning style and their l2 achievement as measured with their mid-semester grades. the study found a positive correlation between learners’ auditory learning style and their grades, indicating the more frequently the participants employed auditory learning style, the higher their grades tended to be. yet, the correlation was very weak, r (22) = .18 and it was statistically not significant p > .05. table 3 the correlation between auditory learning style and grades. auditory learning style grades pearson correlation .18 sig. (2-tailed) .39 n 24 the finding on the weak association between learners’ auditory learning style and achievement was in line with the results of several previous studies (aboe, 2018 in indonesia; bailey et al., 2000 in the us; huang et al., 2018 in china; naning & hayati, 2011 in indonesia; yildirim et al., 2014 in turkey) and in contrast with several others (setyoningsih, 2019 in indonesia; vaishnav, 2013 in india). the similarity and difference could have possible explanations. the findings on weak associations between auditory learning styles and achievement were found in university contexts (aboe, 2018; bailey et al., 2000; huang et al., 2018; naning & hayati, 2011), including the case in the present study, whilst those on the strong association between the two variables were mostly found in middle school context (setyoningsih, 2019; vaishnav, 2013). it may give some kind of indication that as learners advanced their educational level, the less their auditory learning style could be indicative of their academic achievement. 4.4. research question 4: what is the relationship between learners’ kinaesthetic learning style and l2 achievements? as seen in table 1, the study found a negative relationship between learners' kinaesthetic learning style and their grades, r (22) = -.15, p > .05. though the strength was weak and the correlation was not statistically significant, the negative relationship was somehow quite surprising. it indicated that the more frequently learners employed kinaesthetic learning style, the lower their l2 achievement tended to be. auditory and kinaesthetic learning styles and l2 achievement: a correlational study 50 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 table 4 the correlation between kinaesthetic learning style and grades. kinaesthetic learning style grade pearson correlation -.15 sig. (2-tailed) .46 n 24 this specific finding needed further comments. this finding was different from the finding of several previous studies that found significant positive correlations between their participants’ kinaesthetic learning style and their achievements (setyoningsih, 2019; vaishnav, 2013). even the present study’s finding on the negative association between the two variables was different from some other previous studies’ findings on the positive associations, albeit statistically not significant (aboe, 2018; bailey et al., 2000; huang et al., 2018; naning & hayati, 2011). slightly in line with the result on the negative association, however, brahmakasikara's (2013) study in thailand found that learners with kinaesthetic learning styles were the least successful in l2 achievement compared to those with other learning styles. the rather surprising negative association in the present study, which was in line with brahmakasikara's (2013) study, could be attributed to several factors. first, in the first place, the learner participants in the present study did not dominantly use kinaesthetic learning style seen from the low to moderate application of kinaesthetic activities. secondly, the general english class instruction may not accommodate kinaesthetic learning style dominantly either, including in the mid-semester assessment from which learners obtained their grades. thus, learners’ grades were possibly obtained from assessment heavily relying on other learning styles. in this sense, the contrasting findings between the present study and the mentioned studies’ findings could be attributed to the different characteristics of the participants, the educational contexts, and the typical l2 instructions. generally, several important points should be highlighted regarding the present study’s findings concerning previous studies in the field. first, it seems that it has been established in the literature and confirmed with the present study's finding that the auditory learning style is more dominantly used by learners across middle school up to university contexts. however, both learning styles are merely used in low to moderate levels by learners, which mean that learners use neither of these two learning styles dominantly when learning. furthermore, the present study’s finding on the very weak and not significant association between these two learning styles and achievements could somehow support the notion that these two learning styles play little to no part on learning (see also aboe, 2018; huang et al., 2018; naning & hayati, 2011; yildirim et al., 2014). this may also be attributed to learners’ minimum uses of these two learning styles in learning. however, huang et al. (2018) mentioned that cultural values could also play a part in influencing how learners learn and this may explain why certain maximeliana masela & adaninggar septi subekti englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 51 learning styles are not dominantly used by learners. for example, in a learning context where learners are accustomed to sitting in a classroom and paying attention to their teachers' written and verbal explanations with relatively minimal needs of “movements”, kinaesthetic learning styles, focusing on hands-on experiences and experimentations, may not get sufficiently enhanced, thus partly explaining why kinaesthetic learning style is uniformly found to be the least favourite among some learners. it should then be acknowledged that the results indicating learning styles did not significantly correlate with achievement in various asian contexts, including in the present study, were in contrast with the established theory presented by many authors on the importance of learning style in influencing learning (castro & peck, 2005; dornyei, 2005). this established theory may be rather western-dominated where learners' various learning styles are better facilitated in instruction (huang et al., 2018). hence, in the asian context such as indonesia where learners’ diverse learning styles are not as highly valued yet, it becomes explicable that their learning styles do not have a strong relationship with their academic achievement. 5. conclusion the study has several implications and contributions in the field of l2 learning styles. first, this study provided insights about indonesian non-english major university students’ learning styles, which were quite under-researched. this study may also give some kind of confirmation of relatively inconclusive findings on whether learners’ auditory and kinaesthetic learning styles were associated with their achievements. with the result of the present study that these two learning styles did not significantly correlate with achievement, in line with several previous studies in various contexts predominantly in asia, it may be safe to state that learning styles of learners in asian contexts may not be a very important determinant of learners’ success in learning. hence, language teachers, rather than focusing on learners’ preferred modality in learning, had better provide mixed-teaching strategies to cater to diverse learners' needs and also to familiarise learners with potential learning modalities they may not be familiar with and to stretch learners' potential ways of learning. the present study also has limitations and these should be acknowledged. a few items in the barsch's (1991) learning style questionnaire items on the kinaesthetic learning styles needed some modifications before the questionnaire was distributed to the participants to match learners’ learning contexts. unfortunately, the authors did not realise this at the beginning. hence, the participants' responses to these items may be affected to a certain degree. for example, the statement "i chew gum or snack during studies" may not be relevant to the participants' learning context because it was unlikely that their english teachers would allow them to eat during class instructions. whilst the word "studies" could also indicate independent studies at home, learners could interpret it solely as “studying in the classroom” which may affect their responses. auditory and kinaesthetic learning styles and l2 achievement: a correlational study 52 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 finally, there are several suggestions on future studies in the field in relation to the present study's findings. findings on very weak associations between learning styles and l2 achievement do not imply that the field of learning styles do not merit further investigations. it is perhaps how researchers approach the phenomena that should be enhanced with more viewpoints. for example, researchers could design contextand culture-specific learning style questionnaires. this is because already established questionnaires consisting of general statements on certain learning styles may not be relevant to participants’ learning contexts and cultures. also, the present study is quantitative. as a result, it did not take into account specific aspects such as class instruction including methods, types of assessment, and frequent activities as possible factors affecting learners’ learning style preferences. hence, future studies could investigate learners' learning styles in relation to class instruction in qualitative studies employing the combination of observations and interviews. references aboe, r. m. 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(2014). relationship between teachers’ perceived leadership style, students; learning style, and academic achievement: a study on high school students. educational psychology, 28(1), 72–81. https://doi.org/10.1080/01443410701417945 yulia, y. (2013). teaching challenges in indonesia: motivating students’ and teachers’ classroom language. indonesian journal of applied linguistics, 3(1), 1–16. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2020. vol. 7, no. 2, 181-194 english learning motivating and demotivating factors among post-socialist mongolia's future english teachers solongo shagdarsuren national university of mongolia, erdenet school, mongolia solongo21@yahoo.com manuscript received march 23, 2020, revised april 16, 2020, first published may 18, 2020, and available online may 21, 2020. doi: 10.22373/ej.v7i2.6623 recommended apa citation shagdarsuren, s. (2020). english learning motivating and demotivating factors among post-socialist mongolia’s future english teachers. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 7(2), 181-194. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v7i2.6623 abstract a declining number of credit hours of english courses for english-majoring students at the national university of mongolia lead teachers and students to focus on effective english education and what factors would affect it within credit hours allowed at the university. meanwhile, english teaching class hours in mongolian secondary schools have been increasing for the last few years, due to the national interest in learning english, resulting in a greater demand for english teachers. this study investigated the motivation of mongolian english-majoring students towards learning english and the factors affecting them to be demotivated. a total of 20 students majoring in english teaching at the national university of mongolia, erdenet school of the 2019/2020 academic year completed the questionnaire on english learning motivation and attended focus group interviews. the findings showed that the students had instrumental orientation and demonstrated a strong desire to learn english. however, they felt demotivated by their teachers’ and classmates’ attitudes and living situations. the researcher recommends that the students and the teachers create a conducive environment in the classroom, where the students can feel comfortable despite making mistakes, and also suggests other practical takeaways given this post-socialist english learning environment. keywords: learning motivation; instrumental motivation; integrative motivation; demotivation; internal factors; external factors mailto:solongo21@yahoo.com https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v7i2.6623 post-socialist mongolia’s future english teachers 182 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 1. introduction english language knowledge lists at 21 st (us) and 34 th (uk) among 120 skills the nesta report considers important for future demand in occupations (bakhshi, downing, osborne, & schneider, 2017). this high rank predicts the development in science, technology, and social areas will be done and delivered or introduced in english. there is no doubt that english is served as a tool not only in communication to break any potential barriers among the nations where people speak their own languages as the mother tongue, but also in exploring various knowledge and sciences developed by numerous scientists across nations (tulung, 2020). mongolia, landlocked between the russian federation and the people’s republic of china, was a premier socialist country before 1990 when its democratic revolution shifted the nation to democracy. such a political and social situation led mongolians to rapidly develop foreign relations beyond russia. nationally, they shifted attention beyond russia to study english. english has been one of the most important subjects in mongolian schools since its teaching began in the 1992-1993 academic year. a further change to english language education was implemented with the victory of the mongolian people’s revolutionary party (mprp) in the national election of 2000 (cohen, 2004). the newly elected parliament drafted a white paper stating that english should receive further emphasis in the education system. this resulted from mongolia’s integration with the world economy, the rise of tourism, and the overall benefits of studying the primary international language. since the 2005/2006 academic year, the mongolian government mandated that whenever possible, students should begin studying english in the fourth grade, and all should continue studying it through the then newly added eleventh grade (shagdarsuren & davaasuren, 2017). required english credit hours in mongolian public schools have steadily increased. shagdarsuren and davaasuren (2017) estimated that english class hours at the secondary school level had increased from 655 to 700 for 6-7 years and reached 840 hours of english lesson in 2008. the ministry of education, culture, science, and sports (mecss) of mongolia then declared a further increase in english class hours for secondary schools. for 5 th graders, this increased by 99 academic hours (ministry of education and science (mes), 2014). for 6 th to 9 th graders, this increased by 420 hours (ministry of education, culture, and science (mecss), 2015). for the upper-secondary level, or 10 th – 12 th grades, it increased by 387 hours. these totaled an increase of up to 906 hours of required english classes. the students might also add up to 9 credit hours of electives, a total of up to 387 additional hours (mecss, 2016). in secondary schools, the normal workload of english teachers in mongolia, determined by the ministry, is 19 hours per week. the academic year continues for 33 weeks, which makes it 627 hours per english teacher. given the ministry’s high credit requirements for students and large workloads for current teachers in mongolia, english, as the new foreign language, has created a huge demand for english teachers in the job market. consequently, many students feel encouraged to major in english teaching. solongo shagdarsuren englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 183 the national university of mongolia (num) and the mongolian state university of education are mongolia’s public institutions that prepare english teachers. the num, erdenet school operates in a rural area and is the sole public university in the khangai region offering an undergraduate english teaching program. the students studying at this program come from mongolia’s khangai and central regions, across 11 provinces. approximately, 22 students graduate every year and work in these regions (national university of mongolia (num), 2020). before 2014, the english teaching program at erdenet school consisted of 80 credit hours in english courses, a total of 64% of the 125 total credits. then, the ministry of education, culture, and science (mecss, 2014) decreed that the students in bachelor’s degree programs had to pass standardized tests with an upper-intermediate level of english to graduate. additionally, a 4-year bachelor’s program’s minimum of 120 credit hours had to include 30% compulsory courses of general education, within which 6 credit hours of english, and 70% courses of the students’ majors. this was a huge decline in the number of courses and credit hours of english. the ministry’s decision applied to num had affected all the students’ degree requirements, including that of the english teaching program (mecss, 2019). as a result, english credit hours for english teaching majors dropped to 51, or 42.5% of the 120 total credits. within this contradicting situation, in which english teachers’ demand is high but english course hours at universities are decreasing, english teaching majors’ motivating and demotivating factors take the spotlight. the researcher considers the motivation of english-majoring students’ toward learning english ought to be higher than that of students of other majors. this study sought to answer two main research questions: ―is the motivation orientation of the students of english teaching major to learn english integrative or instrumental?‖ and ―what are the motivating and demotivating factors affecting the students of english teaching major to learn english?‖. 2. literature review motivation has taken many definitions. maslow (1943) defines motivation within a hierarchy of needs including self-actualization, esteem, love and belonging, safety needs, and physiological needs. gray and klapper (2009) offer the role of affective factors, emphasizing motivation as among the most important of four essential elements: understanding language acquisition, learning styles, affective factors, being involved in shaping the courses to learn and teach english. gardner (2007) explains that motivation affects second language acquisition, wherein specific motivation exists toward language classes and situations of learning another language. student motivation affects students’ attitudes toward learning (afzal, ali, khan, & hamid, 2010; dornyei, 2018). in addition, william and burden (1997) define motivation as a state of cognitive and emotional arousal leading to a conscious decision to act. this gives rise to a period of sustained intellectual and/or physical effort in order to attain set goals. post-socialist mongolia’s future english teachers 184 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 the researcher focuses on how gardner and lambert (1972) divide motivation into two categories, integrative and instrumental motivation. motivation and orientation are related by a collection of reasons that reflect common or conceptually similar goals (gardner, 2001). instrumental orientation is the purpose of language study that reflects the more utilitarian value of linguistic achievements, such as getting ahead in one’s occupation (gardner & lambert, 1972). in contrast, integrative orientation encompasses students’ wishes to learn more about another cultural community because of openminded interests, to the point of eventually being accepted as a member of that group (gardner & lambert, 1972). motivation is a base factor affecting students’ academic performance at the university level (klimova, 2011; chen, 2014; ozuturk & hursen, 2014). motivation to do something is influenced by a range of factors, some of which are internal and some external. (william & burden, 1997). zanghar (2012), who studied undergraduate libyan students majoring in english, had unusual findings. while the students had both high instrumental and integrative motivation, the integrative motivation appeared slightly higher than the instrumental one, and the students’ motivation had no relationship with their academic achievement. william and burden (1997) offer a motivation model that reflects the dynamic interaction between internal and external variables, where learners act based on the factors surrounding them. dornyei and ushioda (2011) describe the factors affecting motivation and demotivation. they define demotivating factors as ―specific external forces that reduce or diminish the motivational basis of a behavioral intention or an ongoing action‖ (dornyei & ushioda, 2011, p. 140). in other words, demotivation encompasses when students have no interest or intention to learn. ali and pathan (2017) found the factors of demotivation in the students and also listed grammar-based teaching, classroom environment, the effect of low test scores, teachers’ behavior, course contents and teaching materials, lack of self-confidence and interest as the other factors. dornyei (1998) revealed the factors affecting demotivation among 50 students by interviewing them for 10-30 minutes. the factors included teachers, reduced self-confidence, inadequate school facilities, negative attitudes toward l2, the compulsory nature of l2, interference of another language, negative attitudes towards the l2 community, attitudes of group members, and the course book. according to chambers (1993), teachers can be among the most demotivating factors for students to learn english. kikuchi and sakai (2009) surveyed 112 learners of english from universities in japan. they identified demotivating factors such as course books, inadequate school facilities, test scores, noncommunicative methods, and teachers’ competence and teaching styles in their questionnaire. jung (2011) also conducted a survey among korean college students about the demotivating factors and found out that, in general, the external factors were more involved in the demotivation process for the students. given this background of motivating and demotivating factors, the researcher investigated how these results would manifest in post-socialist mongolia. particularly, solongo shagdarsuren englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 185 the researcher studied the students of english teaching majors, who might become mongolia’s future teachers. 3. method this study employed a mixed-method research design involving 20 undergraduate students (18 to 24 years old) studying to be english teachers at the national university of mongolia (num), erdenet school, mongolia. among 20 participants involved in this study, 4 were male and 16 were female students, and 16 were sophomores and 4 were seniors. according to johnson, onwuegbuzie, and turner (2007), mixed-method research is a combination of qualitative and quantitative research elements. mixed-method research is the type of research in which a researcher or team of researchers combines elements of qualitative and quantitative research approaches (e. g., ―use of qualitative and quantitative viewpoints, data collection, analysis, inference techniques) for the broad purposes of breadth and depth of understanding and corroboration‖ (johnson et al., 2007, p. 123). by employing this mixed methods research, the researcher believes that the data collected in this study are rich and cover both sides: from direct input through a survey and from the participants’ voices through a focus group discussion. 3.1. instruments and procedure 3.1.1. questionnaire the researcher surveyed the students at the end of the first term of the 2019/2020 academic year. the researcher used mini-amtb, an adapted version of the questionnaire attitude motivation test battery, developed by gardner (2004). although the participants majored in english teaching, the researcher translated the questionnaire into mongolian, as the participants’ first language is mongolian. the questionnaire consisted of two parts. the first part collected demographic information (e.g., age, gender, academic year), and the second one consisted of 12 items, asking about interest in foreign language, motivational intensity, english class anxiety, english teacher evaluation, attitudes toward learning english, attitudes toward english-speaking people, desire to learn english, english course evaluation, english use anxiety, and integrative and instrumental orientation. for each statement, the participants rated on a scale of 1-7 (scale 1 included weak, unfavorable, very little, and low, whereas scale 7 included strong, favorable, very much, and high (table 1)). before the participants started answering, the researcher reminded them not to worry and to feel relaxed to deliver their answers based on their opinion and evaluation. table 1 content of the questionnaire. post-socialist mongolia’s future english teachers 186 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 3.1.2. focus group interview in the second part of the study, on the same day after the questionnaire, the researcher conducted a focus group interview in mongolian with the same participants, consisting of 4 male and 15 female students. the interview aimed to find out the participants’ opinions on the significance of english, the reasons of studying english, the common factors affecting motivation and demotivation in learning english, and the question to discover items in the questionnaire rating integrative orientation my motivation to learn english in order to communicate with english speaking people is: weak_1:_2:_3:_4:_5:_6:_7 strong attitudes toward english-speaking people my attitude toward english speaking people is unfavorable_1:_2:_3:_4:_5:_6:_7 favorable interest in a foreign language my interest in foreign languages is very low_1:_2:_3:_4:_5:_6:_7 very high desire to learn english my desire to learn english is weak_1:_2:_3:_4:_5:_6:_7 strong attitudes toward learning english my attitude toward learning english is unfavorable_1:_2:_3:_4:_5:_6:_7 favorable english teacher evaluation my attitude toward my english teacher is unfavorable_1:_2:_3:_4:_5:_6:_7 favorable instrumental orientation my motivation to learn english for practical purposes (e.g., to get a good job) is weak_1:_2:_3:_4:_5:_6:_7 strong english use anxiety i worry about speaking english outside of class very little_1:_2:_3:_4:_5:_6:_7 very much english course evaluation my attitude toward my english course is unfavorable_1:_2:_3:_4:_5:_6:_7 favorable english class anxiety i worry about speaking in my english class very little_1:_2:_3:_4:_5:_6:_7 very much motivational intensity my motivation to learn english is very low_1:_2:_3:_4:_5:_6:_7 very high parental encouragement my parents encourage me to learn english very little_1:_2:_3:_4:_5:_6:_7 very much solongo shagdarsuren englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 187 possible changes that would occur if they acquired english to an advanced level. the researcher asked the following questions in mongolian: a. what is the significance of english? b. why are you studying english? c. what are your internal and external demotivating factors toward learning english? d. what outcomes do you expect after learning english? e. do you believe the attitudes of other people will change if you learn english well? the first two questions were warm-ups, to ease the participants into the important questions. the third item was the key focus group question, whereas items 4 and 5 were the follow-up questions. the researcher, who is a mongolian, conducted the focus group as the moderator. the researcher prepared the classroom and seats in advance (krueger & casey, 2015). in order to create a warm and relaxed atmosphere, the researcher explained the interview goal and asked the participants to feel free to express their opinions, thoughts, and real conditions they encountered in school. the moderator conducted the interview and started with warm-up questions to lead the interview to the follow-up questions about demotivating factors. the moderator also took notes and recorded the interview. the moderator then asked the participants to respond to the questions one by one and to take turns. the focus group interview lasted for 60 minutes. 4. findings 4.1. questionnaire the researcher conducted the questionnaire reliability analysis using the ibm spss v.23 program and calculated means, standard deviations, and other statistics. the questionnaire results are presented in table 2 and figure 1 in the following. table 2 descriptive statistics. n range min. max. mean std. deviatio n statistics statistics statistics statistics stati stics std. error statistics integrative orientation 20 5.00 2.00 7.00 5.35 00 .3424 0 1.53125 attitudes toward english-speaking people 20 5.00 2.00 7.00 5.10 00 .3395 0 1.51831 interest in foreign 20 4.00 3.00 7.00 5.00 .3244 1.45095 post-socialist mongolia’s future english teachers 188 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 language 00 4 desire to learn english 20 4.00 3.00 7.00 5.95 00 .2853 9 1.27630 attitudes toward learning english 20 6.00 1.00 7.00 4.65 00 .3101 4 1.38697 english teacher evaluation 20 6.00 1.00 7.00 4.75 00 .3760 9 1.68195 instrumental orientation 20 4.00 3.00 7.00 5.90 00 .2282 7 1.02084 english use anxiety 20 6.00 1.00 7.00 4.30 00 .4478 0 2.00263 english course evaluation 20 5.00 2.00 7.00 5.00 00 .2901 9 1.29777 english class anxiety 20 5.00 1.00 6.00 3.80 00 .4267 4 1.90843 motivational intensity 20 5.00 2.00 7.00 5.50 00 .3120 4 1.39548 parental encouragement 20 6.00 1.00 7.00 5.70 00 .3845 7 1.71985 table 2 shows the students’ instrumental orientation (5.900) and integrative orientation (5.300) are high. but the difference between the two orientations is 0.600. in other words, the students have higher instrumental motivation than integrative orientation. the mean of ―desire to learn english‖ item is the highest, at 5.9500. the lowest items scored are ―english use anxiety‖ (4.3000) and ―english class anxiety‖ (3.8000). furthermore, ―parental encouragement‖ and ―motivational intensity‖ are also rather high. figure 1. questionnaire results by percent. 0 0 0 0 5 5 0 10 0 20 0 5 5 5 0 0 5 10 0 10 5 5 5 0 5 10 20 5 0 0 5 25 5 25 5 5 20 20 20 10 30 25 0 0 25 0 10 15 25 25 20 20 35 25 25 20 25 25 20 10 10 15 20 15 20 20 40 20 30 25 35 15 35 25 20 50 5 15 30 15 10 0 25 50 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 integrative orientation attitudes toward english-speaking people interest in foreign language desire to learn english attitudes toward learning english english teacher evaluation instrumental orientation english use anxiety english course evaluation english class anxiety motivational intensity parental encouragement 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 solongo shagdarsuren englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 189 4.2. focus group interview the researcher explains the interview results below, in accordance with the focus group interview items list. for the first question, the students commented on english being an important language and means of communication to receive information, to travel and live abroad, to learn and get educated, and to socialize. the second question was ―why are you studying english?‖ and the students responded that they learned english since it was their major, so they took compulsory courses. also, english is a world language and their parents demanded that they study english. they also added that all the scientific and professional documents and materials were written in english. for the key item of the interview, the students gave answers related to the teachers’ and other students’ attitudes. the researcher translated these from mongolian to english. teachers’ attitudes make me stop studying english. sometimes they say you cannot graduate as english teachers. sometimes teachers get frustrated when we don’t get the lesson. when i read or pronounce some words wrong, some students giggle, and i feel uncomfortable. moreover, the students replied that they felt demotivated because of the school and other environments. we are not allowed to stay at school after six o’clock in the evening. the period for checking out course books [from the library] is not long enough. we have to return them quickly. and this demotivates me. i have a family, and my baby is young. thus, when i get home, i have no time and place to study. i stay at my relatives’. thus, it is difficult to study because i am the one responsible to do the chores at home. for the internal factors, the students stated the following. i have different wishes. for example, i prefer playing basketball rather than practicing english. i think i don’t have good time management. i feel lazy and inactive. i feel ashamed when other students speak english fluently and do well in english. post-socialist mongolia’s future english teachers 190 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 for the follow-up item 4, the students answered they would be able to reach their goals of travelling, studying abroad, getting better jobs, working abroad, and being selfconfident and sociable. for question 5, the students felt other people would respect them and give them more attention if they learned english well. when i work as an english teacher at a secondary school, i will get respected more by students. i will be a role model for other people because i have perfect english. i will work and live in a great environment, surrounded by better people. 5. discussion the researcher investigated mongolian students’ motivation toward learning english and the factors demotivating them, particularly to determine whether englishmajoring students have had instrumental or integrative orientation. the questionnaire results showed the students’ motivation was more instrumentally oriented than integrated. in other words, the pragmatic reasons to learn english seem common among mongolian students majoring in english teaching. in mongolia, the demand for english teachers in the labor market has been increasing lately because the total hours of english classes in secondary education have increased nationwide. furthermore, private schools have opened that offer and teach english as a foreign language from the 1 st grade. thus, the researcher interprets that these findings—parental encouragement of learning english, students’ interests in a foreign language and desire to learn english—might be related to mongolia’s unique social circumstances. likewise, since the students have chosen their careers as english teachers, their desires and interests in english as instrumental orientation relates to their goals. additionally, one of the lowest mean items of the questionnaire was english class anxiety, which means the students feel rather confident when speaking english in class. but the students’ english use anxiety was higher, which reveals the students’ worry about their use of english outside of classes. mongolia lacks english speaking situations, and the students struggle to find real-life situations to speak english daily, outside community and school clubs and events that offer english practice. the focus group interview revealed the factors demotivating the students could be internal and external. the researcher divides the external factors affecting the motivation of learning english into the teachers’ attitudes and the school and classroom environment. previous studies showed that the teacher factor is one of the important factors demotivating the students (ali & pathan, 2017). as for the school and classroom solongo shagdarsuren englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 191 environment, as ali and pathan (2017), dornyei and ushioda (2011), and kikuchi and sakai (2009) have mentioned, school or classroom environments affect students as well. significant differences from related studies included that the students did not give answers related to teaching materials (ali & pathan, 2017) or course books (dornyei, 1998). the researcher observed that the living conditions were one of the special demotivating factors for the students interviewed. it is common for the students not only to stay at the university dormitory or rent a flat with other students but also to stay with their relatives during their university years. this is because the students usually enroll from different provinces in mongolia. when the students stay with their relatives, they may remain in mongolian-language environments, which limit their english competence and may decrease their motivation toward learning english. most of the students at erdenet school are female. some students who are mothers and also participated in the focus group interview said their babies prevented them from practicing and studying english. moreover, other students’ attitudes seemed to be one of the important demotivating factors for them. for instance, some students hesitate to speak or practice english when the other students correct their mistakes or giggle when they make mistakes. for the internal factors, the researcher considers some accounts. these include the students’ wishes, goal settings, learning, and cognitive styles, the formation of characters, upbringing, and self-confidence and psychological conditions. the students mentioned the internal motivating factors of being accepted, respected, and appreciated as rather important to them because of the impression that society favors good english speakers. english-majoring students have also a high need for esteem (maslow, 1943). this may be resulted from mongolians’ high appreciation and respect toward teachers and people with advanced english knowledge. 6. conclusion and recommendations the study aimed to investigate the motivation orientation toward learning english among english-majoring students at the national university of mongolia, erdenet school, and the factors leading to demotivation toward learning english, particularly within the mongolia’s context. the findings from the questionnaire and focus group interview showed that english-majoring students have had a higher instrumental orientation than an integrative orientation toward learning english, both because they have already chosen the program as their future profession and because english teachers’ demand in mongolia has been increasing. moreover, their parents’ encouragement and desire for them to learn english have also been strong. some demotivating factors included their teachers’ attitudes and their school environment. the students also responded with significantly different factors what affected their learning english motivation, including living conditions and classmates’ attitudes. post-socialist mongolia’s future english teachers 192 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 the researcher recommends english teachers pay attention to their attitudes toward the students, classroom behaviors, atmosphere, and organization of the lessons. especially in mongolia, the students and the teachers should work together to create a safe space environment in the classroom, wherein the students will feel more comfortable when making mistakes. the teachers should also provide real-life situations in class, in which the students can practice english more. further, the researcher suggests that school administrators consider making library services more flexible. clubs, training, and seminars designed to develop the students personally and academically should be run and organized more often at the university. 7. limitations this 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(2020). english language mastery as an easy factor to access health information in industrial revolution 4.0: a local challenge for global opportunities. enfermeria clinica, 30(2), 218-221. william, m., & burden, r. (1997). motivation in language learning: a social constructivist perspective. les cahiers l' apliut, 19-27. zanghar, a. (2012). instrumental dan integrative motivation among undergraduate libyan students of english as a foreign language (master's thesis). retrieved from mountain scholar. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2020. vol. 8, no. 1, 25-43 power and impoliteness in hancock action movie favian reswara sani uin sunan ampel surabaya, indonesia favianreswara5@gmail.com suhandoko suhandoko * uin sunan ampel surabaya, indonesia suhandoko@uinsby.ac.id manuscript received a p r i l 2 7 , 2020, revised september 14, 2020, first published november 7, 2020, and available online november 9, 2020. doi: 10.22373/ej.v8i1.6847 recommended apa citation sani, f. r., & suhandoko, s. (2020). power and impoliteness in hancock action movie. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 8(1), 25-43. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6847 abstract this study examined the strategies employed by the main character in the hancock movie named john hancock to attack his interlocutors‟ face, the way the recipients responded to his impoliteness, and how he used impoliteness to exercise his power. by using content analysis to draw inferences from utterances in the movie transcript, the study found that positive impoliteness is the most frequent strategy used by hancock due to its abusive nature and withhold impoliteness is the least used due to its unlikeliness to damage the interlocutor‟s face. also, the study found that the recipients used all strategies to respond to hancock‟s impoliteness, except abrogation and dismissing. at the same time, apart from hancock‟s use of impoliteness to exercise power, such as to appear as superior, to get power over actions, and to dominate the conversation as beebe (1995) noted, this study found that silence is also a way to exercise power to maintain control of undesired situations. the finding adds substantially to our understanding that silence as an impoliteness strategy might also serve the purpose of exercising power. this, of course, is open to debate and further research would verify or contradict this claim. keywords: power; impoliteness; hancock action movie * corresponding author mailto:suhandoko@uinsby.ac.id https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6847 power and impoliteness in hancock action movie 26 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 1. introduction the concept of politeness strategy emphasizes the importance of someone respecting other people‟s faces during communication. failing to do so, then s/he will be considered rude or impolite. although brown and levinson (1987) do not claim that rudeness and impoliteness the same or different, culpeper (2008) argues rudeness is different from impoliteness in the sense that rudeness is unintentional while impoliteness is intentional. this distinction motivates culpeper to put forth the impoliteness theory. succinctly, impoliteness is defined as the act of the speaker‟s faceattacking the hearer intentionally, and the act is perceived by the hearer as “intentionally face-attacking” (culpeper & hardaker, 2017, p. 203). culpeper, bousfield, and wichmann (2003) divide impoliteness into bald, on record impoliteness (bori), positive impoliteness (pi), negative impoliteness (ni), sarcasm/mock politeness (smp), and withhold politeness (wp). bori occurs when someone attacks the recipient‟s face directly, clearly, and unambiguously. pi is designed to damage the recipient‟s positive face by using taboo words or inappropriate identity markers or making others uncomfortable. ni occurs when the speaker damages the recipient‟s negative face by frightening, threatening, associating with negative things, or blocking physically or linguistically. smp occurs when someone uses politeness insincerely. as for wp, it occurs when someone fails to perform the expected politeness (culpeper & hardaker, 2017). in order to build effective communication, one must pay attention to the role of both interlocutors. therefore, the study of impoliteness needs also to examine the reaction of the recipient to the impoliteness. culpeper et al. (2003) state that the recipients may respond or not to respond to the impoliteness. while not to respond to impoliteness is rarely found, people are given the option of whether to accept or to counter when they choose to respond to the impoliteness. culpeper and hardaker (2017) explain that to accept the impoliteness the recipient may use strong and personalized complaints involving “increased face damage” to the recipients, (e.g., a: “you’re stupid”, b: “you’re right. i’m a bit of a dim-wit”). while to respond to the impoliteness, the recipient may choose either to offend (e.g., a: “you’re stupid”, b: “you’re idiot”) or to defend (e.g., a: “you’re stupid”, b: “no, i am not. i have got a phd …”). many factors can trigger impoliteness, one of which is the imbalance of power (baider, cislaru, & claudel, 2020; kienpointner, 2008; yibifu, 2020). bousfield (2008) argues that impoliteness is a way to “exercise power.” this idea supports what brown and levinson (1987), as cited in spencer-oatey and žegarac (2017), predict that the more power a person has, the more politeness he might receive. furthermore, impoliteness is closely related to power in a way that someone whose face is attacked by others; the only thing that prevents him from responding to it is power. strong individuals may need less effort to make their voices heard by the other person, but the "marginalized" individual may need to use harsh and disrespectful speech to make favian reswara sani & suhandoko suhandoko englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 27 himself visible (sifianou, 2019, p. 56). furthermore, culpeper and terkourafi (2017, p. 29) argue that power “regulate[s] the degree of [im]politeness appropriate to the performance of a face-threatening act.” bousfield's (2008) study in an army setting points out two functions of impoliteness to exercise power: to emphasize power and to reactivate power by people with high power over people with low power. the speaker uses impolite words to emphasize his/her power hierarchy in order to show who is the superordinate and the subordinate participant in the conversation. this function appears when the speaker uses bori to indicate the power hierarchy. impoliteness functions as a power-reactivating strategy that aims to scold the less powerful hearer and to clarify the meaning behind the discourse used by the hearer. the use of sarcasm is an example of impoliteness to reactivate power (ratri & ardi, 2019). different from bousfield (2008), who took the data from the conversation in an army setting in which the distinction between high and low power is noticeable, beebe (1995) used the data taken from daily conversations in which high and low power distinction is unlikely noticeable. beebe (1995) claims that impoliteness as an exercise of power could be used by people to show their superiority by insulting or putting down, gain authority by making others do something or avoid doing something, and show their dominance in a conversation. since its establishment, the theory of impoliteness has invited many researchers to study it in various conversation settings and media, such as movies (dafiqi, sukarno, & wahyuningsih, 2016; ratri & ardi, 2019; rosa, 2017). as the movie is “a recording of moving images that tells a story” (“movie”, n.d.) from which we get shown real-life like communication in the society by the characters (isna, 2018; rizki & golubović, 2020; spiker, 2012), it may reflect the impoliteness in the conversation, how the impoliteness is taken by the recipients, and, further, how power is reflected in the impoliteness used by the speaker. this study aims at analyzing impoliteness strategies in an action movie entitled hancock. different from other studies that investigated impoliteness in the movie by taking utterances of several characters (dafiqi, et al., 2016; ratri & ardi, 2019; rosa, 2017), this study took utterances which include impoliteness used by the main character only, named john hancock. by taking the utterances of the main or a single character, a clear picture of how power might contribute to the use of impoliteness by a certain speaker as an exercise of his power can be revealed. also, this study examined how the recipients respond to the main character‟s impoliteness. hence, the power relationship between speakers can be clearly and genuinely seen. based on the background of the study above, this research seeks to answer the following research problems: (i) what impoliteness strategies were used by john hancock? (ii) how do the recipients respond to john hancock‟s impoliteness? and (iii) in what ways does john hancock use impoliteness to exercise his power? power and impoliteness in hancock action movie 28 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 2. literature review 2.1. impoliteness impoliteness is “communicative strategies designed to attack the face, and cause social quarrelling and disharmony” (culpeper, et al., 2003, p. 1546). culpeper divides impoliteness into five types: bald, on-record impoliteness (bori), positive impoliteness (pi), negative impoliteness (ni), sarcasm/mock politeness (smp), and withhold politeness (wp). bori occurs when someone attacks someone else‟s face directly with no intention of minimizing the face attacks. this type of strategy is typically found in imperative sentences, such as “stop talking and finish your meal.” pi occurs when a speaker uses face attacks to gain respect, such as the use of ignoring others, using inappropriate identity marker, using taboo words, being disinterested, or making others uncomfortable. the examples of pi are the use of taboo words, such as “what the hell are you looking at?” or the use of inappropriate identify markers, such as “what are you doing here, piggy?” ni occurs when someone uses words “designed to damage the addressee‟s negative face wants.” this strategy involves frightening, condescending, ridiculing, and blocking others either physically or linguistically. smp is “a facethreatening act which is performed with the use of politeness strategies that are obviously insincere.” someone is considered performing this strategy is when he uses the politeness act, but it is performed insincerely. wp occurs when someone fails to perform the expected politeness act, such as failing to say thank you is considered impolite (culpeper & hardaker, 2017, p. 208-209). 2.2. strategies to counter impoliteness it is natural that both speakers and hearers tend to maintain self-face during communication. while maintaining good and effective communication can benefit both parties, a conflict in communication is inevitable, especially when one of the interlocutors feels provoked that makes him/her use impolite utterances or face attacks. this situation might lead to the conflict spiral that the response to the face attacks could trigger a new offending situation that is, possibly, responded to (kaul de marlangeon, 2019). theoretically, someone whose face is attacked has two choices in response to the face attacks, respond or not to respond. while not to respond to the face attacks is rarely found in the data of impoliteness studies, to respond to the face attack, the recipient of the face attack has two choices either to accept or to counter (culpeper et al., 2003; culpeper, 2005; culpeper & hardaker, 2017). in accepting the face attacks, the recipients might remain silent to avoid further face damage, while in countering the face attacks the recipients challenge the impoliteness as a kind to retaliate and restore the face damage. countering the impoliteness involves offensive and defensive strategy. offensive strategy means the use of face attack in response to face attack. this strategy includes the use of a stronger statement than the face attacks or escalation and repeating the previous speaker‟s impolite statements. defensive strategy means the use of a favian reswara sani & suhandoko suhandoko englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 29 counter statement by the recipients of the face attack to defend their face. the first defensive strategy is the use of contradicting utterances to the face attacks (inversion), such as when a person said, “you are stupid,” the recipients used contradictions, such as, “i am not stupid.” the second strategy to defend the face attack is refusing to take responsibility for the offence (abrogation), such as, “i‟m not to blame, i’m just following orders!” the third defensive strategy is treating the face attack as insignificant, such as using jokes in response to the face attacks. the fourth strategy is offering an insincere agreement, such as, “yeah. yeah. you’re all right.” the fifth defensive strategy is the recipient of the face attack opts out of the conversation, “well. i am not saying anything. i am making no further comment.” the last defensive strategy is ignoring the implied face attacks or the recipients do not regard the impoliteness as face attacks. 2.3. power and impoliteness impoliteness is frequently associated with the exercise of power (bousfield, 2008; yibifu, 2020). it is widely believed that the more powerful a person is, s/he likely has more opportunities to receive politeness (brown & levinson, 1987) and the degree of power is significantly contributing to the strategy of impoliteness used (yibifu, 2020). also, the more powerful the speaker is the higher tendency that s/he is impolite because they have more chances to subordinate others who are less powerful (culpeper, 2005; marlangeon, 2019). as a result, people with low/less power tend to lose their face and will likely accept or counter to the more powerful speaker‟s attacks. bousfield (2008) noted two purposes of someone performing impoliteness associated with the exercise of power, namely to reemphasize power and to reactivate the power. to reemphasize power means the more powerful speaker uses impoliteness to show his existence and power over the less powerful participant. to reactivate power, the more powerful participant uses impoliteness to reprimand other participants due to the unexpected behavior (ratri & ardi, 2019). a little bit different from bousfield (2008) who used the conversations in the army setting in which the distinction between high and low power is noticeable, beebe (1995), using the conversation in daily context as the data, mentioned three functions of impoliteness as the exercise of power. the first purpose is to appear as superior. more power speaker often wants to appear as a superior; therefore, they often use impoliteness, such as insulting and putting down others, as an exercise of their power. the second purpose is to get power over actions, such as by getting someone to do something or making someone not do something. the third purpose is to dominate the conversation, such as by using conversational management, i.e., to interrupt the conversation, make someone talk, stop someone talking, or hold the floor. power and impoliteness in hancock action movie 30 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 3. method this research employed a qualitative method as it is more concerned with understanding a phenomenon holistically by focusing on words to get answers (fraenkel, wallen, & hyun, 2012). this study used content analysis to draw inferences about the impoliteness, the ways how impoliteness was taken by the recipients, and the use of impoliteness as an exercise of power from the transcription of recorded materials. in line with krippendorff (2004), content analysis is appropriate to “make replicable and valid inferences from text (or other meaningful matter) to the context of their use” (p. 18). the present study used the transcript of the hancock movie downloaded from http://www/script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/a2/hancock-script-transcript-willsmith.hmtl as the data source. the movie tells about hancock, who is immortal, powerful and possesses incredible strength and the ability to fly fast. hancock suffers from amnesia, and no one can help him unveil his identity, which results in his madness to the world and frequently causes damages when doing his heroic actions. for this, he is often mocked and disfavoured by the public. the data were collected by reading the transcript of the movie which was previously downloaded, watching the movie to ensure that the utterances in the transcript are the same as in the movie, highlighting on utterances which reflect impoliteness and also the responses of the impoliteness, and collecting those utterances and recording them into datasheets. after the data were collected, the researchers carefully reinvestigated the data to avoid unnecessary and mistaken data. then, the data were coded by giving brackets in the utterances indicating impoliteness and the recipients‟ response following culpeper‟s impoliteness strategies and strategies to counter impoliteness (culpeper et al., 2003). the codes for impoliteness strategies were bori (bald, on record impoliteness), pi (positive impoliteness), ni (negative impoliteness), smp (sarcasm/ mock politeness), and wp (withhold politeness). as for the strategies of the recipients to counter impoliteness were coded as oe (offensive-escalation), or (offensive-repetition), di (defensive-inversion), da (defensive-abrogation), dor (defensive-opt-out-record), dia (defensive-insincere agreement), dif (defensive-ignore the implied face attack) (culpeper, 2005). third, the researchers conducted a focus group discussion involving three senior english lecturers in an islamic university in east java to check on the results of the research and to get feedback for necessary revision. this process aimed at ensuring the data that would be interpreted is valid and free from mistakes. fourth, the researchers presented the findings in the form of narratives, and the last step is to interpret the data to answer the research questions that were already formulated. about:blank about:blank favian reswara sani & suhandoko suhandoko englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 31 4. findings and discussion 4.1. impoliteness in hancock action movie this section provides the answer to the first research question about what impoliteness strategies used by hancock. this study found that hancock used culpeper‟s five types of impoliteness strategies. the words containing impoliteness are written in bold, and the responses are in italic. table 1 types of impoliteness used by john hancock. no types of strategies frequency 1. bald, on-record 3 2. positive impoliteness 24 3. negative impoliteness 4 4. sarcasm/mock politeness 4 5. withhold politeness 2 total 37 the researchers found 33 of hancock‟s utterances containing impoliteness. however, it should be noted that this study found four (4) utterances containing multiple strategies in each. consequently, each different strategy contained in the single utterance is considered worthy of counting individually and made up 37 impoliteness data altogether. 4.1.1. bald, on-record impoliteness bald, on-record impoliteness occurs when impoliteness occurs simultaneously with coercion as a politeness strategy. it is done to damage the recipient‟s face without any intention to cover up feelings (culpeper et al., 2003). excerpt 1 and 2 are the examples of bald, on-record impoliteness used by hancock. excerpt 1 boy : “bad guys.” hancock : “what you want a cookie? get out of my face.” boy : “asshole.” (00:01:53-00:02:22) excerpt 1 tells about hancock, who was sleeping in a public place suddenly awakened by a child showing him police pursuit of criminals aired on television. hancock said, “get out of my face.” the use of direct, clear, and unambiguous language as such is considered a strategy of bald-on record impoliteness (culpeper et al., 2003). excerpt 2 hancock : “oh stop crying punk-ass. go ahead.” power and impoliteness in hancock action movie 32 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 ray : “not okay. okay?” 00:27:25-00:27:48) excerpt 2 tells about michel crying after hancock threw him into the air because of calling him “asshole”. when the kid was falling, hancock managed to get him and told him to stop crying. the researchers noted that hancock used taboo words, “punkass,” which is a strategy of doing positive impoliteness in addition to two command utterances, “stop crying” and “go ahead”. the use of repeated and multiple strategies seems to function to increase the level of impoliteness and, consequently, damages the interlocutor‟s face even worse (culpeper et al., 2003; hammod & abdul-rassul, 2017). 4.1.2. positive impoliteness positive impoliteness occurs when the speaker intends to damage the interlocutor‟s positive face by ignoring, dissociating, snubbing, excluding the interlocutor from an activity, the use of taboo words, and using inappropriate identity markers (culpeper et al., 2003). the positive impoliteness used by hancock is shown in excerpt 3 and 4. excerpt 3 aaron : “why do you have an eagle on your hat? do you like eagles?” hancock : “this guy’s like a little talking machine huh?” ray : “we don’t have a lot of guests over here.” (00:18:44-00:19:24) excerpt 3 tells about hancock being invited to join ray‟s family dinner. during the dinner, aaron asked hancock many questions. feeling disturbed, hancock called him a “talking machine”. using inappropriate identity markers may not be considered as impoliteness when it occurs between people with a close relationship; however, it will be considered impolite when occurring between people with a distant relationship (culpeper, 2005; culpeper & terkourafi, 2017). excerpt 4 mary : “this is hard to explain.” ray : “great i‟m all ears.” hancock : “me too.” ray : “do me a favour just give me and my wife one moment.” (01:15:51-01:15:58) excerpt 4 tells about ray witnessing his wife, mary, destroying the city of los angeles. when she was back home, ray wanted to hear mary‟s explanation of the incident. in the middle of the conversation, hancock interrupted their conversation by favian reswara sani & suhandoko suhandoko englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 33 saying, “me too,” making ray feel uncomfortable. hancock‟s utterance aiming at interrupting conversations is a strategy of positive impoliteness (culpeper et al., 2003). among other strategies, this study found that positive impoliteness is the most frequent one used by hancock. this finding seems to confirm the findings of the previous works (dafiqi et al., 2016; ratri & ardi, 2019; rosa, 2017) that positive impoliteness is common impoliteness strategies found in movies because of its abusive and direct nature, and their effects are more damaging to the interlocutor‟s face. 4.1.3. negative impoliteness someone is performing negative impoliteness when he is damaging people‟s negative face by frightening, condescending, not treating others seriously, invading others‟ space, or associating others with negative things (culpeper et al., 2003). excerpt 5 hancock : “if you don’t pull over and give yourselves up quietly... i swear to christ your head is going up the driver’s ass. his head is going up your ass. and you drew the short stick... because your head is going up my ass.” villain : “shoot this asshole!” (00:04:01-00:04:31) excerpt 5 tells about hancock trying to stop the criminals who were being chased by the police. with his ability to fly, hancock managed to chase the criminal‟s car, destroyed the rear car, and sat in the back seat. hancock threatened them if they did not stop the car and surrender to the police; they would be beaten up. the use of such threatening utterances is considered as a negative impoliteness (culpeper et al., 2003). excerpt 6 hancock : “that is a lie.” mary : “no. i’m your sister.” hancock : “that is a lie.” mary : “i’m your sister.” hancock : “that is a lie. sisters don‟t kiss brothers the way you kissed me last night. you‟re lying deals off. let’s go see how ray feels about this”. (01:10:20-01:10:34) excerpt 6 tells about after mary kissed hancock, she told him that they are brother and sister. however, hancock did not believe in and denied mary‟s statement repeatedly, noting that a sister did not kiss a brother like a lover. hancock forced mary to tell the truth about what their relationship was. he threatened her to tell the kissing power and impoliteness in hancock action movie 34 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 incident to ray and invading mary‟s space by telling that she was lying. the use of threatening words is a sub-strategy of negative impoliteness (culpeper et al., 2003). 4.1.4. sarcasm/mock politeness sarcasm/mock politeness occurs when someone performs the considered-polite acts, but it is insincerely performed (culpeper et al., 2003). the sarcasm/mock politeness used by hancock is shown in excerpt 7 and 8. excerpt 7 hancock : “huh? you want down?” villain : “yes please! please! help me!” hancock : “i’m real good at down. i’m real good at down. alright? alright.” (00:05:37-00:05:45) excerpt 7 tells about hancock managing to catch the criminals who tried to escape from the police pursuit. he took their car into the air to frighten them. they were scared and asked hancock to bring them down. hancock agreed to bring them down, but implicitly he did not intend to. he stuck the car in a tower of a skyscraper building. the use of insincere polite utterance is a sub-strategy of mock politeness (culpeper et al., 2003). excerpt 8 hancock : “all right. you’re all right. you’re all right. you’re all right.” michel : (crying) ray “not okay. okay?” hancock : “he all right.” ray : “really not okay. (00:27:25-00:27:48) excerpt 8 tells about hancock angry with a kid named michel. hancock threw the kid into the air for calling him “asshole”, and when the kid fell, hancock managed to catch him. the kid was crying, and hancock said, “you‟re all right.” in this context, hancock did not intend to appease the kid to make him stop crying. instead, he mocked the kid that he was fine, and there was no need to cry. this insincere utterance to implicitly deny something is a sub-strategy of mock politeness (culpeper et al., 2003). favian reswara sani & suhandoko suhandoko englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 35 4.1.5. withhold politeness withhold politeness occurs when someone fails to perform the expected politeness, such as failing to say thanks. excerpt 9 and 10 are examples of withholding politeness. excerpt 9 ray : “perfect. e-mail me or whatever. you just fly on over i don‟t know. i want you to think about it. just be careful when you go. sleep on it all right? you get back to me? i‟ll be right here. all right. please don‟t stare you guys. he‟s kind of one of us.” hancock : (silent) mary : “what about allheart?” ray : “it’s a nonstarter babe you know? i’m chasing windmills with that.” (00:22:19-00:22:53) excerpt 9 tells about ray defending hancock in return the favour to hancock for saving him from a train collision. ray told the people that hancock could be a hero for the city because he has a superpower. however, instead of thanking ray as an act of politeness, he deliberately remained silent. this expression is considered impolite because hancock failed or avoided to perform the expected politeness. the use of deliberate ignorance is a sub-strategy of withhold politeness. excerpt 10 ray : “eight is more like four and a half with good behavior. but it‟s irrelevant because with you out of the picture... and with the crime rate going up through the roof... the da and the cops they‟re all gonna call for your immediate release. they‟re gonna demand it. hancock : (silent) ray : “what are you doing? sit down.” (00:36:13-00:36:35) excerpt 10 tells about ray offering help to increase hancock‟s public image. rather than to say thanks for being helped to gain public acceptance and respect, hancock remained silent and left the conversation. it seemed that ray‟s statement is not relevant to what hancock‟s feeling of being disrespected by the people so far. failing to perform the expected politeness (i.e., saying thank you) is a sub-strategy of withhold politeness. power and impoliteness in hancock action movie 36 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 found to occur twice in the data, withhold politeness is the least frequent impoliteness strategies. this finding, confirming what ratri and ardi (2019) reported that withhold impoliteness is the least frequently used a strategy of impoliteness, suggests that withhold impoliteness, which can only be found in face-to-face interaction so that it will not be found in written discourse (hammod & abdul-rassul, 2017), also seems to be rarely found in spoken discourse (e.g., movie) because it is unlikely to damage the interlocutor‟s face. 4.2. recipients’ strategies to hancock’s impoliteness this section provides the answer for research question 2 of how the recipients respond to hancock‟s impoliteness. much of the studies on impoliteness have focused on the impoliteness itself but rarely pay attention to how the interlocutors respond to it. whereas studying the ways the recipient of the impoliteness is also important to look at how impoliteness is “to be taken” (culpeper et al., 2003) and possibly the way it is responded (or not to be responded) can reveal the relationship between interlocutors. while recipients may respond to the impoliteness by either accepting or countering it, this study did not find the data mentioning that the recipients did not respond to and accept the impoliteness. it is possible because “retaliation” to the impoliteness is natural in daily conversation, especially between people with equal power and distant relationship (dynel, 2015; culpeper & terkourafi, 2017). culpeper et al. (2003) state that there are two ways in responding to the impoliteness: offensive and defensive. offensive strategies include escalation and repetition, while defensive strategy includes the use of inversion, abrogation, opt-out or covering the face, offering an insincere agreement, ignoring the implied impoliteness, and dismissing or making light of the face damage. in this study, all of hancock‟s impoliteness was responded by the recipients offensively and defensively. however, not all defensive strategies were found to be used, such as abrogation and dismissing, as shown in table 2. table 2 the strategies recipients used to counter hancock‟s impoliteness. no types of strategies to counter the impoliteness frequency 1. escalation 12 2. repetition 5 3. inversion 6 4. opt-out 4 5. insincere agreement 2 6. ignoring the implied face attacks 4 7. abrogation 0 8. dismiss 0 total 33 favian reswara sani & suhandoko suhandoko englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 37 the discussion of the recipients‟ strategies to respond to hancock‟s impoliteness is based on the excerpts in the previous discussion of impoliteness. it is considered essential because using the same selected data may give a clear description of how each impoliteness is taken by the recipients rather than using different data. the recipients‟ responses toward hancock‟s impoliteness are written in italic. 4.2.1. offensive strategy an offensive strategy is to counter impoliteness with impoliteness (culpeper et al., 2003). this strategy includes using stronger utterances than the previous speaker‟s and repeating the previous speaker‟s statements to offend. in excerpt 1, 5, and 6, the recipients used offensive strategies to counter hancock‟s impoliteness. in excerpt 1, the recipient (boy) responded to hancock‟s impoliteness by calling him “asshole”. this response is much stronger than hancock‟s impoliteness “get out of my face”. the use of taboo words by the boy indicates the impolite belief that hancock has no intelligence at all, even if he is older than him. this impolite belief, consequently, triggers him to offend hancock even stronger. when people conflict with others, they may end up escalating it using more aversive and damaging ways to fuel up the conflict and might prevent resolution (kennedy & pronin, 2012). in excerpt 5, the recipients (criminals) also use more face-threatening utterances to counter hancock‟s impoliteness. when hancock made the criminals stop the car by threatening them, one of them said, “shoot this asshole.” this response to the impoliteness sounds stronger or more impolite than the utterances hancock used to threaten the villains. in addition to using stronger utterances to respond to impoliteness, another offensive strategy used by the recipient is using repetition to offend hancock, as shown in excerpt 6. the italicized words in excerpt 6 are an example of using repetition to offend in response to hancock‟s impoliteness. in that excerpt, mary repeated her utterance, “i‟m your sister” to offend hancock‟s statement, “it‟s a lie”. culpeper et al. (2003) noted that the use of repeating the other speaker‟s impolite words is a feature of an offensive strategy to counter impoliteness. however, this study also noted that not only does repeating others‟ utterance indicate an offensive strategy in dealing with impoliteness, self-repetition also indicates conflict intensification. holmes and stubbe (2015) mention that self-repetition can “turn up the heat” in a conversation and may intensify the coercion of others to do what is expected. therefore, the use of selfrepetition is also a kind of offensive strategy to counter impoliteness. 4.2.2. defensive strategy in addition to using offensive strategy in dealing with impoliteness, recipients may also use defensive strategy by defending their face, for example by providing contradictions to the impoliteness, refusing to the personal responsibility of the offense (abrogation), covering the face by making the impoliteness as insignificant, dismissing power and impoliteness in hancock action movie 38 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 (i.e., using jokes), offering an insincere agreement, and ignoring the implied impoliteness (culpeper et al., 2003). this study found that the recipients of hancock‟s impoliteness used all defensive strategies, except abrogation and dismissing. in excerpt 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, and 10, we are provided with examples of how recipients use defensive strategy in response to hancock‟s impoliteness. one of the defensive strategies to counter impoliteness is using inversion or providing contradictions to the face-threatening utterances. the italicized words in excerpt 2 show that the recipient (ray), replied “not okay,” in response to hancock‟s, “you‟re all right”, while in excerpt 8 ray said, “really not okay” in response to hancock‟s “he all right”. ray‟s utterances indicate his denials toward hancock‟s utterances stating that the boy (michel) was fine after being thrown away into the sky. this study noted that after his repeated denials to hancock‟s utterance, ray shifted the topic of the conversation, asking how the kid‟s mother would react to hancock‟s “he all right” seeing her son being thrown to the sky. culpeper et al. (2003) noted that inversion alone in dealing with impoliteness could not bring “altercation” to an end. as a result, the use of inversion in dealing with impoliteness is followed by other strategies to quell the “verbal explosions”, such as to stop talking or to use smarter tactics to minimize further damage to the face (e.g., changing the topic, changing the tone, or pretending not to hear) (mortensen, 2006). excerpt 4 is also an example of how the recipient contradicted hancock‟s utterance. the italicized words ray speaking indicated his annoyance because hancock interrupted his conversation with mary. ray wanted to hear mary‟s explanation about the destruction of the city of los angeles, which involved her and hancock. in the middle of the conversation, hancock said, “me too,” indicating that he also wanted to hear what mary was about to tell. feeling annoyed because his conversation with mary was interrupted, ray denied that hancock should not listen to or involve himself in the conversation. in addition to using denials to the speaker‟s impoliteness, recipients may use opt-out on record strategy to defend his/her face. opt-out on record occurs when the recipients chose to cover his face and not be involved in the conflict further (culpeper et al., 2003). the italicized words in excerpt 3 indicate how the recipient chooses to “seal off” his face after being attacked by hancock. hancock called ray‟s son using inappropriate identity marker, “little talking machine,” because he was asking many questions. ray realized that his son is a talkative and curious kid, especially when meeting with strangers. intended to cover his face, ray said, “we don‟t have a lot of guests over here,” indicating that he expected hancock not to be annoyed with his son and not to continue the talks about his curious son. another strategy used by the recipients to counter hancock‟s impoliteness is the insincere agreement by which the recipient expresses his anger but with forced agreement toward the impoliteness. the italicized words in excerpt 7 show how the recipient was forced to agree with the impoliteness in order to reduce the tension. in that favian reswara sani & suhandoko suhandoko englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 39 excerpt, hancock flew into the air carrying the car with the villain inside. knowing that the villains were scared, hancock offered them to be taken down. although they knew that offer to bring the car down is just a mocking, they were forced to agree with hancock, hoping that hancock was serious with his offering. the last strategy the recipient used to counter hancock‟s impoliteness is ignoring implied face attacks. this strategy occurs when the recipient disregard the speaker‟s act or utterance as impoliteness. the italicized words in excerpt 9 and 10 are examples of how recipients ignored hancock‟s impoliteness. in excerpt 9, hancock ignored ray‟s advice on raising his public image so that people will respect him and left the conversation. while in excerpt 10, hancock remained silent when ray asked his family not to put down hancock for saving his life from the train collision. ray did not regard these acts as impolite despite the fact of his knowledge that he was disrespected. the use of such ignorance to other people‟s kindness and politeness is considered as ignoring the implied impoliteness. 4.3. hancock’s impoliteness and the exercise of power in this section, the researchers described how impoliteness serves the purposes of exercising power. the researcher classified the purposes following beebe‟s instrumental purposes of impoliteness (1995): to appear as a superior, to get power over actions, and to dominate the conversation. table 3 presents how impoliteness serves the purposes of exercising power. table 3 the purposes of exercising power through impoliteness. no purposes of the exercise of power frequency 1 to appear as superior 9 2 to get power over actions 15 3 to dominate the conversation 7 total 31 the table above presents the frequency of the purposes of hancock‟s impoliteness. it includes 9 impolite utterances aiming to appear himself as a superior person through insulting and putting down others, 15 impolite utterances aiming to get power (authority) over actions, and 7 impolite utterances aiming to dominate the conversations. this study also found two other utterances not belonging to these three purposes proposed by beebe (1995). these two utterances belong to the withhold impoliteness by which a person gains control of the situations (kurzon, 1992). 4.3.1. to appear as superior among the reasons for people being impolite is to appear as superior to the interlocutors (beebe, 1995). the impolite utterances presented in excerpts 1 and 5 show how impoliteness serves the purpose of exercising power to appear as superior. power and impoliteness in hancock action movie 40 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 in excerpt 1, hancock used the impolite utterance, “what do you want, a cookie? get out of my face,” to show his superiority over a kid who showed him the police pursuit of the criminals aired on tv. using intentional, direct, and unambiguous utterances (bald, on record impoliteness) is considered impolite, but the raising intonations in conveying the message indicate an attempt to show the speaker‟s superiority over the interlocutors. hancock‟s impolite utterance in excerpt 5 also provides us an example of how face attacks aim to show the speaker‟s superiority over interlocutors. in that excerpt, hancock used the combination of threatening utterances (bald, on record) and taboo words, which successfully elevate the level of impoliteness and, hence showed himself as superior over interlocutors. this is in line with kaul de marlangeon (2019) that the use of impoliteness shows the speakers‟ ability in subordinating others that aggressiveness is introduced into social relations. 4.3.2. to get power over actions another reason for someone using impoliteness as an exercise of power is to get authority over actions (beebe, 1995), such as by getting interlocutors to do something, avoiding doing something, and using sarcasm or pushy politeness to get people to do something. the impolite words in excerpt 6, 7, and 8 are examples of impoliteness as an exercise of power to get authority over actions. in excerpt 6, hancock insisted that mary was lying about their filiation and avoided admitting that they are relatives. hancock‟s insistence on denying his relation to mary is reflected by his repetition, “that‟s a lie.” beebe (1995) noted that the use of repetition is a linguistic strategy “used to get power to avoid” something. this repetition is also seen in hancock‟s utterances in excerpt 7 and 8. in excerpt 7, hancock repeatedly said, “you want down? i‟m real good at down” to show his implicit avoidance of bringing the villains‟ car down safely. in excerpt 8, hancock repeatedly said, “you‟re all right” and “he‟s all right” to indicate his denial that the boy he threw into the sky, in reality, was not all right. the use of such insincere utterance as mocking or sarcasm is a way for the speaker to get power over his actions (beebe, 1995; kaul de marlangeon, 2019). 4.3.3. to dominate the conversations the purpose of an exercise of power is also expressed when the speaker attempts to dominate the conversation by interrupting someone‟s talking, making someone talk, getting the floor, or shaping what the interlocutors tell (beebe, 1995). the impolite utterances in excerpt 3 and 4 are examples of hancock‟s impoliteness used to dominate the conversation. in excerpt 3, hancock used an inappropriate identity marker, “little talking machine,” to make aaron stop questioning him. while in excerpt 4, hancock interrupted the conversation between mary and her husband, ray. this act of favian reswara sani & suhandoko suhandoko englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 41 interruption made ray annoyed and asked hancock to give them space, letting them talk about their (supposed to be) private conversation. the use of such acts, such as making someone stop talking and interrupting others‟ talk, is considered as using impoliteness to exercise power by dominating the conversation (beebe, 1995; kaul de marlangeon, 2019). 4.3.4. to maintain control of the situations beebe (1995) states that the use of impoliteness as an exercise of power aims at appearing as superior, getting power over actions, and dominating the conversation. however, the use of silence as an act of impoliteness is incompatible with beebe‟s theory of instrumental politeness as the exercise of power. in excerpt 9 and 10, hancock used silence as an indication that he was in control of the situations. in excerpt 9, ray was defending hancock‟s face over the public. hearing this, instead of saying thanks for being defended, hancock remained silent and walked away. hancock realized that people always looked down upon him and disfavoured his presence; therefore, ray‟s attempt to save his public image was considered irrelevant. hancock‟s act of failing to fulfil the expected politeness is also shown in excerpt 10. ray offered help hancock to change his public image as a repay for saving his life. however, instead of showing interest and thanking, hancock remained silent because, again, ray‟s offer to save his public image is irrelevant. hancock‟s silence does not mean he is not interested in ray‟s advice in winning public respect. instead, he seemed to know the response to ray‟s kindness, but silently hide it to maintain his control over situations. kurzon (1992) noted that someone might be prevented from doing the expected politeness due to psychological restrain (e.g., pride or shyness). in the case of hancock, his silence can be interpreted as “i thank you, but for the sake of my pride and dignity, i will not tell you.” it is in line with sifianou (2019) that silence as an act of impoliteness can be a means of “disguising a vested interest in maintaining the status quo of the powerful” (p. 56). in conclusion, silence or deliberate ignorance may be considered as an exercise of power to maintain control over undesired situations. 5. conclusion this study has investigated the types of impoliteness, the way recipients respond to them, and how impoliteness serves the purposes of exercising power. in response to the offending situations, people tend to be provoked to use impolite utterances, and reciprocally the recipients also tend to retaliate the impoliteness rather than not to respond to or accepting it (bousfield, 2008). this study has demonstrated that people tend to attack the interlocutor‟s face when they are dealt with provoking situations in a conversation. regarding the response to the face attacks, the recipients also tend to counter the face attacks as an act of retaliation rather than to accept or not to respond to the face attacks. despite the potential to trigger the conflict spiral between both power and impoliteness in hancock action movie 42 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 interlocutors, the offensive and defensive counter-strategies might also potentially be used to negotiate power in the conversation. part of this paper has also addressed how impoliteness functions as an exercise of power. in addition to appear as superior, to get authority over actions, and to dominate the conversations in exercising power through impoliteness as beebe (1995) proposed, this study also found that silence as an act of impoliteness may function to negotiate power by maintaining control over the situations. the finding adds substantially to our understanding that silence as an impoliteness strategy might also serve the purpose of exercising power. this, however, is open to debate and further 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(2020, march 29 – april 1). politeness and impoliteness strategies in the courtroom: an analysis of a trail script. paper presented in the asian conference on language 2020, tokyo, japan. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2020. vol. 8, no. 1, 58-78 the effect of teacherand peer-assisted evaluative mediation on efl learners’ metacognitive awareness development sajjad fathi tehran university of medical sciences (tums), tehran, islamic republic of iran sajad.fathi@alumni.ut.ac.ir enayat a. shabani * tehran university of medical sciences (tums), tehran, islamic republic of iran eshabani@tums.ac.ir manuscript received j u n e 1 3 , 2020, revised august 13, 2020, first published november 7, 2020, and available online november 9, 2020. doi: 10.22373/ej.v8i1.7101 recommended apa citation fathi, s., & shabani, e. a. (2020). the effect of teacherand peer-assisted evaluative mediation on efl learners’ metacognitive awareness development. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 8(1), 58-78. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.7101 abstract rooted in the heart of vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, mediation has recently received considerable attention in the field of tefl. the existing literature suggests that mediation can play an essential role in language learners’ performance development. in addition, learners need to know about their thinking process which is interpreted as metacognition. this study aimed to investigate the effect of teacherand peer-assisted evaluative mediation on learners’ metacognitive awareness development. to this end, 40 homogenized intermediate efl learners were selected using a test of english language proficiency. the participants were then randomly divided into teacher-assisted (n=20) and peer-assisted (n=20) groups. before the instructional phase, a metacognitive awareness questionnaire was given to the participants. at the instructional phase, the learners in the teacher-assisted group received teacher-assisted mediation. the learners in the peer-assisted group, however, were exposed to mediation provided by their peers. after the instructional phase, the metacognitive awareness questionnaire was given to the participants as the posttest of the study. spss was used to analyze the data. the descriptive statistics, the shapiro-wilk test of normality, and the paired sample t-test for inferential statistics were used to analyze the data. the findings showed that peer-assisted evaluative mediation had positive effects on * corresponding author mailto:sajad.fathi@alumni.ut.ac.ir mailto:eshabani@tums.ac.ir https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.7101 sajjad fathi & enayat a. shabani englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 59 developing students’ level of metacognitive awareness, whereas teacher-assisted evaluative mediation did not reveal such effects. it could be concluded that peer-assisted evaluative mediation is an effective tool for improving students’ metacognitive awareness. keywords: teacher-assisted evaluative mediation; peer-assisted evaluative mediation; metacognitive awareness 1. introduction arguably, a teacher’s primary professional responsibility is to ensure that his/her students learn. therefore, measures of students’ learning should play a predominant role in teacher evaluations. this does not denote, however, that teacher evaluations should be based solely on the results of standardized tests or the results of any single assessment and evaluation. it does, nonetheless, entail that teachers should be accountable for helping students make measurable progress against the defined learning standards. teacher-assisted evaluative mediation refers to teacher actions in the classroom for the purpose of helping students in their learning task and mediating them towards better learning experiences (markley, 2004). teacher evaluative mediation can help learners learn better by increasing teachers’ interaction with them. it can facilitate the process of learning by enhancing students’ participation and involvement in language learning. the teacher-assisted mediation in the classroom has certain characteristics that can lead students to productive engagement in the tasks (engle & conant, 2002). peer-assisted evaluative mediation is a collaborative and cooperative learning strategy, which offers close interaction between peers in the teaching and learning processes. this close relationship could be facilitated by peers’ assistance, which may not easily happen in the context of a teacher-focused classroom and formal teaching atmosphere (gaias, johnson, bottiani, debnan, & bradshaw, 2019; lantolf, 2000). this approach can activate students’ involvement and responsibility in the teaching process. this type of mediation can improve peers’ understanding of the syllabus and as a result provide them with an opportunity to gradually increase their self-confidence enabling them to promote their language performance (shao, pekrun, marsh, & loderer, 2020 topping, 1998). peer-mediated learning is an instructional approach that emphasizes student-student interaction and is intended to provide an alternative to teacher-centered or individualistic approaches to learning. metacognition ability for an individual includes items such as cognitive awareness, self-monitoring, and self-regulation abilities (flavell, miller, & miller, 2002). it is the collaborative feature that provides a context in which discussion and argument could promote the appropriate metacognitive skills to boost the learning process, social awareness, and social skills (vygotsky, 1962). ample studies corroborate the positive and significant correlation between students’ metacognitive awareness and their academic success (mevarech & fridkin, 2006; rezvan, ahmadi, & abedi, 2006; vrugt & oort, 2008). students who use and the effect of teacherand peer-assisted evaluative mediation 60 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 improve their metacognitive ability are believed to be more successful in self-regulating learning activities and the application of their knowledge in their learning process (zimmerman, 2002). therefore, when students become more competent in metacognitive abilities, their language performance can be more successful (flavell et al., 2002). development in metacognitive skills is a crucial formative intellectual objective regarding the education of learners. metacognitive awareness supposes that students are aware of their own cognitive activity for their learning and self-adjustment mechanisms in their learning process (goswami, 2008). 2. literature review in recent years, studies have shed light on the fact that peers could play a significant role in the learning process through the practice of mediation. peer mediation practice is considered as an effective way of improving success rates in highrisk courses and also has proven to produce beneficial effects on learners’ academic performance development (arendale, 2014; cheng & johnston, 2014; topping, 2017). regarding the concept of mediation and its function in tefl/tesl, many researchers assume an undeniable role for mediation in the learning and teaching process (alsaadi & mahdi, 2013; engin, 2014; lave & wenger, 1991; mason, 2000; rogoff, 1990; turuk, 2008; xiongyong, 2012). they believe that learning in every form and format is not an isolated act of cognition, but rather a process of interaction through mediation whether provided by teachers or trained peers. based on feuerstein’s point of view concerning mediation in child development, structural cognitive modifiability theory, it is suggested that mediation provides an opportunity for socialization, durable internalization, and cognitive development for children (seng, pou, & tan, 2003). according to bakhtin’s theories of learning viz language socialization theory and critical theory, mediation is considered an indispensable and vital part of the learning process. moreover, vygotsky, in his sociocultural theory, paid special attention to the role of mediation and regarded it as the core part of the learning process. in emphasizing the essential role of mediation, he even believed that without mediation, an effective form of learning could not be expected. as the main concept of sociocultural theory, mediation is viewed as the most influential factor in all human activities especially learning processes in their unique social contexts (wertsch, 1991). in learning l1, it was revealed that peer-mediation can help learners develop their knowledge exploration and internalization capability. by analogy, in l2 learning where generally the role of a teacher is arguably more significant than the l1 learning, the peering process in the form of mediation can be more facilitative in the learning process (guerrero, 2007). according to vygotsky (1981), when the classroom practice integrates with mediation, not only the learning quality is enhanced, but the cognitive and mental function of learners’ minds in the process of learning is stabilized. hence, the development in learning is principally promoted through a form of mediated sajjad fathi & enayat a. shabani englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 61 apprenticeship with the interaction of students and teachers or students and peers, which leads them to boost their level through their zone of proximal development (zpd). based on vygotskian pedagogy, teachers can facilitate effective interactions in their classroom when mediation is applied. by playing the mediator role, teachers can provide the learners with the opportunity of gaining more meaningful and internalized knowledge through classroom interactions from their teacher or even their peers (lantolf, 2000). here in this study, evaluative mediation refers to the interventions, which are managed and regulated, based on the specific evaluation criteria to enhance learners’ test performance. the teacher pre-determines the evaluation criteria based on the objectives of lessons and tests. also, learners are taught how to apply and interpret them. teacher evaluative mediation is defined as a process of assessment by the mediator (teacher) about the strengths and weaknesses of the students and a prediction of learning outcomes (senget al., 2003). teacher-assisted evaluative mediation seeks to provide teachers with useful information for decision-making and monitoring students’ improvement in their learning process (appel & lantolf, 1994). the teacher-assisted evaluative mediation process enables language teachers to help students understand and internalize new knowledge through the negotiation of meaning in their interaction in the classroom (victori & lockhart, 1995). teacher evaluative mediation actions can promote students’ engagement in a productive way and give authority to students to keep them on the right track towards effective learning outcomes (lantolf, 2000). effective assessment of students and the subsequent feedback through evaluative mediated action can help learners to improve their level of autonomy (gibbons, 2003). using mediated evaluation can enable teachers to analyze the relationships between students’ learning inputs, processes, and outputs to develop and improve their practice (li, 2005). peer-assisted evaluative mediation refers to an instructional approach that emphasizes the student-student interaction and meditative assistance in doing the learning tasks and activities. in practice, it refers to a variety of collaborative and interactional approaches between peers to facilitate their performance. peer-mediated learning is a student-centered process with a dialogic nature of instruction, which is based on the vygotskian sociocultural theories of language development. peer-assisted learning is a general term for various strategies to facilitate learning efficiency through active and interactive social engagement and interactional mediation among peers. in this approach, learning takes place through a constructivist, cumulative, peer-regulated, purposeful, situated, and collaborative learning process which facilitates students’ learning capability and performance (topping & ehly, 2001; topping, 2005). topping (2017) considered peer-mediation as a reciprocal process in which the learners (peers) play both the role of the mediator and the mediation receiver. accordingly, this two-sided relationship between peers enables them to negotiate their the effect of teacherand peer-assisted evaluative mediation 62 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 understanding and meaning and fosters their thinking quality and socialization process. peer-assisted evaluation is a form of learning entailing two peers assisting each other to work towards a specified goal and has the potential to improve learners’ cognitive, logical, and communicative abilities (miao, badger, & zhenc, 2006; min, 2006). also, it can spur learners to evaluate their performance compared to their peers’ performance. for such a comparison to occur, they are required to evaluate their peers’ work by reflecting on their weaknesses and strengths for the purpose of improving them. these ways of interactional learning experience facilitate their performance (topping & ehly, 2001). collaborative assistance and mediation between peers can promote their language growth. learners can fulfill their learning tasks and activities within their zpd and model evaluative interaction, which appears to be more constructive than their individual performance (slavin, 1996). in the peer-assisted mediation process, both sides of the interaction (i.e. peers who mediate one another’s works) can enjoy this type of collaboration. peers cooperate and provide reflective feedback on their performance, which can promote their learning efficacy. in addition, peers in this process find the opportunity to integrate new learning experiences into the curriculum content (falchikov, 2002). studies show that students enjoy and value their learning when situated in an assisted mediation process with other students and this reduces their psychological pressure and promotes the quality of their learning, and provides them with an effective way of language learning (dangwal & kapur, 2009; shamir & steven, 2005). in learning through the mediation process, peers have a chance to assume responsibility for their learning and their ability to work out the problems without the teacher’s supervision. peer-mediation also gives them a sense of self-respect and encourages them to be autonomous learners (duran & monereo, 2005). peer-mediation can provide learners with the ability and skill for exchanging essential information, feedback, and reflection for a successful learning performance. in other words, through using this approach, peers can provide, and be provided with, oneto-one instruction for overcoming their challenges in learning and struggling side by side with one another to achieve the desired learning objectives (gentry & benenson, 1992). peer-assisted evaluative mediation programs have positive impacts on the peers as both are mediators (bloxham & west, 2004). it gives them the opportunity to experience and practice the teachers’ role, make effective cooperative relationships, and bring essential skills for problem-solving (shulman, 1996). in peer-assisted mediation, each peer has the choice to control the learning situation and resolve potential problems in a productive way. the process of mediation puts them in a win-win game of learning and evaluating each other’s works (topping, peter, stephen, & whale, 2004). there have been possible benefits of peer mediation, disagreement management, and idea emersion, discussed in the literature. according to johnson and johnson (2004), implementing peer-mediation in the classroom practice enables students to manage the potential conflicts in their learning process and judgment about their peers’ sajjad fathi & enayat a. shabani englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 63 performance. such a practice instructs them to settle their disagreement in a constructive manner and promotes the value of democracy among students. schoerning and hand (2013) believe that the process of peer-mediation engages students in the negotiation of information about the quality of their works’ strengths and weaknesses. these negotiated interactions allow teachers to enrich the classroom discussions whereby students begin to express their judgments and corresponding reasons via questioning and defending their ideas and as a result, new ideas will emerge on the part of students during the discussion. implementing peer-mediation practice among students is not an easy practice and has its own challenges. one of the most critical requirements for establishing successful peer mediation is training student mediators with an acceptable quality for mediation who know how to exhibit mature judgment and communicate them with their peers. the tough part of this job is that the teacher should train students effectively to enable them to monitor the problem-solving process, respect each other’s confidentiality, and evaluate one another’s work in an unbiased, empathetic, and respectful manner (daunic, smith, robinson, landry, & miller, 2000). also, for conducting such a practice efficiently, the availability of competent and well-trained teachers in the peer-mediation implementation, whether as a mediator or the trainer of peers, is necessary. there seems to be an increasing interest among researchers in tefl and language teaching and learning in investigating different aspects of metacognition, metacognitive instruction, and metacognitive awareness in their disciplines and fields of research (bozorgian, 2014; bozorgian & alamdari, 2018; goh & hu, 2014; mahdavi & miri, 2017). flavell (1979) first theorized metacognition as an individual’s knowledge concerning the cognitive processes and his or her capability to handle the use of appropriate applicable processes to enhance learning. o’malley, chamot, stewnermanzanares, russo, rocco, and kupper (1985) defined metacognition as thinking about the learning process, planning for learning, monitoring for comprehension or production, and evaluating learning after the language activity is complete. based on schraw (2001), metacognition is defined as an individual’s knowledge regarding cognition and regulation of cognition. the cognition insight concerns what an individual knows regarding the cognitive processes or learning strategies in general. metacognition in cognitive psychology refers to the process of focusing on the active participation and engagement of an individual in their thinking process (stewart & landine, 1995). metacognitive awareness refers to the learners’ beliefs about their cognitive ability in choosing sufficient strategies for doing their learning tasks and activities (efklides, 2006). according to efklides (2006), metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive experiences, and metacognitive skills are the three components of metacognition. improvement in learners’ metacognitive awareness directs them toward better learning opportunities and facilitates their learning performance. as pintrich (2002) asserts, metacognitive awareness is positively linked to students’ learning, and the effect of teacherand peer-assisted evaluative mediation 64 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 teaching it explicitly to learners can facilitate their language development process. according to ku and ho (2010), the goal, which is determined for learning activities, makes cognitive and metacognitive activities different processes in learning. cognitive activities consist of acquiring, retaining, and transferring knowledge for task execution, while metacognitive activities consist of monitoring and regulating this execution in doing learning tasks. cognition refers to a variety of mental activities including perceiving, recognizing, classifying, remembering, and thinking (richards, platt, & platt, 1992), while metacognition refers to thinking about the processes of thinking (white, 1999) or learners’ awareness of their way of thinking and the effectiveness of their mental processes (blatner, 2004). the pedagogical implications of metacognitive awareness-raising strategies are that, in attempting to solve problems, learners are engaged in reflection, transferring their learning experiences, and learning process, too (krathwohl, 2002; wilson & smetana, 2011). arguably, it may not be reasonable to expect that every learner at any level of l2 proficiency demonstrates enough capability for metacognitive awareness or that every teacher in any educational context demonstrates sufficient ability and quality to teach the necessary requirements and strategies to his or her students for developing their metacognitive ability. at the level of establishment in the classroom context, learners need to learn how to think and react beyond their linguistic competence, which entails degrees of strategic competence about learning rather than for learning. such a requirement should be provided by the teacher for learners, and it is regarded as a highly demanding responsibility on the teacher’s shoulders. in short, the success of such a challenging practice is contingent upon the teacher’s expertise and quality (efklides, 2006). concerning metacognitive awareness, goh (2014) believes that it helps learners to become more reflective and autonomous and that it provides the students with the opportunity for self-monitoring and self-satisfaction in their learning process. in addition, it facilitates their language proficiency development and gives them the ability to organize their learning process towards fulfilling their learning requirements. furthermore, boghian (2016) asserted that the metacognitive skill is the keystone of the learning process enabling learners to be autonomous and provides them with selfregulation ability. also, lower proficient learners use their metacognition more frequently than those who have acquired higher levels of proficiency. to compare teacher vs peer-assisted mediation effect on writing and speaking processes, villamil and guerrero (1996) conducted a longitudinal study, which indicated that peers play a more significant role than teachers in assisting the learning development and it is stronger when the mingling time is prolonged. shamir, zion, and spector-levi (2008) investigated the effect of peer-tutoring training embedded with the metacognitive processes required for problem-based learning on students’ critical thinking. the findings of the study revealed that the peer-mediation practice has positive and constructive effects on learners’ metacognitive competency, particularly sajjad fathi & enayat a. shabani englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 65 their critical thinking ability. also, cross (2010) studied the development of learners’ metacognitive awareness during the process of second language listening comprehension under the peer-peer dialogic condition. the results suggested that through dialogic interactions, learners took opportunities to enhance their metacognitive awareness of their listening in a second language. de backer, van keer and valcke (2012) conducted a study to examine the impact of reciprocal peer tutoring (rpt) on students’ adoption of metacognitive skills and their approach to metacognitive regulation. the results did not indicate significant effects on learners’ metacognitive planning. although there was a significant evolution toward a more deep-level comprehension monitoring for rpt-students, all learners’ metacognitive regulation continued to be dominantly low-level. in a study, xiongyong (2012) investigated the efl teachers’ knowledge of mediation in a secondary school context and its effect on their teaching performance. the researcher found that most of the efl teachers ignore the mediation role in their practice. the results of this study revealed that implementing a meditation practice in the classroom helps teachers conduct more meaningful and effective teaching performance. tahir (2012) investigated peer evaluation benefits and challenges in college esl students’ writing. the results of the study revealed that the highest benefit stated by the students was that they felt less pressured and more relaxed while conducting peer evaluation. furthermore, the pieces of advice offered by peers were found to be easy to use to revise essays, they reported that their peers were nice, they received useful advice, the comments given were found to be fair through peer review, and students were able to be involved in more discussions and practice activities. the present study attempts to make a contribution to the views on evaluative mediation in general, and teacherand peer-assisted evaluative mediation in particular. more specifically, the primary goal is to provide recommendations for teachers of foreign languages based on the results of the analyses of learners’ metacognitive awareness development via teacherand peer-assisted evaluative mediation. it seems that insufficient attention has been paid to the study of the teacherand peer-assisted evaluative mediation and their effect on the learners’ metacognitive awareness development in foreign language classrooms, and it is also possible to contend that metacognition and metacognitive awareness have not yet received the proper attention they deserve in the iranian efl language teaching programs considering their importance and their potential influence on the language learning process. thus, this study was conducted as an attempt to investigate the effect of teacherand peer-assisted evaluative mediation on the learners’ metacognitive awareness development. to this end, three research questions were put forward: 1. does teacher-assisted evaluative mediation have a statistically significant effect on learners’ metacognitive awareness development? the effect of teacherand peer-assisted evaluative mediation 66 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 2. does peer-assisted evaluative mediation have a statistically significant effect on learners’ metacognitive awareness development? 3. is there any significant difference between the effects of teacherand peerassisted evaluative mediation on the learners’ metacognitive awareness development? based on these research questions, the following null hypotheses were formulated: 1. teacher-assisted evaluative mediation does not have a statistically significant effect on learners’ metacognitive awareness development. 2. peer-assisted evaluative mediation does not have a statistically significant effect on learners’ metacognitive awareness development. 3. there is no significant difference between the effects of teacherand peerassisted evaluative mediation on the learners’ metacognitive awareness development. 3. method 3.1. participants for the purpose of this study, a convenience sampling method was used (gravetter & forzano, 2016). to do so, 40 homogenized intermediate efl learners from 58 students available in english courses at the international college of tehran university of medical sciences (tums) were selected through the oxford placement test. they were all male learners whose ages ranged from 16 to 35 years old. all the participants of this study were assured about the confidentiality of the data. also, there was no obligation imposed on them to participate in this study and all of them thoroughly consented to do so. 3.2. instrumentation 3.2.1. opt (the oxford placement test) opt was used in the present study to homogenize the learners. it is comprised of 60 items in two parts. the first section is on vocabulary/grammar (40 items) and the second part on reading comprehension (20 items). 3.2.2. metacognitive awareness questionnaire this questionnaire was used for measuring learners’ metacognitive awareness level (see appendix). it is developed by schraw and dennison (1994) and consists of 52 statements, which learners should evaluate as false or true. this questionnaire measures students’ metacognitive knowledge (i.e. declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge) and their regulation of cognition in five dimensions (i.e. planning, information management strategies, comprehension monitoring, debugging strategies, sajjad fathi & enayat a. shabani englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 67 and evaluation). in this study, the mentioned questionnaire was used as the pretest and the posttest. 3.3. data collection procedure the participants were evenly and randomly divided into the teacher-assisted (n=20) and peer-assisted (n=20) groups. before starting the instructional phase, the metacognitive awareness questionnaire was given to the participants as the pretest of this study. at the instructional phase, the students in the teacher-assisted group were exposed to teacher-assisted evaluative mediation for their learning tasks and activities in which the teacher evaluated and mediated the learners’ performance. for this purpose, the teacher-assisted and mediated students’ performances through interaction and monitoring their works and provided corrective feedback when needed for revising their erroneous performance. also, the teacher guided them in all steps of their learning assignment and tasks as a mediator. the learners in the peer-assisted group were exposed to the peer-assisted evaluative mediation for their learning tasks and activities. they were authorized to evaluate themselves and play the role of a mediator. in this regard, they were expected to think cooperatively and confer on their works and help each other to come up with better performances. they read their assignments or tests and tried to enhance their peers’ works by providing useful guidance and showing their strengths and weaknesses as an evaluator. in fact, the peer-assisted group had been taught how to evaluate and mediate their peers’ works. the participants were instructed for sixteen 90-minute sessions twice a week for eight weeks. after the instructional phase, the metacognitive awareness questionnaire was given to the students as the posttest of the study to measure the participants’ metacognitive awareness level at the end of the instructional period. 3.4. data analysis having gathered the required data, the spss statistical program was used to analyze them. for each question in this study, first the descriptive statistics and then the normality calculation (shapiro-wilk), and finally the inferential statistics (paired sample t-test) were estimated. 4. results 4.1. questionnaire reliability analysis reliability analysis was carried out on the metacognitive awareness questionnaire. cronbach’s alpha showed the questionnaire to reach acceptable reliability, α = 0.79. 4.2. result of language proficiency test in order to have homogenized participants in terms of their general english the effect of teacherand peer-assisted evaluative mediation 68 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 language proficiency, the opt was administered. the descriptive statistics for the opt can be found in table 1. table 1 the descriptive statistics of the placement test. n min max mean sd variance placement test 58 23.00 38.00 30.81 4.19 17.59 table 1 above shows the descriptive statistics of the opt test. as can be seen in table 1 above, the mean and the standard deviation of the scores were 30.81 and 4.19, respectively. after administering the language proficiency test, out of 58 test-takers, 40 were considered homogenous based on their scores. table 2 the descriptive statistics of the homogenized participants. n min max mean sd variance placement test 40 28.00 36.00 32.55 2.24 5.02 as can be seen in table 2 above, the mean and the standard deviation of the homogenized participants were 32.55 and 2.24, respectively. 4.3. results of the first research question first, the descriptive statistics of the teacher-assisted group’s scores on the pre and posttests were estimated which are presented in table 3 below. table 3 the descriptive statistics of ta group’s pre and posttests scores. variable n min max mean sd ta group pretest 20 19 40 28.50 5.71 ta group posttest 20 21 39 27.90 4.52 as can be seen in table 3, the means for the teacher-assisted group’s pre and posttests’ were 28.50 and 27.90, respectively. the descriptive statistics show that the level of metacognitive awareness of the participants in the teacher-assisted group reduced from the pretest to the posttest. the shapiro-wilk test was used to check the normality of the teacher-assisted group’s pre and posttests’ scores. in table 4 below, the statistics for the normality of data sets are presented. sajjad fathi & enayat a. shabani englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 69 table 4 shapiro-wilk test of normality for pre and posttests scores. group shapiro-wilk statistic df sig. ta group pretest .98 20 .87 ta group posttest .95 20 .35 according to table 4, sig. values for teacher-assisted group’s pre and posttests scores are 0.87 and 0.35, respectively. both of the obtained sig. values are more than 0.05 (0.896 > 0.05; 0.350 > 0.05). it means that these data sets are normally distributed, and as a result, a parametric test (paired sample t-test) for comparison of means can be used. the inferential statistics for comparison of means are presented in table 5 below. table 5 the inferential statistics for ta group’s pre and posttests means comparison. 95% confidence interval t df sig. (2-tailed) lower upper pair 1 ta group pretest ta group posttest -.42 1.62 1.23 19 .235 a paired-samples t-test was conducted to compare the teacher-assisted group’s pre and posttests’ scores. there was no significant difference in scores for the teacherassisted group’s pretest (m=28.50, sd=5.71) and the teacher-assisted group’s posttest (m=27.90, sd=4.52; t=1.23, p=.23). the magnitude of the differences in the means was moderate (eta squared=.073). it means that the teacher-assisted group’s pre and posttests means did not significantly differ from each other. thus, it is possible to argue that teacher-assisted evaluative mediation did not have a statistically significant effect on the learners’ metacognitive awareness development. 4.4. results of the second research question for answering this research question, first, the descriptive statistics of peerassisted group pre and posttests scores are presented in table 6 below. table 6 the descriptive statistics of pa group’s pre and posttests scores. group n min max mean sd pa group pretest 20 24 41 32.10 4.76 pa group posttest 20 29 43 35.10 3.99 the effect of teacherand peer-assisted evaluative mediation 70 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 as can be seen in table 6, the peer-assisted group’s means of the pre and posttests are 32.10 and 35.10, respectively. the descriptive statistics table above shows that peer-assisted group participants’ level of metacognitive awareness level increased from the administration of pretest to posttest. in order to check the normality of peerassisted group’s pre and posttests scores, the shapiro-wilk test was used. in table 7 below, the statistics for the normality of data sets are presented. table 7 shapiro-wilk test of normality for pre and posttests scores. shapiro-wilk statistic df sig. pa group pretest .94 20 .27 pa group posttest .96 20 .66 according to table 7, sig. values for peer-assisted group’s pre and posttests scores are 0.27 and 0.66, respectively. both of obtained sig. values are more than 0.05 (0.27 > 0.05; 0.66 > 0.05). it means that these data sets are normally distributed and consequently, the parametric test (paired sample t-test) for comparison of means can be utilized. the inferential statistics for comparison of means are presented in table 8 below. table 8 the inferential statistics for pa group’s pre and posttests means comparison. 95% confidence interval t df sig. (2-tailed) lower upper pair 1 pa group pretest pa group posttest -3.61 -2.39 -10.34 19 .00 a paired-samples t-test was conducted to compare peer-assisted group’s pre and posttests’ scores. there was a significant difference in scores for peer-assisted group’s pretest (m=32.10, sd=4.76) and teacher-assisted group’s posttest (m=35.10, sd=3.99; t=-10.34, p=.00). the magnitude of the differences in the means was large (eta squared=.84). it means that the peer-assisted group’s pre and posttests are significantly different from each other. thus, it can be suggested that peer-assisted evaluative mediation had statistically a significant effect on learners’ metacognitive awareness development. 4.5. results of the third research question with reference to the results and analysis of the first and second questions of this study, it is possible to suggest that there was a statistically significant difference sajjad fathi & enayat a. shabani englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 71 between teacher-assisted and peer-assisted groups’ participants’ performance on the metacognitive awareness questionnaire where the peer-assisted group performed significantly different in their posttest scores whereas the teacher-assisted group did not perform significantly different in their posttest scores. in other words, peer-assisted evaluative mediation meaningfully developed students’ level of metacognitive awareness, but teacher-assisted evaluative mediation did not promote students’ level of metacognitive awareness. 5. discussion the first finding of this study was that teacher-assisted evaluative mediation did not have a statistically significant effect on learners’ metacognitive awareness development. in other words, teacher-assisted evaluative mediation did not develop students’ level of metacognitive awareness. one possible reason for this finding could be that when the students are exposed to teacher-assisted evaluative mediation, the psychological blocking factors such as anxiety and fear of presence of an authority figure (the teacher) may interfere in the learning process and make them more nervous and anxious which, in turn, can corroborate the point that assisted mediation process with other learners tends to decrease their psychological barriers and promotes their learning quality (dangwal & kapur, 2009; shamir & steven, 2005). students who have more metacognitive awareness should show a higher level of self-esteem and selfdependency (cross, 2010). this finding is in line with shamir and steven (2005) and dangwal and kapur (2009) which showed that students enjoy and value their learning when situated in an assisted mediation process from other students, and that this reduces their psychological pressure and promotes their learning quality and provides effective ways of language development for them. also, the findings confirm duran and monereo (2005) who suggest that in the mediation process, peers have the chance to assume their learning responsibility and their ability to work out problems without teacher supervision developed. peer-mediation also gives them a sense of self-respect and encourages them to be autonomous learners. the findings of the present study, however, contrast with engle and conant (2002) who found that teacher-assisted evaluative mediation can facilitate the process of learning by enhancing students’ participation and involvement in language learning and that it leads students to productive engagement in the tasks. also, unlike the present research, victori and lockhart (1995) found that the teacher-assisted evaluative mediation process enables language teachers to help students understand and internalize the new knowledge through the negotiation of meaning in their interaction in the classroom. the second finding of this study was that peer-assisted evaluative mediation had a statistically significant effect on learners’ metacognitive awareness development. in other words, peer-assisted evaluative mediation meaningfully developed students’ level the effect of teacherand peer-assisted evaluative mediation 72 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 of metacognitive awareness. when a student is mutually mediated by his or her peer, they are given the opportunity to exchange their information and amend their weaknesses and enhance their strengths (dangwal & kapur, 2009). so, it can bring them self-confidence and a sense of self-respect and encourage them to think more about their learning process (duran & monereo, 2005). such a peer-work makes them motivated to implement more effective learning strategies and to reflect on using these strategies in their learning process (tahir, 2012), resulting in the successful development of their metacognitive awareness. this finding is consistent with falchikov (2002) who argues that in peer-assisted mediation process, both sides of the interaction (e.g. peers who mediate each other’s works) greatly enjoy this type of collaboration. peers cooperate with each other and provide reflective feedback for their peer’s performance, which can develop their learning efficacy, in turn. in addition, peers in this process become able to integrate new learning experiences into the curriculum context. also, this finding confirms topping et al. (2004) who state that in peer-assisted mediation, each peer has the choice to control the learning situation and resolve potential problems in a productive way. the process of mediation puts them in a winwin game of learning and evaluation of each partner’s works. it can be argued that the process of peer-mediation provides the students with the opportunity of problem identification through negotiating their judgments about the situation from their own point of view and hearing each other’s ideas and opinions on their intended and preferred outcome (liebmann, 2000). also, betegiorgis and abiy (2016) believed that peer-assisted learning helps learners to engage in the cooperative learning process where they gain the opportunity to activate their roles whether in their own or peers’ learning, and it can markedly improve their self-confidence. according to arendale (2014), the peer-mediated process promotes learners’ learning performance through enhancing their communication capability and social skills where higher achievers facilitate the weaker peers’ learning and achievement in a cooperative way. thus, one part of this cooperation benefits from the assistance and monitoring abilities and the other side receives the opportunity to foster their academic success. ginty and harding (2014) proposed the idea that peer mediation promotes the information processing quality and rates, facilitates the process of knowledge transfer, enhances the occurrence of academic socialization, and fosters critical thinking and reflection among learners. hence, their higher-order thinking ability, which is considered as a building block of metacognitive awareness, is tapped through utilizing peer-mediation. furthermore, peer-mediation could link with students’ metacognitive awareness capabilities. as in peer-mediation, students’ analytic thinking is required for evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of their peer’s works. at the metacognitive level, too, language learners need to plan their own and their peer’s learning behaviors, analyze the situation they find themselves in, and evaluate their own and peer’s progress towards sajjad fathi & enayat a. shabani englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 73 learning (wenden, 2002). the third finding of this study was that there was a difference between the participants’ performance in the teacher-assisted and peer-assisted groups on the metacognitive awareness questionnaire in which peer-assisted group performed significantly different in their posttest whereas teacher-assisted group did not perform significantly different in their posttest. in other words, peer-assisted evaluative mediation meaningfully developed students’ level of metacognitive awareness, but teacher-assisted evaluative mediation did not develop students’ level of metacognitive awareness. 6. conclusions and implications this study revealed that peer-assisted evaluative mediation had the potential to develop students’ level of metacognitive awareness while teacher-assisted evaluative mediation did not increase their metacognitive awareness level. based on the learners’ responses to the questionnaire, it is suggested that peer-assisted evaluative mediation is an effective tool for improving students’ metacognitive awareness. in this regard, students who have a higher level of metacognitive awareness show positive attitudes and motivation to be strategic learners in their learning process and accordingly become more successful learners. generally, assisted evaluative mediation whether on the side of the teacher or peers can help both sides of this process (i.e. teachers and students or peers among themselves). the cooperative nature of this process enables these two sides of interaction to show a better learning performance and hence can enhance their teaching and learning quality. when students engage in the process of evaluation and mediation, they become capable of identifying their learning strengths and weaknesses as well as those of their peers’ in the process of learning while teachers’ monitoring ability increases through using this evaluative mediation. in addition, assisted evaluative mediation can be considered as a foundation for leading students towards autonomous language learning. the results obtained from the present study suggest teachers implement peer-assisted evaluative mediation practices in their classrooms if they look for a way to improve their students’ metacognitive awareness and knowledge. also, the findings of this research can help language learners, especially efl learners, language teachers, language program developers, and language curriculum planners to create more effective situations for language learning in their field of work. if judiciously utilized, peer-learning can be considered as a valuable tool for language instructors and learners. so, it is recommended that language teachers trust the power of peer-learning in the 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(2020). efl learners‟ code-switching: why do they switch the language? englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 8(1), 93-101. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6662 abstract this qualitative study aims to figure out the factors that influence efl learners‟ codeswitching. in collecting data, a semi-structured interview was conducted in which involved five efl learners as the participants. those participants were selected through the purposive sampling method: being second-semester students of the english language education department of universitas islam negeri ar-raniry, and taking basic speaking class. semi-structured interviewed was applied to collect the data needed. the finding of this study showed that all participants employed code-switching in their class. the reasons for efl learners‟ code-switching were influenced by participants‟ roles and relationships, selected topics, and interactions. thus, codeswitching was regarded as a useful strategy that helped the learners convey their ideas to be fully understood and meaningful in the interaction process. keywords: code-switching, efl learners, interaction 1. introduction 1.1. definition of code-switching code-switching, or language mixing, occurs “when a speaker alternates between two or more language varieties in a single conversation” (shartiely, 2016, p. 215). mabule (2015, p. 340) agrees that code-switching is “the shifting by a speaker from language a to language b”. moreover, most researchers do not differentiate between code-switching and code-mixing; they have the same definition and context (suek, https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6662 efl learners‟ code-switching 94 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 2017). hasan and akhand (2015) argue that code-switching is used synonymously with code-mixing. thus, it can be concluded that code-switching and code-mixing are alike; they have the same concept. nowadays, code-switching normally occurs not only in bilinguals‟ speech, but also in bilinguals‟ electronic discourse (halim & maros, 2014). it is common that code-switching naturally happens in a bilingual setting (suek, 2017). bullock and toribio (2009, as cited in grima, 2013) add that bilinguals are able to separate their language communicative ability in speech production such as knowing when both first language and a second language are being used or when to switch to another language or code. 1.2. types of code-switching there are three types of code-switching, namely: extrasentential, intersentential, and intrasentential (poplack 2000, as cited in mabule, 2015, p. 342). extrasentential switching is “the insertion of tag elements from one language into a monolingual discourse in another language” (mabule, 2015, p. 343). the example below is extrasentential code-switching in bahasa indonesia‟s conversation. teacher: jawaban kamu sudah benar semua, great! (all of your answers are correct) teacher: kalau sudah selesai diisi, latihannya boleh dikumpulkan, okay? (if the worksheet has been filled completely, you may submit it). the examples above show the tagging of the english language inserted into bahasa indonesia. the second type of code-switching is intersentential. intersentential code-switching “involves switching at sentential boundaries where one clause or sentence is in one language and the next clause or sentence is in the other” (al-heeti & al-abdely, 2016, p. 11). yusuf, fata, and chyntia (2018) add that “inter-sentential switching occurs when a speaker switches from one language to another between different sentences” (p. 2). it can be defined that inter-sentential switching occurs outside the sentence. an example of inter-sentential switching is: aku harus selalu membawa kameraku kemanapun! bagiku, sebuah foto bisa menggambarkan banyak cerita, tergantung siapa yang melihat foto tersebut. i would go with my camera! i love capturing beautiful things or special moments and sharing with people. (saraswati & octavita, 2016, p. 44). finally, another type of code-switching is intrasentential. intrasentential codeswitching is “characterized by a switch from one language to another language within a single utterance” (mabule, 2015, p. 343). this type of code-switching occurs inside a sentence. an example of intrasentential code-switching is: yuliar masna englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 9 5 teacher: “apa ini pentingnya? kenapa harus mempelajari ini? kenapa kita harus mempelajari telling time?” (rinda, 2014, p. 7) 1.3. the function of code-switching bilinguals, in this case, efl learners tend to switch to another code when they meet other bilinguals who are from the same ethnic or social background. bilinguals will switch to an ethnic code to express their identification with the group members (trisnawati, 2017) even though they are not very proficient (holmes, 2008). furthermore, bilinguals from the same background tend to switch language to address each other to show their respect. for instance, in an international university or campus, usually, a moslem student switches to the arabic language whenever s/he meets other moslem students from any countries; s/he will say “assalamu„alaikum, how are you?” rather than saying “hello” or “hi” to respect and address those students who have the same background as her/him as a moslem. in this case, intrasentential code-switching is employed. not only does code-switching occur in a social context, but it also takes place in an educational context. many bilinguals will switch language while being involved in the educational process. code-switching is commonly used by efl learners and lecturers on the campus to indicate how educated or smart they are because they are able to use english in their part of speech. for example, students on the campus will say „saya ada meeting tentang kegiatan workshop dengan dosen‟ [i have a meeting about a workshop with the lecturer] when they want to meet the lecturer. it seems that codeswitching is used to show other people that they have the ability in speaking english, and this is part of self-pride and prestige (sadighian & rahmi, 2011) another function of code-switching is to convey well the ideas to each other when speaking. as stated by nerghes (2011, as cited in mukti & muljani, 2016) bilingual speakers consider the notion that when associated with strong arguments, code-switching can be an effective strategy in which some ideas can be better conveyed in one language than another that leads to systematic processing of information. the concept argued by nerghes is in accordance with the notion identified by al hayek (2016) explaining that bilinguals will switch language or code because they think that some ideas are more meaningful and understandable to be conveyed in one primary language. 2. literature review there are some previous researchers examining code-switching among bilingual learners. wijayanti (2014) investigated code-switching phenomena among university students at sampoerna university. the research was conducted to reveal the reasons for the learners in switching their language from bahasa indonesia to other languages or vice versa. it was figured out that learners switched their code or language was caused by two factors, internal factors such as their preference of mother tongue, and external factor such as considering the interlocutor (wijayanti, 2014). efl learners‟ code-switching 96 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 another research about code-switching within the efl context was conducted by khiarunnisa (2016) figuring out that code-switching by the teacher was used as a useful strategy in transferring effective ideas from the teacher to students. another research under the code-switching theme was also conducted in a secondary school setting. it indicated that code-switching was not only applied by learners but also by teachers. it was found that teachers hold a positive belief and agreed that the use of code-switching in the efl classroom would contribute to the smooth flow of the classroom interaction (suganda, loeneto, & zuraida, 2018). thus, it is clear that code-switching is familiarly used by both teachers and learners in order to achieve meaningful and effective classroom interaction. in line with this, horasan (2014) argues that code-switching is used by teachers and students to convey their idea in the english teaching-learning process in the classroom. bista (2010) also adds that most bilingual students in the classroom switch the language/code to overcome their incompetence in a second language. thus, in an educational setting such as school and university, code-switching frequently occurs. 3. method 3.1. research design this study employed qualitative approach. creswell (2014, p. 22) states “a qualitative research is an approach for exploring and understanding the meaning individuals or groups ascribe to a social or human problem”. in collecting data, five efl learners were interviewed. thus, semi-structured interview was carried out in order to get information as deep as possible. this type of interview is applicable because it gives chances for both interviewer and participants to discuss flexibly and participants could express their perceptions and experiences freely and extensively. interviews were done face to face and fully recorded. 3.2. participants this study involved five efl learners as the participants. they were selected by using the purposive sampling method. purposive sampling is “selective or subjective sampling, reflects a group of sampling techniques that rely on the judgment of the researcher when it comes to selecting the units (e.g. people, case/organizations, events, pieces of data) that are to be studied” (sharma, 2017, p. 751). those participants were selected since they took speaking class; they applied code-switching while speaking in the classroom; and overall they had a very good score in speaking class. those efl learners were the second-semester students of the english language education department of ar-raniry state islamic university (universitas islam negeri) banda aceh, of 2019/2020 academic year. five elements were asked to the learners in the interview, as adopted from suganda et al (2018), they were: (1) their perception on the use of code-switching in speaking class, (2) the language they use in the class, (3) the switching of english and indonesian or vice versa in speaking class, (4) the factors of yuliar masna englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 9 7 their code-switching in learning, and (5) their performance related to their use of codeswitching. it took 25 minutes on average to interview each participant. the questions were formulated both in english and in indonesian, and the participants responded in the language of their choice mostly they answered in english mixed with indonesian. 4. findings and discussion the data analysis was based on interview results. five efl learners participated cooperatively in the interview. based on the interview results, the reasons for learners‟ code-switching are categorized as the following themes: 4.1. participants‟ role and relationship when learners were involved in a conversation with their close friends they tended to use bahasa indonesia even though at that time it was in english speaking class. all participants agreed that they were comfortable to speak more bahasa indonesia than english. they needed to switch the language from english to the indonesian language because they thought that their friends would understand it very well and then they could speak easily. for example, the participant said: gs: “when i am in a formal place like in the class i switch my language from bahasa indonesia to english, but when i talk to my friends i mix the language, about eighty per cent i use bahasa indonesia” in line with the point above, one participant added that she used more bahasa indonesia in speaking class when she was talking to her friends. she said: nf: “sometimes… i am dominant… to use english in speaking class, um…because the lecturer uses english in the class, but when i talk with my friends i don’t use english, because maybe they can’t understand what i say”. additionally, not only did participants switch the language when they were talking with close friends, but they also switched the language when talking to their relatives, as stated by the participant bellow: hn: “in my family, i try to talk in english to my sister at home, because i want to practice my english, but sometimes i talk to her in bahasa indonesia, but i try to add some „istilah‟, um… i mean english vocabulary to say about something.” the participant agreed that code-switching was better to be used when they needed to talk to their close persons such as friends and relatives. thus, the setting, such as in the classroom or at home, influenced the participants to switch the language. as agreed by heltai (2018), setting also influences those bilinguals to switch their language in spite of the social relation between them. efl learners‟ code-switching 98 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 4.2. topic selection bilingual speakers are able to discuss any topics in different languages. they will switch the language in order that people around them understand well what they are talking about. this idea can be found from participants‟ statements: na: “code-switching is important… because when we don‟t know the vocabulary in english we need to switch the language, and then um…. the audience will understand what we say, although i can‟t speak english very well, i can use bahasa indonesia”. these examples concur with bani bili (2017) stating that bilingual speakers consider the notion that code-switching is a strategy in which some ideas can be better conveyed in one language than another. the same as the statement above, one participant added that: al: ”because when i don‟t know one word and then i get stuck when speaking and then the audience will not be able to understand, and then we need to switch some words into bahasa indonesia to make them understand what are talking about.” al hayek (2016) explains that bilinguals would be motivated to code-switch because they think that some ideas are more meaningful and understandable to be conveyed in one primary language. besides that, holmes (2008) argues that particular topics are often easier to be discussed in one code rather than another. this is what is happening to students, for example, who are taking linguistics unit/subject. some linguistics‟ words such as „complement‟, „phrase‟, and „finite‟ are easier to be used rather than the terms of students‟ first language in discussing the topic about the elements of a clause. this argument has a relation with the concept argued by kim (2006) identifying that the topic of discourse influences bilinguals to switch their codes or language. the arguments and examples above are reinforced by chin and wigglesworth (2007); they explain that topic is another key factor influencing language switching for many bilingual speakers. therefore, switching makes topics easier and more understandable to be explained; so that bilingual learners can get the points of the topic they are discussing. 4.3. interaction in interacting in their group, there is a trend for efl learners to switch their language. boztepe (2003) argues that bilinguals‟ code-switching is also affected by their tendency in making requests and commands to each other. it means that during an interaction, bilingual speakers switch their codes or language to emphasize their utterances to be understood by others. this phenomenon normally happens when bilingual speakers have a good relationship with each other, such as friends and family members. the participants stated that: yuliar masna englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 9 9 gs: “when i talk to my friends and my family i mix the language. sometimes i want to imitate the way my friends talk in the classroom, i want to be fluent in speaking like my friends.” na: “in daily, in interaction in the classroom when speaking class, i will use more bahasa indonesia, i don’t want to feel ‘blank’ in communicating with my friends with english vocabulary, so i will use bahasa indonesia”. nf: “sometimes i switch the language from bahasa indosesia to english when i interact with my sister, my sister is an english teacher, and she understands what i said. but i don‟t try to speak english with my mom because she cannot speak english”. hn: “in globalization era like nowadays, i think i need to speak more english in interaction, that’s why i try to add more english words in my life such as when speaking with my sister and my friends”. liu, ahn, baek, and ok (2004) explain that code-switching is a useful strategy in classroom interaction. this idea has a good point which reminds us that codeswitching is needed in the interaction process in the classroom. for example, in interacting with students, teachers tend to switch the language in order to transfer the knowledge to students in an efficient way. from this notion, it can be suggested that not only does social interaction influence bilinguals‟ code-switching, but the interaction occurring in the teaching-learning process also contributes to code-switching. thus, it can be argued that the interaction process influences efl learners‟ code-switching in any circumstantial events such as in a group, in a classroom, even at home. 5. conclusion there are many studies investigating bilinguals‟ phenomena; and codeswitching is one of those phenomena that normally occur among efl learners. codeswitching means bilingual speakers change or mix certain speeches and codes with another language in communication. thus, most researchers consider and agree that „code-switching‟ is not different from „code-mixing‟. efl learners will use codeswitching influenced by many factors. code-switching commonly occurs because of participant features. code-switching is one of the effective strategies which can be used by efl learners to interpret their intention or purposes in communication. besides that, codeswitching is useful to avoid misunderstanding in communication and to clarify important information that cannot be explained in one language or code. so, it is clear that through the code-switching practices, efl learners could be able to express their meaningful message or sense of the classroom as bilinguals. finally, perhaps, further research is needed to investigate deeply and address the gap between code-mixing/codeefl learners‟ code-switching 100 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 switching and code-borrowing 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(2016). code-switching in the snstructions of english language education study program lecturers. llt journal, 19(1), 47-60. rinda, r. k. (2014). a study of code-switching of teacher talk on trainee teacher in ppl ii program of state university of surabaya. retain, 2(1), 1-10. sadighian, s., & rahmi, a. (2011). code-switching and social prestige: code-switching among iranian university learners. academic leadership: the online journal, 9(3), 1-8. saraswati, r. & octavita, r. a. i. (2016). a study of english code-switching in indonesian teen magazine. deiksis, 8(1), 39-47. sharma, g. (2017). pros and cons of different sampling techniques. international journal of applied research, 3(7), 749-752. shartiely, n. e. (2016). code-switching in university classroom interaction: a case study of the university of dar es salaam. stellenbosch papers in linguistics, 49, 215-231. suek, l. a. (2017). code switching and the development of linguistic system of simultaneous bilingual children. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 5(1), 1-7. suganda, l. a., loeneto, b. a., & zuraida. (2018). teachers‟ use of code-switching in an english as a foreign language context in indonesia. script journal: journal of linguistic and english teaching 3(2), 111-126. trisnawati, i. k. (2017). maintaining the identity of bilingual individuals in multicultural/multilingual settings. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 5(1), 8-16. wijanti, w. (2014). bahasa indonesia/english code switching at usbi the sampoerna university, jakarta. proceedings of international conference on economics, education and humanities (iceeh'14) (pp. 101-104). retrieved from http://icehm.org/upload/3923ed1214069.pdf yusuf, y. q., fata, i. a., & chyntia, c. (2018). types of indonesian-english codeswitching employed in a novel. kasetsart journal of social sciences, 41(1), 208213. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.kjss.2018.02. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2021. vol. 9, no. 1, 80-93 addressing english language needs of economic development students in indonesian context mercya christ sita dewi * universitas tidar, magelang, indonesia mercyachrist@gmail.com lilia indriani universitas tidar, magelang, indonesia indriani@untidar.ac.id manuscript received j u n e 2 , 2021, revised august 13, 2021, first published november 1, 2021, and available online november 7, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i1.9746 recommended apa citation dewi, m. c. s., indriani, l. (2021). addressing english language needs of economic development students in indonesian context. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(1), 80-93. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i1.9746 abstract the heart of the study is english for economics purposes as a branch of english for specific purposes (esp). this study is dedicated to addressing the immediate needs of economics students in english language courses. by employing an explanatory survey method, researchers distributed a self-administrated survey and interviewed five firstyear students majoring in economic development in one of the state universities in indonesia. in this study, the researchers attempted to analyze economic development students‟ target situation, present situation, and learning situation in english courses to prepare them to face global competition. the results revealed that most students admitted that english is essential for their future careers. thus, they expected english courses should include materials related to their discipline and emphasize more authentic activities. following the discussion, this need analysis can be a consideration in designing english learning materials for economics students. keywords: economic student’s voice; english for economics purposes; need analysis 1. introduction the existence of english as an international language (eil) has encouraged people to be able to communicate both orally and in written language by using english * corresponding author mercya christ sita dewi & lilia indriani englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 81 to face global competition (indrasari, 2016). indonesia, as an asean economic community member, has already urged its stakeholders, specifically in the economic sector to equip their employees with global skills to encounter global demands. concerning global skills, mastering english is a requirement since english has already been implemented in many companies to maintain the self-development and career of the employees. therefore universities, as part of higher education which prepares learners to face global competition, should facilitate the learners with english language courses (ria & malik, 2020; setiawan, 2014). nevertheless, it is stipulated with the law on language system (uu no. 24/ 2009 chapter i article 7) that considers english as foreign language (efl) in indonesia. this policy has brought a great gap and deficiency between people‟s ability and global demands in using english as a means of communication (rahmi, 2016; yusny, 2013). in addition, the facts reveal an english for a specific purpose in the non-english program is inadequate to prepare the learners for the future professional world (ekayati, manurung & yenni, 2020). in this regard, the indonesian government, particularly the ministry of education and higher education institutions should take into consideration english materials that equip the learners‟ disciplines in the target situation. designing an appropriate learning syllabus or material that tallies with learners‟ disciplines or interests has become the main concern in this contemporary era. in recent years, the number of studies on english for specific purposes has already been increasing as a result of the significance of providing suitable materials that equip learners‟ needs. first, čapková and kroupová (2017) decided to explore economic students‟ needs in english language courses at the university of economics in prague to tailor the most appropriate teaching materials that meet global expectations. the interpretation of the survey highlighted that the textbook should integrate topics in economics, business, and skills (intercultural communication, management, government and taxation, finance and banking, etc.). in another study, kurniawan and retnawati (2019) attempted to design english teaching materials for economics students at one of the indonesian universities. they adopted addie (analysis, design, develop, implement, evaluation) stages (branch, 2010) in developing the materials. in the primary phase, they figured out that students were much more interested in listening to materials related to their discipline rather than general english materials. additionally, saefullah and nugraha (2020) conducted exploratory research on 67 second-year economics students in the efl context. they reported the quality of teaching situations in which four basic english skills, speaking, reading, listening, and writing, should be integrated into english language teaching. the findings indicated that economic students still lacked writing and speaking skills. thus, students expected to have more lessons on writing and speaking, particularly in writing a report and having a formal conversation. the results from saefullah and nugraha (2020) were in line with the previous research carried out by saientisna (2019) in terms of students' lack of speaking skills. the researcher reported that students encountered difficulties in addressing english language needs of economic development students in indonesian context 82 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 speaking and listening to materials in english. following the findings, saientisna (2019) suggested that speaking skills including public speaking, negotiation, and handling complaints should be emphasized in the syllabus of english for economic purposes. under the previous studies, most researchers (čapková & kroupová, 2017; kurniawan & retnawati, 2019; saefullah & nugraha, 2020) agreed that communication skills in target situations have become the prior concern to be developed in english for economic purposes. consequently, developing materials that can fulfill learners‟ needs also becomes the fundamental aspect. however, researchers noticed that every discipline has its own needs. thus, to close the gap of previous studies, the present study employs an explanatory research design to address immediate english language needs for efl students majoring in economic development at one of the state universities in indonesia. the researchers carried out a need analysis approach following the theory introduced by dudley-evans and st. john (1998) as they are considered to be experts who introduced the concept of esp. in light of the aim of the study, two essential questions were posed: (1) what are the target situation, the present situation, and the learning situation of economic development students in english class? (2) what improvement or suggestion can be made to the english course for economic development students? further, this initial study can be a consideration in developing materials for english for economic purposes in indonesian state universities, broadly in the efl context. 2. literature review all over the period, many colleges and higher education institutions have already offered english language courses that spotlight the enhancement and expansion of the english language learning materials, according to learners‟ specific interests, called english as specific purpose (esp). esp has been popular and mushrooming since the 1960s due to massive global demand and development (rahman, 2015). in the english language teaching (elt) context, english for specific purpose (esp) is devoted to providing appropriate teaching or learning materials (tlm) for specific disciplines. the concept of esp was initially purposed by hutchison and waters (1987) to equip learners‟ needs to attain their academic interests, professional careers, and occupational pursuits that meet global demands. therefore, the decisions made in designing the english material are adjusted following the background of academic interest or workplace contexts. dudley-evans and st. john (1998) mentioned three ultimate characteristics of esp, namely (1) tailor to meet learners‟ precise needs in english language learning; (2) the approach or method used in esp should be associated with what learners need to support their interests, disciplines, and occupations; (3) the focal point of esp teaching/learning materials (tlm) should involve linguistics features, genres, discourse, and registers. besides, dudley-evans and st. john (1998) also highlighted that esp is considered a milestone in the english language teaching (elt) movement. mercya christ sita dewi & lilia indriani englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 83 at first, english for science and technology, which deals with numerous technical english and scientific writing, was the center of esp (ewer & latorre, 1969; remache & ibrahim, 2018; selinker, todd trimble & trimble, 1976; shi, 2018; ureña salazar, 2017). these sub-areas involving english for tourism, english for medical studies, english for engineering, english for economics, etc. in this case, the emergence of need analysis to tailor proper language materials is undoubtedly paramount. need analysis is a process of acquiring what learners need for their teaching and learning process. in consequence, this approach embraces learnercenteredness as it offers learners the opportunity to get involved in planning language learning (dzięcioł-pędich, 2014). in the elt context, need analysis can facilitate learners addressing what they expect in learning english (čapková & kroupová, 2017). further, it aids teachers in designing apt lesson plans, textbooks, or teaching methodology that tally with learners‟ needs. one of the experts in esp, hutchinson and waters (1987) divided need analysis into two basic subdivisions; target needs and learning needs. target needs comprise the necessities, lack thereof, and wants of the learners in the target situation. necessities refer to what learners should master, which is determined by the requirements of the target situation. want is defined as students‟ voices on what they consider are beneficial for them and should be taught in language learning. meanwhile, lack refers to what learners do not have but which are necessary for them.whereas, learning needs are described as a process for acquiring information about the teaching environment. learning needs can be portrayed in four questions; (1) how is english perceived regarding english language learning? (2) how do students acquire knowledge of the english language? (3) what are the materials provided to support english language learning? (4) where and when will english teaching be conducted? (saientisna, 2019). following the focal point of esp, need analysis is considered as the heart of english for specific purposes (alsamadani, 2017; jasso-aguilar, 2005; west, 1994). other researchers, like dudley-evans and st. john (1998) introduced the concept of need analysis. they classify it into three main categories, namely target situation analysis (tsa), learning situation analysis (lsa), and present situation analysis (psa). the target situation covers learning materials which in line with learners‟ disciplines. it also emphasizes the shred activities or tasks during their english class. meanwhile, the learning situation describes the subjective reason behind why learners want to take english. in addition, it also leads to effective methodologies in language learning since the teacher only focuses on learners‟ interests. the last category, the present situation, deals with learners‟ actual condition in terms of knowledge and language skills. 3. method the mixed-method research design, specifically explanatory survey research was considered the most applicable method for this current study, as the primary goal was to addressing english language needs of economic development students in indonesian context 84 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 scrutinize economic development students‟ english language needs. gay, mills, and airasian (2012) defined a survey as a method used to describe a current situation that spotlights tendencies, attitudes, interests, or practices of a particular group. in this study, the explanatory method was done by distributing a survey followed by conducting a semi-structured interview with first-year students. 40 first-year students from the economic development study program at one of indonesia‟s state universities were chosen as they have passed the english course. the basic idea of selecting first-year students were they had already passed an english course in the previous academic year. to this point, the researchers investigated what economic development students had encountered in their previous english classes. in the initial stage, the researchers distributed a self-administered survey, which consisted of twelve close-ended questions containing two questions on the learning situation, five questions on the present situation, and five questions on the target situation. the researchers adapted the survey from ekayati et al. (2020) by considering essential components introduced by dudley-evans and st john (1998) in studying esp needs, specifically in english as economics purposes. the survey were in the indonesian language to make students easier to fill in since respondents were nonenglish students. besides, researchers also interviewed five first-year students from the department of development economics to seek an indepth understanding of their target situation, the learning situation, and the present situation regarding their previous english course. those five students were selected based on their willingness to be interviewed. in this case, researchers contacted the students who already fulfilled the survey. the interview was conducted asynchronously by distributing four questions, which have been translated into the indonesian language to five students via whatsapp application. along with data display, the survey results were demonstrated in the form of a table and percentage. then, the findings of self-administrated survey were tabulated quantitatively through the calculation of information, while the interview data were transcribed. later, the transcriptions were organized and linked to the survey result since interview data aimed to support the data obtained from the survey. in the final stage, the researchers evaluated economic students‟ target, present, and learning situations during their english language learning. 4. findings and discussion along with the focal questions of the study thus, data analysis is begun by displaying: (1) learning situation analysis of economic development students in learning english; (2) present situation analysis of economic development students in learning english; (3) target situation analysis of economic development students in learning english; (4) suggestions for esp for economic development students. 4.1. learning situation analysis mercya christ sita dewi & lilia indriani englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 85 moving on to the first discussion, economic development students agreed that learning english is essential for them (table. 1). concerning this, students exposed arguments that motivated them to study english. students‟ learning situation analysis in learning english is manifested in table 2. thirty-two out of forty respondents (80%) believed mastering english would support their future study and professional careers. thereby, topics given in their course should cover not only general english but also materials related to working life. on this matter, the course should accommodate materials about economics and business (sukarni, 2020). table 1 the importance of taking english courses for economic development students. scale not important quite important urgent very urgent percentage 30% 70% respondent 12 28 table 2 why do you need to study english? why do you need to study english? n f % because it is one of subjects in my higher education major . 40 15 35 because i need english for my success future occupation and study (apply scholarship, toefl, and publish scientific papers). 40 32 80 because i need english to speak to foreigners 40 12 27.5 because i need english to speak with my friends and my family. 40 1 2.6 others… 40 5 15 table 3 other responses regarding students want in learning english others responses f english is international language, by mastering english means preparing a bright future. 4 it is a significant element for a job interview. 1 a lot of qualified books or sources are written in english. 1 dudley-evans and st. john (1998) elucidated learning situation analysis (lsa) as a subjective insider feeling to enroll in english courses. this learning situation analysis emphasizes learners' motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic) for learning english. in practice, extrinsic motivation reveals external reasons for people performing something. in the english language learning context, extrinsic motivation is demonstrated when learners learn english to finding a job, communicating with foreigners, traveling abroad, and passing exams. addressing english language needs of economic development students in indonesian context 86 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 opposite to extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation deals with learners' own sake in particular: watching english movies, listening to english songs, reading english books (dörnyei, 1998). referring to the results in table 2, learning english as a compulsory subject (35%) and preparing for a future career and study (80%) belong to extrinsic motivation. it implied that extrinsic motivation became a primary factor that influenced students to learn english. further, four students also stated that they learned english since it is considered an international language. furthermore, in the interview session, learners also posed their motivation for learning english. they believed that having good english skills would give extra credits for their cv. to this point, by mastering english definitely promotes their better future. 4.2. present situation analysis table 4 do you agree that english materials you have right now is suitable with your major? scale strongly disagree disagree agree strongly agree percentage 22.5% 42.5% 35% respondent 9 17 14 table 5 students‟ perspective regarding their english skills language skills very weak weak good very good % f % f % f % f listening 2.5 1 45 18 45 18 7.5 3 speaking 10 4 55 22 30 12 5 2 reading 27.5 11 65 26 7.5 3 writing 37.5 15 55 22 7.5 3 dudley and st. john (1998) depicted present situation analysis (psa) as contentment, strengths, weaknesses, learning experiences, present knowledge, and skills of the learners. it is an approach to investigate learners‟ deficiency (allright, 1982). in reference to students‟ present situation; the researchers had students delivered their perspectives regarding their english course. since the study surveyed first-year students who already taken english courses, the researchers calculated that 42.2% of students considered their english topics are adequate to back up their study program (table 4). it implied that the materials given accommodate their discipline. in response to the self-identification of learners‟ current language skills, half of the students considered their listening skills were very weak (2.5%), weak (45%), while the rest were good (45%) and very good (7.5%). meanwhile, a majority of students believed their ability to speak english was weak (55%). results above also reveal that students contemplated their reading (65%) and writing (55%) abilities as good. following the previous study, sefullah and nugraha (2020) also reported that efl mercya christ sita dewi & lilia indriani englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 87 students majoring in economics struggled in speaking skills. consequently, teachers should put emphasis on speaking activities. consistent with data obtained from the survey, in the interview section students admitted that speaking and listening were considered the most complicated skills in english. the extracts below report what learners encountered during their previous english class and reveal students' lack of english. interviewee 1: “…my experience during english course was quite interesting; however, i would like to say speaking skills was the toughest skills as i dealt with grammar as well…” interviewee 2: “…my response to my previous english class was adequate to help me learning english. yet, i need more practice using english. throughout the time, the lecturer only gave lectures and we should listen to him. in my opinion, we should practice more, like in speaking and writing…” interviewee 3: “…quite good, yet i still lack practice and time given was so limited so we didn‟t get many materials. and i think speaking is the skills that should be more emphasized…” interviewee 4: “…in my opinion regarding the previous english course, i think speaking skills should come first, as it requires a lot of practice and preparation, such as grammar…” interviewee 5: “…i noticed that i still lack in speaking and listening. i think those two skills should take precedence over other skills, even though all of the skills are important…” the interview data might suggest regarding english courses that the lecturer should provide learning activities that assist learners to practice their productive skills such as speaking. in this way, the suggestion were also given by following study conducted by septiana, petrus, and inderawati (2020). in their study designing syllabus for computer science students, learners were keen interest in having practices, for that the teaching method recommended was role-playing and dialogue practice. in this current study, the researcher analyzed that economic development students were also interested in having more practices instead of theory. consequently, the lecturer should apply learning methods and strategies which fit the learners in achieving the learning objectives. following the importance of implementing the fit teaching-learning method and strategy; thus, researchers suggested that the lecturer needs to put emphasis on dialogue practicing and role-playing activities to assist learners in practicing their speaking skills. this suggestion is along with the study carried out by ria and malik (2020). they reported that drilling, role play, and discussion become the third-top suitable methods in learning english for business english. 4.3. target situation analysis target situation analysis (tsa) connotes any students‟ activities and tasks during the english course. it accentuates what students need or is able to do by the end addressing english language needs of economic development students in indonesian context 88 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 of the course or for future work (munby, 1978; robinson, 1991). following the tsa, the entry data below included learners‟ interests in their english courses that can be notions in designing syllabus and materials for economic development students. table 6 why do you need to enhance your listening skill? why do you need to enhance your listening skill? n f % to understand instructions/commands in the economics field. 40 31 77.5 to understand videos / movies / songs. 40 14 35 to understand speeches/lectures given by lecturers. 40 16 40 to understand seminars/conferences or scientific presentations (formal situation) 40 19 47.5 to understand english conversations 40 27 67.5 others 40 0 0 table 6 reveals varying needs of economic development students in listening skills. thirty-one respondents (77.5%) stated that materials related to english instructions in the economy is an aspect that should be embedded in english courses. ekayati et al. (2020) and saefullah and nugraha (2020) addressed in their studies that understanding instruction or commands in economics became the most dominant want of students. secondly, as university students, the learners will join a lot of international conferences or webinars whom the speakers use english. thus, introducing formal situations and informal audio listening is needed to make learners are familiar with the context. table 7 why do you need to enhance your speaking skill? why do you need to enhance your speaking skill? n f % to make questions and provide answers in english 40 19 47.5 to participate in class discussions using english 40 18 45 to do presentation in english 40 11 27.5 to speak in seminars or international conferences using english 40 21 52.5 to talk with friends/people who come from abroad 40 23 57.5 to communicate with other people about the field of economics 40 26 65 others… 40 1 2.5 in light of table 7, it addresses learners‟ targets in mastering speaking skills. to communicate with other people about the economics realm (65%), specifically with those who come abroad (57.5%), and do a presentation in international conferences (52.5%) were the top three reasons regarding their needs in speaking. in this way, mercya christ sita dewi & lilia indriani englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 89 findings support the earlier study conducted by sukarni (2020) and kusnawati (2017) that the target needs for speaking was english social interaction and conversational skills. besides, the results from the table above are in concordance with a previous study from ekayati et al. (2020), which reported that learners need speaking materials concerning communication skills in formal and informal situations, as it aims to promote self-confidence in public speaking and evaluate their understanding of linguistics contents. table 8 why do you need to enhance your reading skill? why do you need to enhance your reading skill? n f % understanding economics books which written in english 40 26 65 understanding journals written in english 40 29 72.5 understanding newspaper written in english 40 17 42.5 understanding lectures in english 40 28 70 understanding questions given in english 40 22 55 others… 40 1 2.5 table 8 above discloses economic development students rated reading english journals (72.5%), materials given by the lecturer (70%), books (65%), and newspapers which related to economics is essential for them. thus, introducing a glossary of economics is worth materials that should be covered in english for economic purposes syllabus to help students grasp the reading content. even though the previous study on esp for the accountancy program reported that technical terms or vocabulary equip learners to be able to communicate english fluently (kusnawati, 2017; sukarni, 2020) yet in this context, researchers believed that providing economic terminology also assists them to formulate the idea of the text. table 9 why do you need to enhance your writing skill? why do you need to enhance your writing skill? n f % to do an essay writing assignment using english 40 23 57.5 to write english scientific reports 40 26 65 to translate a text from and/ or to english 40 25 62.5 to write an email in english 40 13 32.5 to write a summary using english 40 10 25 to write a business letter/job application using english 40 29 75.5 others… 40 0 0 it is depicted in table 9 that students need to improve their writing skills since they estimated their future professional job requires them to be able to compose a business letter or job application using english (75%). this findings are in accordance addressing english language needs of economic development students in indonesian context 90 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 with study conducted by ria and malik (2020). they exposed that the use of english in workplace was dealt with business letter, email, proposal, job application and document reports. therefore, the lecturer should be able to integrate those topics into a whole teaching material for economic development study program. in addition, university students also deal with writing scientific reports in english (65%) in case they are willing to submit their manuscripts to international journals or conferences. subsequently, writing material that covers grammatical structure, writing conventions and punctuation should be embedded in their english class (remache & ibrahim, 2018). table 10 topics that economic development students should learn in their english course. topics n f % marketing 40 27 67.5% survey market 40 18 45% company structure 40 17 42.5% the world of finance and bank 40 29 72.5% working life 40 31 77.5% negotiation style 40 20 50% doing business in various culture 40 29 72.5% e-commerce 40 25 62.5% six out of eight topics are considered exciting topics to be covered in esp since its accordance with their discipline. the survey reports that economic development students require materials related to working life (77.5%), finance and bank (72.5%), intercultural communication and business (72.5%), marketing (67.5%). the survey findings also confirm by the interview data. learners confirmed that esp should cover materials, such as marketing, market research, and negotiation style. this finding is in line with wu‟s (2012) study, which claimed that negotiation style became a topic that should be attached in the esp module. to support the quantitative data following extracts represent topics that students want in their target situation. interviewee 1: “…negotiation, doing business in a various culture, e-commerce, marketing are materials we really need as economic development students since those topics require particular english skills. furthermore, in terms of negotiation, of course, we will meet a lot of people who have good speaking skills in english…” interviewee 2: „‟…in my opinion, marketing and market research are topics that should be included in english class, because those topics are concerning my discipline…” interviewee 3: “…marketing, as we have been entering free trade were all of the people thought the world can buy and sell their goods and services… when we understand how to communicate with our customer who speaks in english, it will be very helpful for us to market our products…” interviewee 4:“…working life is significant for me because when we have good english skills, it will be easy for us to expand our working network…” mercya christ sita dewi & lilia indriani englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 91 4.4. improvement in esp for economic development at last, in respect of improving teaching material, syllabus, and teaching method, researchers interviewed five economic development students. the following extracts are suggestions offered by students concerning their english course. interviewee 1: “…i think english course should address material or topic about the economy since economics is huge not only national but also international. so, i think english lecturer also needs to guide us to understand it…” interviewee 2: “…i wish in the future english class provides materials that support my discipline, and then i expect lecturer will give more speaking activities...” interviewee 3: “…i think an authentic assessment is worth it, for that we can improve our english in every chance we have…” interviewee 4: “…my suggestions for english class i about materials that in line with my program study, so it should include economy…” interviewee 5: “…i think lecturer should provide precise textbook or material that supports my study…” in light of the above results, english for economic development purposes should be able to: (1) supply materials that accommodate the student‟s discipline; (2) provide authentic material and assessment. the first point implies that english materials they have should convey their major need. meanwhile, for the second point, several researchers believe that presenting authentic materials and assessments will stimulate learners‟ eagerness to practice english skills (evans, 2013; kazar & mede, 2015). in addition, it also cultivates their motivation in language learning. this is to say since learning based on what learners need may boost their motivation which results in effective learning (hutchinson & waters, 1987). 5. conclusion need analysis becomes the pivotal aspect of esp. thus, exploring learners‟ current situation, target needs, and learning needs is the initial stage in order to embody effective and successful teaching and learning. in this current study, researchers address those three main elements in the need analysis (dudley-evans & st. john, 1998). first, in regards to the learning situation, economic development students perceived that english is significant for their professional future careers. however, in their present situation, they faced obstacles in speaking skills. they rated their english speaking proficiency as weak since their previous english course did not provide adequate materials in relation to their discipline. further, the class did not implement authentic materials and assessments on the economy. in the target situation, the researchers examined that economic development students highlight different goals in mastering four basics english skills namely listening, speaking writing, and reading. to this point, the lecturer should be able to integrate students‟ needs in every skill into a whole addressing english language needs of economic development 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(2013). elt in indonesian context : issues. englisia, 1(1), 81–98. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2021. vol. 8, no. 2, 16-30 behind the trend of englishing the business names in aceh, indonesia: a postcolonial analysis jarjani usman * universitas islam negeri ar-raniry, banda aceh, indonesia jarjani@ar-raniry.ac.id nurul faridah universitas islam negeri ar-raniry, banda aceh, indonesia nurulfrdayub@gmail.com mulia mulia universitas islam negeri ar-raniry, banda aceh, indonesia mulia@ar-raniry.ac.id manuscript received f e b r u a r y 5 , 2021, revised march 25, 2021, first published may 3, 2021, and available online may 17, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v8i2.8908 recommended apa citation usman, j., faridah, u., & mulia, m. (2021). behind the trend of englishing the business names in aceh, indonesia: a postcolonial analysis. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 8(2), 16-30. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.8908 abstract this study critically analyzes the recent trend of englishing shop names in aceh province. borrowing bhabha‟s postcolonial theory, this study attempted to uncover the shop owners‟ perceptions of privileging english and marginalizing local languages, even though their customers are mostly local. data collection was by taking pictures and interviewing 20 owners of the shops, four females and 16 males. results show that the 120 shop names in banda aceh and surrounding it are in english, modified english and indonesian ordering, hybridized english and indonesian ordering, hybridized english acehnese language and english, english and english ordering, and mixed owner‟s names and english ordering. they voluntarily mimicked the western culture by using english names because they believe that english is marketable, modern, practical, flexible, familiar, and short for shop branding, while the local language looks not modern, unpractical, and weird. in conclusion, most shop owners in the two districts in aceh negotiate the western hegemony for the economic benefits. keywords: hybridity; mimicry; negotiation; postcolonial theory; shop names * corresponding author https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.8908 jarjani usman, nurul faridah, & mulia mulia englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 17 1. introduction recent years have witnessed a new phenomenon in aceh, a province where islamic law has been implemented for decades. many shops have been named with english words or orderings. they prefer english to local languages and arabic, even though their customers are mostly indonesians and muslims. among the shop names are t café, a plus café, ring road café, to name just a few, indicating that english has been highly privileged and local languages are marginalized. the orderings have also been changed or adapted to the english orderings. bahasa indonesia uses noun + modifier ordering (for example, "warung kopi"), whereas english modifier + noun (for example, "kopi warung"). this phenomenon suggests that people in the province are suppressing their own cultural identity (i.e., language) through linguistic hybridity and mimicry of english as a representation of the western/imperial cultures or values. several scholars from indonesia have put their concerns on the negative influences of english on local languages, particularly the indonesian language, such as gunarwan (1998), hassall, murtisari, donnelly, and wood (2008), murtisari and mali (2017), sadtono (2013), and sunarto, sejati, and utomo (2020). as murtisari and mali (2017) cited, gunarwan (1998) argues that english constrains indonesian language learning as the people in indonesia tend to associate english with high status and prestige. even sadtono (2013) believes that english has made the indonesian language as an indonesian identity suffered, which he calls the “english tsunami.” of the scholars, only sunarto et al. (2020) use postcolonial concepts (e.g., mimicry and hybridity) to analyze the congrock music in semarang. a postcolonial analysis of the business names is scant in indonesia. this is probably due to the beliefs of many people that indonesia was not colonized by the british. we argue that acehnese people‟s privileging english and marginalizing indonesian or acehnese is an effect of colonialism, directly or indirectly. according to kumaravadivelu (2006, as cited in sharma, 2011), the english language carries with it its colonial form from four perspectives, including scholastic, linguistic, cultural, and economic. by the scholastic dimension, kumaravadivelu means disseminating western knowledge, which degrades local knowledge value, whereas the linguistic dimension means the global spread of english that negatively affects local languages and knowledge. the cultural dimension is about the effect of english teaching that carries with it the english-speaking countries' culture that devalues the local culture. the last one is the economic aspect, which is about the financial gain for the english-speaking countries and their elt professionals receive due to english teaching commodification. the trend behind privileging english and marginalizing indonesian or acehnese in aceh looks normal if seen on the surface. it is actually a manifestation of subjugation by a particular dominant ideology. in this regard, fairclough (2010) views language use as an ideological material form. by ideologies, fairclough (2003) means "representations of aspects of the world which can be shown to contribute to establishing, maintaining and changing social relations of power, domination and behind the trend of englishing the business names in aceh, indonesia: a postcolonial analysis 18 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 exploitation" (p. 9). moreover, harrison and boyd (2018), dominant ideologies permeate all aspects of society. bhabha (1994) believes that identity is shaped not due to a self-reflection in human nature or a place to show the self in culture and nature but due to the interaction with the other. in the phenomenon of the acehnese, people's identity privileging western values is inseparable from the interaction with globalization. many researchers have explored the phenomena of hybridity, mimicry, and ambivalence experienced by the people living in the previously colonized countries (ghandeharion, 2018; mostafaee, 2016) or those (diaspora) of colonized countries moving to and living in the colonizing countries (singh, 2009). the hybridity and mimicry, and ambivalence happen as the result of the interactions of the colonizing countries' cultures over the culture of those in the colonized countries. people in the colonized countries, voluntarily or by force, mimic or imitate the ways of life of those of colonizing countries, including their language. to uncover the practices, many researchers use the postcolonial theories, a theory that explores the colonials' remnants in the colonized countries. postcolonial theories have substantially been discussed and researched in many disciplines. some are used to analyze literary works (emezue, 2004; connel, 2003; malik & umrani, 2015; mostafaee, 2016; singh, 2010), education (nduati, 2016; viruru, 2005; wu & tarc, 2016), linguistics (bigon & hart, 2017), politics (craggs, 2018), economics (movuh, 2015), and arts (ghandeharion, 2018; sunarto et al., 2020). they found that some people were resistant and or negotiated with colonial/western values. their resistance is vivid through their disagreement with the colonial/western values. meanwhile, the negotiation with an agreement with (some of) the values, as shown in their daily practices. the agreement and or disagreement are inseparable from their beliefs or perceptions or identity, as many scholars argue that beliefs affect practices (fives, lacatena, & gerard, 2015; pajares, 1992). notwithstanding these studies, research about language that employs postcolonial theory is relatively few. nevertheless, all the reviewed studies have provided valuable references for this study by providing the framework to understanding the use of postcolonial theory in analyzing the colonial legacy in the ex-colonized countries, particularly on resistance, negotiation, mimicry, ambivalence, hybridity, and identity. this paper argues that privileging english but at the same time marginalizing local languages much depend on the shop owners‟ beliefs and identity, particularly their resistance or negotiation with western values. therefore, understanding their beliefs and perceptions behind the naming of their shops through the lens of postcolonial theory is crucial. it needs a few insights of postcolonial theory and how this framework informs our study. drawing upon the postcolonial theory, this study attempts to investigate and critically analyze the shop owners' beliefs behind their westernized shop names in the sharia implemented province of aceh. it intends to focus on the shop owners' mimicry jarjani usman, nurul faridah, & mulia mulia englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 19 and hybridity through unmasking their beliefs and practices of mimicking and hybridizing western values. 2. literature review 2.1. postcolonial theory the theory was firstly influenced by the publication of the book orientalism by edward said in 1977 (wang, 2018), has inspired other scholars in various disciplines. according to singh (2009), postcolonial studies refers to a broad range of inquiries related to the formerly colonized world, especially in literature, cultural anthropology, history, political science, religious studies, and sociology. inspired by said's work, bhabha (1984) develops a set of thought-provoking concepts of postcolonial theory, such as hybridity, mimicry, difference, ambivalence. bhabha and his proponents believe that even though the western/european colonization has physically ended, their legacy continues to prevail around the globe and shapes the people's identity in the colonized countries. some people mimic the culture of the colonial or colonizing countries. postcolonial theory is a critical theory that problematizes unchallenged colonial hegemonies of the european/western imperial. as widely known, in 1914, nearly 85 percent of the countries in the world were colonized by european colonial powers (huddart, 2005). when the colonialization has ended, its legacy remains in the colonized countries, colorizing and creating its hegemonies in all sectors. colonialization, as huddart (2005) argues, is going on, probably in cultural values. therefore, the emergence of postcolonial theory is considered crucial in challenging western values' dominant perspectives. it seeks justice for those who have been psychologically suffered, exploited, violated, and enslaved in the colonized countries (parsons & harding, 2011). this way can pave the way for creating awareness and empowering the marginalized and subordinated. these concepts describe how colonized peoples have resisted the power of the colonizer (huddart, 2005). according to bhabha, the three concepts (ambivalence, hybridity, and mimicry) are meticulously interwoven to interpret the postcolonial (burke, 2018). these concepts emphasize how people in the formerly colonized countries have resisted the power of the colonizer. however, a contrasting argument was made by during (2000), contending that these concepts "effectively became a reconciliatory rather than a critical, anti-colonialist category" (p. 386). the sections below shed light on two of the three concepts focused on this research. however, according to bhabha (1984), mimicking the colonial culture is not always all negative. one imitates the person in the dominant power hopes to have access to the same power. 2.1.1. mimicry mimicry is one of the concepts proposed by bhaba (1984), which means that the people in ex-colonized countries imitate or mimic the colonial society's values. in the same vein, tyson (2006) stated that people of the formerly colonized countries were behind the trend of englishing the business names in aceh, indonesia: a postcolonial analysis 20 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 encouraged to mimic their master manner, point of view, and values in the colonial discourse. this results in many kinds of mimicry, including iconic, linguistic, and visual. iconic mimicry denotes western icons' imitation (e.g., logos), whereas linguistic mimicry refers to the imitation of western languages (e.g., english). meanwhile, visual mimicry is imitating the western-looking models and female bodies' presentation. furthermore, tyson (2006) divides the causes of mimicry into two, including the colonized individuals who want to be accepted in the colonizer's society, and because the colonizer's hegemony has successfully made the colonized see their own culture as inferior. in addition, singh (2009) argues that mimicry also happens to those who have been the west countries and transformed themselves by mimicking western values. several studies have been conducted regarding the mimicry of western values. one of them is the research by ghandeharion (2018), analyzing iranian advertisements using the postcolonial semiotic reading approach. this study found that there are both negotiation and resistance to the western hegemony; negotiation through performing mimicry to standard principles in the west is salient. the western hegemony has influenced iranian advertisements' designs and uncovers the meanings behind the many advertisements, logos, and brand names, as the paragons of the identity and images of the products. this suggests that even though iran is opposed to western countries on the surface, they prefer to adopt western values in their advertisement. 2.1.2. hybridity the contact between two cultures can create a new cultural form, a third space, called hybridity in the colonized country. borrowing the notion of hybridity from a french philosopher jacques derrida, bhabha (1994, p. 112) defines hybridity is "a productive cultural fusion formed by the cultural contact between the colonizer and the colonized." similarly, ashcroft, griffiths, and tiffin (2007) stated that hybridity means the emergence of "a new transcultural form within the contact zone produced by colonization" (p. 108). bhabha calls this new culture the hybrid third space, in which people are neither of the colonizers nor colonized. in this regard, singh (2009) elaborates on many kinds of hybridity, including linguistic hybridity, racial hybridity, cultural hybridity, and religious hybridity. however, this paper focuses on linguistic hybridity as it intends to research the shop names in aceh province linguistically. in this regard, singh (2009) points out that linguistic hybridity occurs when a foreign language is used in a specific language. components of a foreign language are incorporated into a particular language, such as the use of english words in a language like asian or african, in ex-colonized countries, or vice versa. sing exemplified many vocabularies as a result of linguistic hybridity, such as "pajamas" and "bungalow," derived from the indian language and "mumbo jumbo" from the african language. 2.2. the beliefs and attitudes behind the privileging english jarjani usman, nurul faridah, & mulia mulia englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 21 people's beliefs are not neutral or free from being colonized because beliefs are not shaped and reshaped in isolation. beliefs one holds are socially shaped and culturally transferred (mcalpine, eriks-brophy, & crago, 1996). in this globalized era, people's beliefs have been shaped by the dominant culture, primarily western cultural values. moreover, it is essential to note that beliefs are very influential in one's practices, including the trend of englishing the shop names in aceh. for instance, teachers' beliefs can direct and control classroom actions (muller et al., 2008). that is why when researchers intend to explore one's practice, belief is one of the crucial components researched. nevertheless, what constitutes belief is still "messy" today. some see nearly similar to the notions' worldview' (schraw & olafson, 2002), 'attitude' and 'knowledge' (davis & andrzejewski, 2009) and 'knowledge' (joram, 2007). meanwhile, richardson (1996) conceptualizes belief as "thought of as psychologically held understandings, premises or propositions about the world that are thought to be true" (p.104). calderhead (1996) defines beliefs as "suppositions, commitments and ideologies," while knowledge to "factual propositions and understandings" (p.715). ertmer (2005) agrees with calderhead's definitions because we are still free to accept something as true or false after gaining knowledge of a proposition. hence, what is practiced in the society, like the privileging english for local shop names in aceh and marginalizing their own languages, can be said as the people's acceptance and submission to the western values. however, this claim needs to be proved through analyzing their perceptions or beliefs for naming their shops with english language. besides, many researchers have also investigated indonesian people's attitude towards the western language loanwords in indonesia (e.g., gunarwan, 1998; hassall et al., 2008). hassall et al. (2008) found that young, highly educated speakers have a strong liking and acceptance of western language loanwords. meanwhile, gunarwan (1998) found that indonesian people believe that english carries high status and prestige. 3. method this study uses the qualitative method as it is relevant to study the shop owners' beliefs for naming their shops in english. according to corbin and strauss (2008), the qualitative method enables researchers to listen respondents' inner experience, discover how meanings are constructed in a particular culture. hence, it is also pertinent to exploring the "messy" construct of beliefs (pajares, 1992), as the beliefs of the people in the ex-colonized countries are to some degrees subjugated by the colonialism for hundred years. drawing upon bhabha's (1984, 1994) mimicry and hybridity concepts, this study investigated the shop owners' beliefs in privileging english rather than acehnese or indonesian for their business names. through this way, it can unearth whether they resist or negotiate with western value hegemony, which english as one of behind the trend of englishing the business names in aceh, indonesia: a postcolonial analysis 22 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 them. this qualitative research involves an interpretive naturalistic approach to elucidate the research participants' points of view (denzin & lincoln, 2013). in having access to the participants, this study used convenient sampling was employed for practical reasons. convenient sampling is a nonprobability or nonrandom sampling where members of the target population meet specific practical criteria, such as easy accessibility, geographical proximity, availability at a given time, or the willingness to participate (dornyei, 2007). however, before collecting data, we had the consent of the shop owners. the data was collected by taking pictures the names of the shops, which were then followed by interviewing the shop owners. the researchers used semi-structured interviews to collect data from the shop owners in 2019. in semi-structured interviews, the shop owners were purposively selected and asked questions about the reasons and beliefs behind naming their shops. the interviews were held in bahasa indonesia in order to make them freely express their perceptions. moreover, the researchers asked their clarifications where necessary and followed up questions (griffe, 2012). in analyzing the data, this study followed the steps by hycner (1985) by transcribing the recordings, then listening to the interviews for a sense of a whole, eliminating redundancies, clustering units to relevant meaning, and finally summarizing themes. meanwhile, the pictures of the shop names were analyzed by categorizing them according to their appearance. 4. findings 4.1. respondents' demography this research involved 20 owners who consented to participate, four females and 16 males. in terms of age, they were still young, aged 13 to 37. their educational backgrounds range from high schools to undergraduates. 4.2. business sectors the research found that the types of businesses that use english for business names range from food and beverage, goods and services, body and fashion, to technology and credit sales. they include modified english and indonesian ordering (e.g., anugrah laundry, pelita mart, rizka boutique), modified english and english ordering (e.g., cheeze tea, moody steak), full indonesian and english ordering (e.g., ira jilbab), full english and english ordering (e.g., new fashion), mixing acehnese with english and english ordering (e.g., can cell), and mixing owner name with english and english ordering (e.g., d3d3k cell). jarjani usman, nurul faridah, & mulia mulia englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 23 table 1 categories of linguistics mimicry. no. business names categories 1. dezzert.po modified english + indonesian ordering 2. cheeze tea modified english + english ordering 3. central sticker full english + indonesian ordering owner distro 4. ira hijab full indonesian + english ordering 5. moody steak full english + english ordering limo farm new fashion shopaholic aigner perfume 6. sultan bhai laundry mixing english with pakistan language + english ordering 7. ceudah taylor can cell mixing acehnese with english + english ordering 8. anugrah laundry pelita mart kanya house riska boutique opin cell d3d3k cell nozy juice mixing owners name with english + english ordering table 1 above shows that the shop and business owners use diverse ways of linguistic mimicry, which are mostly rooted in english both the script and ordering. 4.3. behind the naming of their shops twenty young shop owners had various reasons for naming their shops with english names. their reasons can be categorized into themes, such as english representing modernity, youth, and global trends; the practicality and marketability of english names; and the familiarity of the customers with english. however, not all of their responses are presented in the following excerpts because many are similar. 4.3.1. english sense of modernity, youth, and global trend many of the shop owners reasoned that their use of english for their shop name was because it represents modernity, luxury, and attractiveness for youths. one of the shop owners said: i get the concept from many traders who sell the same products. the second reason, our customer target is youth. therefore, we use english to have the senses of youth, high class, and eyes-catching. these senses are not in indonesian or aceh language. english sounds different, luxurious, classy, modern and familiar in banda aceh. behind the trend of englishing the business names in aceh, indonesia: a postcolonial analysis 24 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 one of them added that the shops in banda aceh and its surroundings need to use english because their customers are young people, especially students. as he said, “banda aceh is the capital city which has many university students who get used to english, therefore, i think at present many aceh youths who have understood many english vocabularies.” besides, many of their young customers prefer using english when buying the products. one of them said, “in average, my customers are teenagers with range of 19-26 years old... even majority of customers use such terms such as, belt, size, instead of “tali pinggang” and “ukuran” and many others.” using english to attract foreign customers/buyers is another reason for the shop owners to name their shops by mimicking and hybridizing the names in english speaking countries and english ordering. he said that many foreigners often buy things from his shop. he said, “i use the word “cell” in order the foreigners who need it could recognize this shop, so they would buy here because i had experience was visited by foreigners who came here.” this reason implies that acehnese are also not confident to use indonesian and acehnese languages, even though for the shops located in banda aceh and aceh besar where majority of population use local acehnese and bahasa indonesia. another owner said, “english sounds cool and young. besides, my shop name has addicting meaning, so i expect at once they want to go shopping they would go here. another reason is to represent the goods i offer.” it is also apparent from the shop owners‟ preference of using english rather than local and national languages, such as acehnese and bahasa indonesia, that they believe local languages are not modern. besides, local languages are not practical, nor represent the youths‟ languages. put differently, youths in this globalized era, according to the shop owners‟ beliefs, have no longer preferred their local and national languages. 4.3.2. the feelings of pride, practicality, and marketability of english the shop owners felt that using english for shop names is a pride for him. besides, english is practical, unique and marketable. these can be understood, among others, through the following excerpt: there are many reasons, first because indonesian is not really marketable, not like english. to avoid a low-rate and cheap impression of our products, i use english to increase market value. english use gives a classy impression, which can attract customers and be proud to buy our products. another reason english is efficient since the word does not spend much space as a product label. another owner said that he uses english for his shop name because of its simplicity and suitability for shop names. he said, “we name our shop “central sticker” because sounds simple and better than use indonesian, “pusat stiker”, which sounds not good.” he also added that, “we created the logo earlier, cs, then chose any words that suits the initial of our logo. finally, we thought the words, “central sticker”, which jarjani usman, nurul faridah, & mulia mulia englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 25 each word begins with letter c and s fits the logo.” similar thing was said by an owner, “because if translated to indonesian, it becomes “teh keju” which sounds weird and inappropriate to use. in addition, as pronounce english is felt more suitable and occasionally is more flexible and sounds not quite formal than indonesian.” the excerpts also indicate that the functions of local languages (e.g., acehnese and indonesian languages) have been reduced. local languages are no longer functional in marketing, nor flexible. more importantly, they believe that it will look weird and does not attract young local people as their potential customers or buyers, if words of local languages are used for the shop names. however, using english, according to the shop owners, can increase customers‟ pride. 4.3.3. the customers’ familiarity with english ten business owners stated that they used english names for their shops because of their customers‟ preference. they believe that their customers have been (more) familiar with the english words. among their reasons are: “because people have been familiar with the word „perfume.‟ generally, perfume business uses this word for their shops names. meanwhile, if i use the word “minyak wangi” it sounds not marketable.” not only the seller of perfume, the owner of food shop also has similar reason, “my focus business is in dessert, so its brand name suits the product. in addition, many people have been familiar with the term dessert which means “makanan pencuci mulut” in indonesian.” the above descriptions show that the shop owners‟ practice has been shaped by their beliefs that english is better than acehnese and indonesian languages. their beliefs infer that local languages are no longer familiar for young generations in aceh. in the other words, acehnese or indonesian language has been alienated by the local people. 4.3.4. owners’ educational background and living experiences two of the shop owners reasoned that they name their shops with english words because their educational background and the suggestion of his sister who studied at english department. one of the shop owners said, “my education background is english education department so that is why i put the word “house” and i just do not want use indonesian or aceh language.” nearly similar to the opinion, another owner reasoned, “besides those reasons, the shop name selection is also helped by the owner‟s sister who studies in english department and i think since her educational background she considers choosing that words.” another shop owner expressed that he names his shop in english because used to live abroad: “my other reasons to use english is also because of my experiences living in malaysia for ten years where most people there use the combination of english and malay language in daily life.” the excerpts above clearly show that their english learning has made them change their cultural identity to mimicking the western values. this is an evident that behind the trend of englishing the business names in aceh, indonesia: a postcolonial analysis 26 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 learning a language, such as english, is not only learning to use it, but also to learn its cultural values. the names of shops found in foreign countries they used to live have inspired the shop owners in aceh to mimic them. 4.3.5. unawareness of using english it appears that not all of the shop owners were not really aware of using english for their shop names. at least, two of them expressed similar reason: the word “farm” for me who studied in the faculty of veterinary has been very familiar, because it was used by my lecturers in the classroom every day. the word has been very commonly used and mixed with indonesian word. i did not realize that the word “farm” originates from english language. i thought “cell” is in indonesian language, while cellular is english language. but now i realize that “cell” is an english word. however, i think there is no appropriate word to say cell in indonesian, so i just continue using this word. in addition, the word cell is normally used in banda aceh. the two excerpts above clearly show that the shop owners mimic the trends in the business world in the province. they mimic what has commonly been practiced in the formerly colonized by british, malaysia, where people have also mimicked their master‟s values. 5. discussion the findings demonstrate that the shop owners‟ mimicking the western trends is strongly influenced by the beliefs and feelings of the shop owners. they believe and feel that english is a language that represents modernity, youngness, global trend, pride, practicality, and marketability, whereas indonesian and acehnese languages do not. this may suggest that their views and beliefs have been subjugated to privilege western values. they have also negotiated with western hegemony, and have marginalized their local and national languages. to some extent, the finding is contrary to a previous study by ghandeharion (2018) revealed that iranian advertisements negotiate with and resist western hegemony with negotiation more widespread than resistance. ghandeharion found that easterners mostly reject their traditions because of not-modernized. the finding shows that although the customer target is majority acehnese who lives in the province where sharia law has been implemented, they do not use the arabic language for their shop names. it does not mean that they are anti-western influence. however, the arabic language as the islamic language seems absent to be used in shop or business names. the findings are consistent with what singh (2009) stated that people tend to suppress their own cultural identity, if they feel unclear their existing identity. they jarjani usman, nurul faridah, & mulia mulia englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 27 have been unable to find the pride, practicality, and marketability of their own language as a cultural identity. besides, the finding corresponds with tyson‟s (2006) that the excolonizers‟ hegemony has created inferiority in colonized people‟s minds toward their own culture. their living abroad, for instance, has made them feel ambivalent with their cultural identity and feel inferior with their own language. singh (2009) argues that people who have been abroad, particularly to the west, frequently transform themselves to mimic the western cultural values. 6. conclusion after analyzing and discussing the results, the present study reveals twofold conclusions. firstly, the shop owners in the islamic sharia-implemented province have privileged english, marginalized the local language, and changed the local language order. secondly, the shop owners have linguistically mimicked and hybridized their shop or business names in 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(2016). translations and paradoxes of „western‟pedagogy: perspectives of english language teachers in a chinese college. l2 journal, 8(4). englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2021. vol. 8, no. 2, 54-71 probing prompting strategy to improve young learner’s speaking skills in palopo city muhammad iksan * institut agama islam negeri palopo, indonesia miksan@iainpalopo.ac.id amalia yahya institut agama islam negeri palopo, indonesia amalia_yahya@iainpalopo.ac.id rosmita rosmita institut agama islam negeri palopo, indonesia rosmita_mhs@iainpalopo.ac.id manuscript received n o vem b er 1 8 , 2020, revised february 25, 2021, first published may 3, 2021, and available online may 17, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v8i2.8255 recommended apa citation iksan, m., yahya, a., & rosmita, r. (2021). probing prompting strategy to improve young beginner’s speaking skills in palopo city. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 8(2), 54-71. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.8255 abstract this paper attempted to examine the efficacy of the probing-prompting technique in teaching speaking skills to young beginner english learners. this study employed the experimental method with a pre-experimental design. the subjects of this study were english learners age 16 to 19 in palopo city who were chosen using a purposive sampling technique to select the active learners. using the oral presentation task, the writers compiled three aspects of the learner's score, i.e. accuracy, fluency, and comprehensibility. the experimental teaching was conducted in six meetings, preceded by a pre-test and ended by a post-test. the pre-test found that the learners’ speaking skill ability is low (mean score: 25.75). in post-test, the authors found that the learners’ language ability substantially improved. some learners get significant improvement in every aspect of speaking skills, i.e. fluency, accuracy, and comprehensibility. the strategy also contributed to the increase in the mean score (51.50). as a result, the writers concluded that probing-prompting strategy successfully improves the learners’ speaking skills. it is proven by the result of the paired-sample test which showed that tcount (7,584) is higher than t-table (2,365). * corresponding author https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.8255 muhammad iksan, amalia yahya, & rosmita rosmita englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 55 keywords: probing prompting; teaching speaking skills; young learners 1. introduction english, as an international language, become an urgent language to be mastered to communicate and interact with people around the world. furthermore, globalization, as well as free trade, and the asean economic community era, demand people to be active communicator of international language, including english. in the context of indonesia, english has been taught at schools since elementary school. however, the english proficiency of indonesian people still considered low. according to the ef english proficiency index, indonesians’ english proficiency ranks 74 out of 100 countries worldwide and ranks 15th out of 25 countries in asia (ef, 2020). this data showed that the government as well as the english educators of indonesia, still need to work harder to improve the english proficiency of the people to maintain competitiveness in this disruptive global era. this effort should be started at an early age, in elementary education level, and be strengthened in the next level, in junior until senior high school level. having a look at the english proficiency of young learners, especially in speaking skills as a productive skill, an unpleasant fact was later discovered. mostly, after learning english formally and non-formally for at least 9-12 years, their speaking skill is still considered low (sukirmiyadi, 2018). the problems become homework for english educators to take a look back at their english language teaching. they need to modify and adapt their method, techniques, strategies, and teaching materials to help the learners improve their english proficiency (iksan & dirham, 2018). in english classes, the learners often feel uncomfortable using english in their communication and interactions, and they feel unconfident doing so. young learners are very sensitive and some of them are too shy to speak english in the classroom. getting learners to speak english and keeping them on-tasked isn’t always easy. still, educators should always find a way by experimenting with different techniques and activities and a way of helping them deal with this problem. applying some techniques and strategies in the english classroom is one of the possible solutions for their english language teaching. in this study, the writers tried to use a probing-prompting strategy to help the learners to get out from their english learning obstacles and improve their speaking skills. probing-prompting is a learning strategy in which the teacher conveys questions that are guided and explored that can trigger the thinking process. as a result, they can find new information related to the knowledge that they have and this strategy can direct learners to get used to talking and dare to convey ideas and require learners to think critically in facing problems. literally, “probing” means an investigation, examination. while “prompting” means pushing or guiding. investigation or examination aims to obtain information that already exists in learners to use it to understand new knowledge or concepts. in probingprompting strategy, the teacher poses numerous questions that can make students probing prompting strategy to improve young learner’s speaking skills in palopo city 56 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 explore their knowledge. a thought process arises that links the knowledge and experience of each student with new knowledge they learned. with this learning model, all learners will participate actively because the question and answer (q&a) phase are done randomly so that they cannot escape the current learning process. after all, every student engages in the q&a cycle (elvandari & supardi, 2016). therefore, to solve the learners’ problem in speaking, the writer did the study to find out whether the probing prompting strategy is effective or not in improving the learners’ speaking skills. 2. literature review 2.1. research on probing prompting technique the writer found multiple studies exploring the use of the probing prompting technique in english language teaching and learning relevant to the study of teaching speaking in english. marliasari and okta (2018) examined eighth-grade reading teaching by smpn 7 palembang students using a technique to encourage probing. the study showed that by using the questioning prompting technique, there was an improvement in the reading achievement of students after learning. it can be seen from the data of experimental study, where one student got the lowest score of 50 with the top score of 80. so, the writers can infer that in the learning process, the efficient probing prompting technique is used. another study about maximizing the ability to read narrative texts by using probing prompting learning technique was also investigated by pratiwi, tria, and dewi (2017). the writers carried out this research in the tenth grade of kartikatama metro high school and found that the probing prompting technique has a maximum effect on the ability of students to read narrative texts, as shown by their improved scores. in the learning process, the students were chosen randomly. therefore, students must participate actively and cannot avoid the learning process. as a result, all students got involved in the question and answer process to make them understand how to get general and specific information from the text easily. besides, in simple past tense learning at madrasah tsanawiyah negeri 2 medan, hasibuan (2018) conducted a study using prompting probing technique. in the pre-test, she found that the control class mean score was 64.67, and the experimental class's mean score was 80.50. from the average value of these two classes, it can be seen that there is a difference between the two and also after using the probing prompting strategy student achievement increases. thus, the researcher concluded that the use of probing prompting strategies could affect student learning (hasibuan, 2018). in comparison, alfian, dwijanto, and sunarmi (2017) investigated students' ability to think creatively and enthusiasm in mathematics learning by using the probing prompting learning model with the scaffolding strategy. this researcher used an experiment with a control class design. the application of these two strategies is very effective because stimulated mathematical creative thinking abilities and curiosity in the learning process. based on the previous studies above, the writers can generalize that the use of the muhammad iksan, amalia yahya, & rosmita rosmita englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 57 probing-prompting strategy in teaching reading skills, teaching simple past tense, and teaching mathematics, can improve students learning. especially in teaching reading, it can make the students understand the simple past tense easily and make students creative. while teaching mathematics, evokes the students’ curiosity. meanwhile, this paper tried to apply probing prompting to improve students' speaking skills. 2.1.1. probing prompting the term probing-prompting consists of the words "probing" and "prompting". the word "probing" means digging or track. while in the common term, probing means trying to obtain clearer or deeper information. syamsir and noviarni (2018) define probing in-class learning as a technique to guide students to use the knowledge that already exists to understand the symptoms or the current situation observed to form comprehension. they suggested that the probing technique can be used as a technique to improve the quality and quantity of student answers. the questions intended to guide the student so that the contents can find a correct answer. the probing technique begins by exposing students to the situation new containing puzzles or real objects. the new situation makes students experience conflict with the knowledge they already have to provide opportunities for students to assimilation, and this is where probing begins to be needed further, the word "prompting" means "directing, demanding". according to chin and osborne (2008), prompting means questions that can give direction to students in the process of thinking. chin and osborne (2008) suggest three types of forms of prompting questions: first, changing the order of questions in simpler words which brings them back to the original question; second, asking questions with different simpler words that are adjusted to meet the students’ knowledge and giving a review of the information provided, and third, asking questions which help students to remember or see the answer. probing prompting strategy is very closely related to questions. in probing prompting learning, a teacher asking questions to students that dig student knowledge and guide students to associate new knowledge he gained with the knowledge he had obtained. in learning probing prompting, there are two forms of questions, namely probing question and prompting question. therefore, it can be inferred that probing prompting strategy is a learning method that offers questions that can direct and explore student responses to find out the degree to which students’ current knowledge, and provide students with opportunities to get fresh information from their peers. 2.1.1.1. the procedure for applying probing prompting the probing prompting learning steps are administered through seven stages, as suggested by huda (2013 as cited in utami, 2016), which can be adapted into the context of english language teaching. firstly, the whole students wait for several probing prompting strategy to improve young learner’s speaking skills in palopo city 58 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 minutes to allow the learners to create responses or have a short discussion, the teacher poses issues with specific learning goals or indicators. secondly, the teacher waits a while to allow the learners to construct responses or hold a small discussion. thirdly, the teacher designates one student to respond to the question. fourthly, when the response is correct, the teacher requests feedback from other learners about the response to clarify the whole learners are engaged in ongoing activities. however, if students' response is incorrect or keeps silent, the teacher requests other questions as a follow-up that allows students to think earlier about the questions to answer the questions with true questions. next, the teacher asks questions that make the students thinking at a higher level, and the students will be able to answer the questions based on their prior knowledge. after that, all students must be involved in probing prompting activities, and the teacher can ask different questions to several students. lastly, the teacher must recognize that the indicators are comprehensible for all students so that by the end of the final task, the teacher stresses and challenges students. prompting can be done by reorder-rephrasing, using simple and relevant questions with questions early, and providing additional information so students can answer. 2.1.2. speaking skills several experts proposed different theories about speaking skills. for example, richard (2008) describes speaking as a way to communicate something effectively and it is necessary since speaking is one kind of communication. at the same time, bygate (2003) mentions that speaking, as literary skill also deserve attention, both in the first and second languages. it can also improve professional and business progress, social rankings and are very good for social solidarity. since speaking has an important goal which is to foster self-confidence and therefore, when speaking someone must express ideas, opinions, and the desire to do something, solve certain problems, and create good social relations as well as friendship (mcdonough & shaw, 2012). the researchers may infer from the explanation that speaking is one of the essential skills to have in life. because when we often talk to someone, it will increase solidarity in the community to create good social relationships and friendships, thus solving the problems we face in society. 2.1.2.1. teaching speaking according to wong and nunan (2011), teaching speaking is to teach english learners to generate english speech sounds and their patterns; to use word and sentence stress, intonation patterns and the second-language rhythm; to choose appropriate words and phrases in the right social context, audience, circumstance and the right subject; to organize their thought in a coherent and logical sequence; to be fluent and confident in using the language with few unnatural delays called fluency nunan (2003) also suggests that teaching means providing an individual with information (skills, etc.) while teaching speaking means instructing a person to connect muhammad iksan, amalia yahya, & rosmita rosmita englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 59 with others. therefore, teachers and learners must get involved in the active and communicative teaching and learning process. in this process, teachers sometimes downplays precision and emphasizes how students speak the target language. 2.1.2.2. the assessment of speaking one of the tasks in teaching speaking is an evaluation or assessment of the learners’ progress in their language skill mastery. rahmawati and ertin (2014) mention several aspects regarding the assessment criteria in teaching speaking skills which include grammar, vocabulary, comprehension, fluency, and pronunciation. in terms of grammar, the teacher should see students' use of sentences, whether it is correct and accurate, and avoid grammatical errors in speaking. for vocabulary, the teacher should see the accurate vocabulary the learners use in their speaking. for comprehension, the teacher should see the students’ ability in understanding what a person is saying which will help to give a good response to a question. in terms of fluency, it is necessary to see students’ ability in producing good pronunciation, which will create a good presentation so that listeners can easily give feedback on what they have heard. while for pronunciation, the teacher should see the students’ accuracy in pronouncing words to make the listener can easily understand what the speaker said. in short, the conclusion is the assessment of speaking is very important to understand. assessment of speaking will become important think to listeners because they can accept any information from the speaker and give the feedback to respond to what the speaker says. 3. method 3.1. research design this research is a quantitative study with a pre-experimental design. the research included a pre-test, treatment, and post-test. the pre-test is to assess the speech skills of the learners before moving to the treatment stage while the post-test intended to measure the speaking skills of students after the treatment stage. 3.2. the subject of the study the subjects of this study were young english learners in palopo, age range between 16-19 years old. they consisted of senior high school and first-year university students. 53 learners were being observed, and using purposive sampling technique, the writers chose eight learners who met the criteria: active english learners with low english proficiency (beginner level). 3.3. the instruments of the study 3.3.1. speaking test this test was given to learners to find out their ability to speak. there were two tests given, namely pre-test and post-test. in the pre-test, the learners gave their opinion probing prompting strategy to improve young learner’s speaking skills in palopo city 60 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 about education. the second test, post-test, was given after treatment and the topic was to give opinions about learning online and each student has 3-5 minutes to express their opinions in the pre-test and post-test. 3.3.2. tape recorder the writers used a tape recorder to record the learners’ voice. if there was something unclear in the expression of opinions by learners, the writers can listen again through a tape recorder. 3.4. the procedure for collecting data in gathering the data, the writers followed the procedure below: 3.4.1. pre-test the pre-test was given before the treatment. in this stage, the writers asked the students to come in front of the class. the writers then asked the students to give an opinion about education and each student has 3-5 minutes to express their opinions. 3.4.2. treatment the writers conducted the treatment for five meetings in the class. the steps were as follow: a. in meeting 1, the writers explained the material about asking and giving opinions. then the writers gave some examples of dialogues that contain giving and asking opinion, and the writers asked learners to practice dialogue with their friend. after that, the writers gave learners a topic is about “what do you think about friendship?” and then the writers asked students to respond to the question one by one. if the answers given were wrong, the writers asked a follow-up question that required learners to think in the direction of the original question so that the student could answer the question correctly. b. in meeting 2, the writers explained the material about asking and giving opinions. then the writers gave some examples of dialogues that contain giving and asking opinion, and the writers asked learners to practice dialogue with their friend. after that, the writers gave learners a topic is about “what do you think about family?” and then the writers asked learners one by one to answer the question. if the answers given were wrong, the writers asked a follow-up question that requires learners to think in the direction of the original question so that the student could answer the question correctly. c. in meeting 3, the writers explained the material about asking and giving opinions. then the writers gave some examples of dialogues that contain giving and asking opinion, and the writers asked learners to practice dialogue with their friend. after that, the writers gave learners a topic is about “what do you think about the sport?” and then the writers request the learners to respond to muhammad iksan, amalia yahya, & rosmita rosmita englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 61 the question one by one. if the answers were incorrect, the authors asked a follow-up question that demanded that students to think towards the original question to address the question correctly. d. in meeting 4, the writers explained the material about asking and giving opinions. then the writers gave some examples of dialogues that contain giving and asking opinion, and the writers asked learners to practice dialogue with their friend. after that, the writers gave learners a topic is about “what do you think about the holiday?” and then the writers requested the learners to respond to the question one by one. if the responses were incorrect, the authors asked a follow-up question that required learners to think in the direction of the original question so that the student could answer the question correctly. e. in meeting 5, the writers explained the material about asking and giving opinions. then the writers gave some examples of dialogues that contain giving and asking opinion, and the writers asked learners to practice dialogue with their friend. after that, the writers gave learners a topic about “what do you think about smoking?” and then the writers requested the learners to respond to the question one by one. if the answers given were wrong, the writers asked a follow-up question that required learners to think in the direction of the original question so that the student could answer the question correctly. 3.4.3. post-test the post-t-test was conducted in the sixth meeting. in the post-test, the writers did the same activities as in the pre-test. the topic was to give opinions on learning online at home. the writers tested the learners’ speaking one by one, whether learners speaking had improved or still the same with the pre-test. 3.5. the technique of data analysis the writers then analyzed the data that has gone through the pre-test, treatment, and post-test in the following stages: scoring classification in analyzing the speaking test results, the writers followed the assessment criteria given by j.b. heaton (1988) that includes accuracy, fluency, and comprehensibility. 1. accuracy table 1 accuracy scores. classifications scores indicators excellent 6 there are two or more small grammatical and lexical errors and are a little influenced by your mother tongue in speech. probing prompting strategy to improve young learner’s speaking skills in palopo city 62 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 very good 5 the pronunciation is quite correct; there are some small grammatical and lexical errors and are influenced a little by the mother tongue. good 4 the mother tongue quite influences the pronunciation to make the listener a little confused. however, there are not many phonological errors. average 3 there are serious phonological errors influenced by the mother tongue, giving rise to many grammatical and lexical errors. poor 2 many basic grammatical and lexical errors cause interference in communication because the mother tongue influences it very poor 1 do not practice in the course so that you do not master any of the language skills. it causes many basic grammar and lexical mistakes that lead to serious mispronunciation 2. fluency table 2. fluency score. classifications scores indicators excellent 6 occasionally think of words in a short time and speak casually, using quite extensive expressions. very good 5 occasionally think of words, but the pronunciation is fluent. good 4 trying to think of words with pauses that are not too long, the pronunciation is smooth enough to convey the general meaning. average 3 it requires a lot of time to think about what to say, the meaning conveyed is clear and the expressions used are limited. poor 2 requires a lot of time to think about what to say, stuttering, and limited expression. very poor 1 thinking of arranging words in a long time lag so that there are no expressions and unclear pronunciation. 3. comprehensibility table 3 comprehensibility score. classifications scores indicators excellent 6 there's a little interference, but the audience can understand the speaker quickly. very good 5 there are some disturbances by the audience, so it needs to be clarified. the submission of meaning by the speaker is quite clear. good 4 most of the pronunciation is easy to understand even though it takes time to clarify what the speaker said. muhammad iksan, amalia yahya, & rosmita rosmita englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 63 average 3 the audience is unable to understand many more complex sentences. however, the audience can comprehend what he says. poor 2 the speaker only conveys sentences and short phrases, so with difficulty, it must be understood by someone who is listening to the speaker. very poor 1 the speaker cannot clarify what he is saying. even when the listener tries hard to understand what the speaker is saying, almost no one can understand. source: heaton (1988) 3.6. classification of learners score based on the research above, the writers also list the rating classifications used to provide the grades obtained by learners. the following is in the classification scale rating: table 4 classifications of the learner’s score. classifications scales ratings excellent very good good average poor very poor 6 5 4 3 2 1 86-100 71-85 56-70 41-55 26-40 ≤25 calculation of the learners’ score percentage using the formula: p = f x 100% n where: p = percentage f = frequency of items n = total number of learners the hypothesis acceptability criteria: t-table ≥ t-count: the rejected null hypothesis t-count < t-table: received null hypothesis 4. findings 4.1. pre-test within this part, the writers display the speaking skills scores of the learners in the pre-test, the learners’ mean and standard deviation scores, as well as the percentage score of the learners’ speaking skills. the writers show the scores in tables, then probing prompting strategy to improve young learner’s speaking skills in palopo city 64 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 compute the scores with the assistance of spss 20. table 5 the learners’ score in the pre-test. no respondent the aspects of speaking score of test accuracy fluency comprehensibility 1 r1 1 1 1 18 2 r2 1 1 1 18 3 r3 2 2 2 33 4 r4 1 1 2 20 5 r5 1 2 2 33 6 r6 2 2 1 33 7 r7 2 1 2 33 8 r8 1 1 1 18 total 11 11 11 206 mean score 25.75 within this part, the writers describe the learners’ speaking skills average score in series starting from accuracy, fluency, and finally comprehensibility: 1. accuracy in calculating the average score of learners' accuracy in the pre-test, the writers used spss 20 application to determine descriptive statistics and the rate of percentage of accuracy. the results are presented in the following table: table 6 accuracy descriptive analysis. n minimum maximum mean std. deviation accuracy 8 1.00 2.00 1.3750 .51755 valid n (listwise) 8 table 7 the rate of percentage score of learners’ accuracy in the pre-test. classification score rating pre – test frequency percentage (%) excellent 86-100 6 0 0 very good 71-85 5 0 0 good 56-70 4 0 0 average 41-55 3 0 0 poor 26-40 2 3 37.5 % very poor ≤25 1 5 62.5 % total 8 100% 2. fluency in computing the average score of learners' fluency in the pre-test, the writers utilized spss 20 to determine descriptive statistics and the rate of percentage of fluency. the results are presented in the following table: muhammad iksan, amalia yahya, & rosmita rosmita englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 65 table 8 fluency descriptive analysis. n minimum maximum mean std. deviation fluency 8 1.00 2.00 1.3750 .51755 valid n (listwise) 8 table 9 the rate of percentage score of learners’ fluency in the pre-test. classification score rating pre – test frequency percentage (%) excellent 86-100 6 0 0 very good 71-85 5 0 0 good 56-70 4 0 0 average 41-55 3 0 0 poor 26-40 2 3 37.5 % very poor ≤25 1 5 62.5 % total 8 100% 3. comprehensibility in calculating the average score of learners' comprehensibility in the pre-test, the writers utilized spss 20. the spss 20 was used to analyze the descriptive statistics and the percentage of comprehensibility. the results are presented in the following table: table 10 descriptive statistics of comprehensibility in the pre-test. n minimum maximum mean std. deviation comprehensibility 8 1.00 2.00 1.5000 .53452 valid n (listwise) 8 table 11 the learners’ comprehensibility percentage score. classification score rating pre – test frequency percentage (%) excellent 86-100 6 0 0 very good 71-85 5 0 0 good 56-70 4 0 0 average 41-55 3 0 0 poor 26-40 2 4 50% very poor ≤25 1 4 50% total 8 100% post-test within this part, the writers display the scores of the learners’ speaking skills in the post-test, as well as the learners mean and standard deviation scores, and the percentage score of the learners’ speaking skills. the writers show the scores in tables, then compute the scores with the assistance of spss 20: probing prompting strategy to improve young learner’s speaking skills in palopo city 66 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 table 12 the learners’ speaking skill comprehensibility score. no respondent the aspect of speaking score of test accuracy fluency comprehensibility 1 r1 2 2 3 41 2 r2 3 3 3 55 3 r3 4 4 4 64 4 r4 2 3 2 41 5 r5 3 4 4 64 6 r6 2 3 3 53 7 r7 2 2 3 41 8 r8 3 2 3 53 total 21 23 25 412 mean score 51.50 within this part, the writers describe the learners’ speaking skills average score in series starting from accuracy, fluency, and finally comprehensibility: 1. accuracy to calculate the average score of learners' accuracy in the post-test, the writers used spss 20 to analyze the descriptive statistics and the percentage of accuracy. the results are presented in the following table: table 13 accuracy descriptive analysis. n minimum maximum mean std. deviation accuracy 8 2.00 4.00 2.6250 .74402 valid n (listwise) 8 table 14 the learners’ accuracy percentage score. classification score rating post – test frequency percentage (%) excellent 86-100 6 0 0 very good 71-85 5 0 0 good 56-70 4 1 12.5% average 41-55 3 3 37.5 % poor 26-40 2 4 50 % very poor ≤25 1 0 0 total 8 100% 2. fluency to calculate the average score of learners' fluency in the post-test, the writers used spss 20 to analyze the descriptive statistics and the percentage of accuracy. the results are presented in the following table: muhammad iksan, amalia yahya, & rosmita rosmita englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 67 table 15 fluency descriptive analysis. n minimum maximum mean std. deviation fluency 8 2.00 4.00 2.8750 .83452 valid n (listwise) 8 table 16 the rate of percentage score of learners’ fluency in post-test. classification score rating post – test frequency percentage (%) excellent 86-100 6 0 0 very good 71-85 5 0 0 good 56-70 4 2 25% average 41-55 3 3 37.5% poor 26-40 2 3 37.5 % very poor ≤25 1 0 0 total 8 100% 3. comprehensibility to calculate the average score of learners’ comprehensibility in the post-test, the writers used spss 20. the writers used spss 20 to analyze the descriptive statistics and the percentage of comprehensibility. the results are presented in the following table: table 17 descriptive statistics of comprehensibility in post-test. n minimum maximum mean std. deviation comprehensibility 8 2.00 4.00 3.1250 .64087 valid n (listwise) 8 table 18 the comprehensibility percentage score. classification score rating pre – test frequency percentage (%) excellent 86-100 6 0 0 very good 71-85 5 0 0 good 56-70 4 2 25% average 41-55 3 5 62.5% poor 26-40 2 1 12.5% very poor ≤25 1 0 0 total 8 100% the mean score and standard deviation of pre-test and post-test after presenting the descriptive statistics table and the learners' scores percentage in pre-test and post-test according to the speaking aspects (accuracy, fluency, and comprehensibility), the writers also obtained the mean and standard deviation values probing prompting strategy to improve young learner’s speaking skills in palopo city 68 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 using spss 20. it can be seen in the paired sample statistic table below: table 19 the mean score and standard deviation of pre-test and post-test paired samples statistics. mean n std. deviation std. error mean pair 1 pre-test 25.7500 8 7.77817 2.75000 posttest 51.5000 8 9.71008 3.43303 table 19 is about pre-test and post-test paired sample statistics. it can be found that the speaking skills of the learners are improved and that the pre-tests and post-tests differ significantly and that writers used the test study and measured the hypothesis with spss 20 to determine acceptance. as shown in the following table, the outcome is: table 20 the paired-samples correlation of pre-test and post-test paired-samples correlations. n correlation sig. pair 1 pre-test & post-test 8 .414 .308 table 21 the paired-sample test of pre-test and post-test paired-samples test. paired differences t df sig. (2tailed) mean std. deviatio n std. error mean 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper pair 1 pre-test posttest 25.7500 0 9.60283 3.39511 33.7781 6 17.7218 4 7.584 7 .000 in table 20, the writers found that to (tcount )= 7,584 and df (degree of freedom) = 7.while the tt= 2,365, the degree of freedom (df) = 7, with the standard of significant = 5% based on the findings above, it is shown that the t-count (t0) is higher than the t-table (tt). it can be determined that there is a significant deficiency between the learners’ speaking skills score before and after the teaching using the probing prompting strategy. muhammad iksan, amalia yahya, & rosmita rosmita englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 69 5. discussion in this section, the writers discussed the study's findings, and the statistical analysis result to answer the research questions this. in this study, three items were analyzed by the writers based on the speaking assessment procedures, namely the accuracy, fluency, and comprehensibility. the writers selected eight learners as the respondent and gave five meetings of treatments. before and after the treatment, the writers gave a pre-test and post-test to determine the learners’ speaking skill score. in the pre-test, the writers gave the question “what learners think about education”? to the learners and found that in the accuracy and fluency, there were no learners (0%) who got excellent, very good, good, and average. there were only 3 learners (37.5%) who got poor and 5 others (62.5%) who got very poor. as in the comprehensibility, none of the learners (0%) got excellent, good, very good, and average. there were 4 learners (50%) who got poor, and, the last there are also 4 learners (50%) who got very poor. in post-test, the writers asked “what learners think about learning at home/online learning?” to the learners. the post-test was carried out after giving five treatments to learners. this was done to determine the increase in learners' speaking skills. on accuracy, there was 1 learner (12.5%) who got good scores, 3 learners (37.5%) got average, 4 learners (50%) got poor scores. in fluency, there are 2 learners (25%) who got good grades. there are 3 learners (37.5%) who got average, and 3 learners (37.5%) got poor. meanwhile, 2 learners (25%) got a good grade in comprehensibility skill. there were 5 learners (62.5%) who got on average, 1 student (12.5%) got it poor. the analysis result figured out that probing prompting strategy successfully helped the learners to improve their speaking skills. it is shown by the pre-test mean scores of learners were 25.75 and the post-test 51.50, and the standard deviation from the pre-test was 7.77, and the post-test was 9.71 (table 19). this result is in line with the previous studies conducted by marliasari and okta (2018). they found that there is progress in learners' reading achievement after learning by using probing prompting strategy. the similarity of this study with marliasari and okta (2018) study is both of the studies investigated the application of the probing prompting strategy in teaching english. the difference between these studies is the language skills that each of the studies focused on. the final result of this study figured out that probing prompting strategy is not only effective for teaching reading skills but also speaking skills (marliasari & okta, 2018). this finding is also similar to what pratiwi et al. (2017), found from the investigation of the implementation of the probing prompting strategy to maximize the learners’ reading skills on narrative texts. they found that probing prompting strategy provides the maximum on learners' abilities in narrative texts as indicated by the improved scores. the discussions above shows that probing prompting is a good strategy to use in helping the learners to improve their learning in english skills (reading and speaking), probing prompting strategy to improve young learner’s speaking skills in palopo city 70 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 also in english competence, i.e. grammar, especially simple past tense. it is also good for teaching another subject, such as mathematics. the writers assume that this efficacy is due to the characteristics of the probing prompting strategy which is a derivative of student active learning method that encourages students to think critically and creatively. the probing prompting strategy guides and explores students’ ideas to accelerate the thinking process that can link students' knowledge and experiences with the new knowledge they studied. it also encourages the students to construct conceptual rules into new knowledge. thus, new knowledge for learners is not shared but they discover it themselves. the finding deals with what hamdani (2011) suggests that such a strategy guides students to be able to discuss ideas and to accelerate their thinking process. this can help the learners to connect their understanding and experiences with the new knowledge they learned. it also inspires them to build conceptual rules into new knowledge. 6. conclusion considering the study results and discussions, the writers concluded that probing prompting strategy effectively improves the learners’ speaking skills. statistical analysis found a significant disparity between learners’ scores in the pre-test (25.75) and posttest (51.50). this finding showed that the application of probing prompting strategy could improve the learners’ speaking skills. the writers believe that the success of this strategy in improving the learner’s speaking skill was due to the characteristics of the probing prompting strategy encourage students to think critically and creatively. the probing prompting strategy guides and explores students’ ideas to accelerate the thinking process that can link students' knowledge and experiences with the new knowledge they studied. it also encourages the students to construct conceptual rules into new knowledge. thus, new knowledge for learners is not shared but they discover it themselves. references alfian, m. h., dwijanto, s., & sunarmi, s. 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(2018). peningkatan kemampuan komunikasi matematis: pengembangan lembar kerja siswa berbasis probing-prompting untuk siswa sekolah menengah pertama. juring (journal for research in mathematics learning), 1(2), 171. https://doi.org/10.24014/juring.v1i2.5642 utami, d. (2016). penerapan model pembelajaran probing prompting dalam pembelajaran mengabstraksi teks negosiasi pada siswa kelas x sma/ma. riksa bahasa: jurnal bahasa, sastra, dan pembelajarannya, 2(2), 151-158. wong, l. l. c., & nunan, d. (2011). the learning styles and strategies of effective language learners. system, 39(2), 44-163. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2011.05.004 englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2020. vol. 8, no. 1, 79-92 promoting students’ critical thinking through online learning in higher education: challenges and strategies tathahira tathahira universitas islam negeri ar-raniry, banda aceh, indonesia tathahira92@gmail.com manuscript received m a r ch 2 5 , 2020, revised april 10, 2020, first published november 7, 2020, and available online november 9, 2020. doi: 10.22373/ej.v8i1.6636 recommended apa citation tathahira, t. (2020). promoting students‟ critical thinking through online learning in higher education: challenges and strategies. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 8(1), 79-92. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6636 abstract living in the millennial era has encouraged all the learners to one step ahead maximizing the existed and updated technology for learning. maintaining autonomous and long-distanced learning should have been introduced and implemented in higher education. involving in an online learning environment is not enough without the ability to think critically. critical thinking is the ability that is essentially required for learners in a higher education context. this paper discusses the challenges and strategies for implementing learners‟ critical thinking through online learning. this paper used the literature study approach, in which all the information in this paper was obtained from books and journal articles. briefly, the findings reveal that online learning can be good support for students to improve their critical thinking ability. however, there are also several challenges to do so involving the socio-cultural matter, the students‟ previous learning habits, and the familiarity of using updated technology for learning. to end the discussion, the author provides several strategies to overcome those challenges. the well-designed online discussion (interactivity), critical-thinking learning content, and well-maintained instructions are several factors needed by online course instructors in order to improve their students‟ critical thinking. keywords: critical thinking; online learning; higher education https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6636 promoting students’ critical thinking 80 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 1. introduction critical thinking and technology are the two most prominent elements grounded in today‟s globalized educational environment. critical thinking ability is highly encouraged by educators for their students to challenge their students to achieve critical values, the sense of creativity, and the requirement of high-order thinking (harvey & kamvounias, 2008). by implementing the critical thinking concept, students are expected to link their thinking and ideas with contextualized life aspects. thus, students will acquire the concept to think critically, to act and solve the problem by considering the factors existing around them. simultaneously, the advance of technology is considered as good support in the modern classroom (habiburrahim, 2015; zainuddin, 2015). the use of technology like online learning in the learning process in higher education should foster usefulness for learners, including promoting students‟ critical thinking. for instance, the use of digital learning platforms such as moodle could help students develop their reasoning, problem-solving, and decision making (lopez-perez, perez-lopez, & rodriguez-ariza, 2011). moreover, combining critical thinking process and online-based activity, like asynchronous online discussion can be an advantage and opportunity for students to gain their interests, and to reach a higher level of knowing (carmichael & farrel, 2012; foo & quek, 2019). however, this phenomenon creates challenges for educational practitioners to bring critical thinking concepts and their implementation in online-based learning synchronously. this paper attempts to discuss the promotion of critical thinking values toward higher education students through online based or digital learning platform. the focus of this paper is to examine the significances of critical thinking concepts related to the online-based learning environment and the challenges which might be faced by the educational practitioners and to offer several possible strategies to overcome those challenges. 2. literature review 2.1. definition of critical thinking critical thinking is universally recognized as a term which reflects higher level thinking. there is no single exact answer in defining critical thinking. many theorists have their versions and point of views in defining critical thinking. scriven and paul (2003) describe that critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process to conceptualize, apply, analyze, synthesize, and/or evaluate information collected from observation, experience, feedback, reasoning, or communication, as a way to believe and act. from the definition above, critical thinking is a complex and varied process in understanding, comprehending, seeing and interpreting particular information based on several contexts. in a similar vein, davies (2015) formulates the model of critical thinking as the ability to convey a reasoned argument and to make a decision. critical thinking as argumentation involves the sense to differentiate valid and invalid arguments, from erroneous reasoning to valid reasoning. while critical thinking as decision-making tathahira tathahira englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 p a g e | 81 appears after we are compelled by the arguments to make decision and judgment. moreover, the ideal critical thinker is evident in the american philosophical association‟s consensus portrait of the ideal critical thinker. a critical thinker is defined as someone inquisitive in nature, open-minded, flexible, and fair-minded, has a desire to be well-informed, understand diverse viewpoints, and is willing to both suspend judgment and to consider other perspectives (facione, 1990). critical thinking is not just the process of thinking, critical thinking also becomes an important skill required in the world of work and employment. chartrand, ishikawa, and flanigan (2009) found that critical thinking was regarded as an important skill highly required in working experience in the future, ranked higher than innovation or information and technology knowledge. considering all the critical thinking definitions above and its crucial benefits in the working experience, it is reassured that the sense of critical thinking is associated with the cognitive skill and the process of a higher level of thinking. before jumping to the working life, the acquaintance to critical thinking is firstly obtained from the educational life. 2.2. the significances of critical thinking in higher education critical thinking is considered a compatible concept and an ability of thinking which is significantly required in higher education. critical thinking is generally conceptualized as an intellectual ability suitable for development by those involved in higher education (davies, 2015; meyers, 1986; lloyd & bahr, 2010; stice, 1987). critical thinking is the ability that is essentially required in higher-level education and for learning objectives (kuhn, 1999; moon, 2007). similarly, higher education students are supposed to reflect higher-level thinking. thus, critical thinking ability has been highly encouraged by educators for their students to challenge their students to achieve critical values, the sense of creativity, and the requirement of high-order thinking (harvey & kamvounias, 2008). in order to seek what makes critical thinking beneficial in a particular educational aspect, paul and elder (2008) believe that students who know how to analyze and critique ideas are able to make connections across disciplines, see knowledge as useful and applicable to daily life and understand content on a deeper, more lasting level. moreover, zhang and sternberg (2006) also mention that critical thinking enables students to assess their learning styles, strengths and weaknesses, and allows them to take ownership of their education. additionally, peck (2012) discusses the urgency with which stakeholders in education want students to graduate with critical thinking skills to compete in the expanding global economy. therewith, practically, critical thinking values have long been implemented in the higher education curriculum. a national institute of education report in 1984 concludes that “a college education should enable students to adapt to a changing world and that successful adaptation requires the ability to think critically, to synthesize large quantities of new information” (as cited in mcmillan, 1987, p. 3). more importantly, critical thinking takes part in defining the role of teachers and students. declaration of promoting students’ critical thinking 82 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 educational goals for young australians (ministerial council for education, early childhood development, and youth affairs, 2008) states that successful learners as those who are “able to think deeply and logically and obtain and evaluate evidence in a disciplined way as the result of studying fundamental disciplines” (p. 8); and, elsewhere, as those who “are able to make sense of their world and think about how things have become the way they are” (p. 8). this indicates that, for the pre-service teachers who participated in this study, it is important to be engaged in critical thinking: (i) for their own academic development and to demonstrate this capacity as a part of achieving the requisite graduate attributes; and, (ii) for understanding its role in their future professional practice as teachers. similarly, bradford university also defines critical thinking as the „objective‟: “critical thinking: to support students and staff in developing a critical, independent and scholarly approach to their discipline which will enable them to apply their knowledge” (bradford university mission statement, as cited in moon, 2007). considering the urgency and the significance of thinking critically, the author agrees that critical thinking is the number one skill that should be completely encouraged in today‟s higher educational environment. 3. method this paper employed the literature study approach. the information obtained for conducting this paper was based on books and journal articles. in order to obtain relevant information, issues, and trends related to the implementation of online learning that could promote students‟ critical thinking were gathered. the collection of literature was done in several steps. first, free online databases such as google scholar, academia.edu, researchgate.net became the main sources of obtaining the literature. however, updated studies were barely found due to the limitation of accessing other journal databases. simultaneously, in this stage, the author also inserted some combined keywords namely: “critical thinking”, “online learning”, “critical thinking in higher education”, “improving critical thinking through online-based learning” and so forth. after that, the author delimited the downloaded articles into several themes, namely: the context of research (specific learning program in a higher educational context); the significance of critical thinking in education; challenges faced by learners in achieving higher-order thinking through online-based learning; and strategies used by learners to overcome those challenges. this paper was categorized into a descriptive review. in obtaining reliable information, the author searched for published literature and classified them into particular and desired topics. having selectively classified the available literature, the author attempted to discuss the issue of the study, analyze and to identify some gap, and to draw conclusions related to the discussed topic. a descriptive review was conducted as a series of analysis of the published literature providing a database from which the authors attempt to identify any interpretable trends or draw overall conclusions about tathahira tathahira englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 p a g e | 83 the benefits of existing conceptualizations, propositions, methods, or findings (paré, trudel, jaana, & kitsiou, 2015). 4. findings and discussion 4.1. online learning for promoting students’ critical thinking the term “online learning” has no exact definition as it is often used with numerous similar terms such as, “e-learning”, “distance learning”, “virtual learning”, “technology-based learning”, “network learning”, “multimedia-based learning”, “webenhanced learning”, “internet-enabled learning”, and many else. however, it is certain that online learning is a learning model wherein electronic technology, the internet, and the web are integrated and combined to maintain a learning environment (hadjerrouit, 2007). influenced by the rapid growth of new technology, online learning is increasingly important in today‟s educational environment. online learning activities can potentially develop students‟ critical thinking. online learning also involves educators to interact with the students in online instructions, to activate self-efficacy in analyzing the instructions, to make judgment toward varied information, and to seek for truth and solution. critical thinking is considered as an important attribute in online learning environment, to be owned by the professional learners and for sustainable learning; hence, learners are able to synthesize and evaluate sources of knowledge and to integrate with social-networking based learning (carmichael & farrell, 2012). this kind of activity describes the application of critical thinking behavior. critical thinking should be encouraged throughout every online education course for conveying information and enhancing discussions in an organized manner (ricci, 2009). additionally, for a more convincing claim, bloom (as cited in kinne & eastep, 2011) argues that the cognitive domain of the thinking process is more conducive to be applied to online learning. besides, the performance of distance learning utilized the information from the internet, educators should be critical in choosing the sources (ricci, 2009). resulting from its practical use, in many online environments, the level of critical thinking development occurred in online discussions, including web-based chats, discussion boards, and email (macknight, 2000). macknight also adds that online discussions have been found to be effective for instructors to coach and develop deeper and more reflective learning because they put emphasis on the elements of arguments and the exchange of ideas. plenty of studies have shown that online activity has positive effects on students‟ particular academic performance. the concepts and behaviors related to critical thinking values can be enhanced through online-based learning. jang (2009) argues that the use of online (web-based) interaction can enhance the students‟ creativity. the accessibility, abundance, diversity, and rapidity of the information on the internet have been widely used by the students to challenge themselves to renew and produce creative ideas (chang, 2012). moreover, some promoting students’ critical thinking 84 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 theorists have been aware of the positive impact of innovative ways of modern learning in digital learning platforms in several universities. the use of digital learning platform such as moodle is believed to help students to develop reasoning, problem-solving, and decision-making (lopez-perez et al., 2011). eventually, in netting those benefits, there are some ways necessarily implemented in designing the online course. goodsett (2020) has formulated a rubric encompassing some criteria to measure the effective implementation of critical thinking activities through: criteria for teaching critical thinking, criteria for assessing critical thinking, and criteria for judging the quality of online learning design. in addition, traditional methods, like face-to-face learning, have been replaced by online classroom. there are some benefits of online classrooms compared with traditional teaching practices (face-to-face classroom). through online learning, the students have had more time to elaborate on their answers and ideas compared with traditional classes, where the students are oppressed with limited time to respond. the asynchronous structure of online learning, unlike the time-limited constraints of a scheduled class period in the traditional classroom, allows the students to adjust the time necessary for individualized reflection, investigation, and inquiry. rather than being required to immediately think and respond to the questions posed in a face-to-face class, the students in online classes have the opportunity to ponder, investigated, and question prior to submitting their responses (pyle, 1997). moreover, online learning has been more conducive to the incorporation of implementation of critical thinking behavior reflected as active learning, rather than the time-limited interactions dictated by a traditional classroom (astleitner, 2002). furthermore, distance learning may give confidence for the students to actively do their studies. the theoretical arguments favoring the asynchronous interactions available in an online classroom for the encouragement of critical thinking have been centered on the students‟ opportunities to actively process information, reflect and investigate questions prior to responding (mandernach, 2006). recapitulating all the arguments, it can be argued that online learning is more popular, conducive, and compatible than the traditional pedagogical methods in enhancing the students‟ critical thinking in the modern educational environment. 4.2. challenges of implementing critical thinking in online learning however, despite all the benefits, bringing critical thinking into online-based learning at the same time challenges educational practitioners, in particular the teachers. in this part, the author provides several issues related to the implementation of critical thinking through online learning encompassing the socio-cultural, theoretical, and practical, methodological, and technical issues. first of all, critical thinking has a relationship with the socio-cultural factor. according to the research conducted by stapleton (2001), asian students, like japanese students, could not reflect the critical thinking concept in their english writing because critical thinking which is westerntathahira tathahira englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 p a g e | 85 oriented may differ from the eastern educational culture. in addition, critical thinking is not just a matter of culture, but also it is also hardly taught for the students socially. as atkinson (1997) claims, critical thinking is a difficult term to define though it exists in social practice. critical thinking is a new way of thinking, yet it should not confuse students toward the fascination of suddenly seeing the world in a new way through novel conceptual or a methodological tool for analyzing the world (erikson, 2019). then, the most influential factor is how instructors can provide a proper topic which fulfills the needs and understanding of critical thinking. topic familiarity is seen as a supportive factor to develop the reasoning skill as a skill which reflects critical thinking behavior. as reflected in stapleton's research, it was revealed that the lack of critical thinking of japanese esl college students was displayed in academic writing because they used american topics. however, such a case did not only happen in japanese schools but also in indonesian schools. a study by samanhudi and sampurna (2010) investigating the indonesian efl students from one of the universities located in banten province found that the students with no prior knowledge or subject matter mastery gained through critical reading on the topic would have a problem to develop their critical thinking skill. therefore, the teachers need to highly pay their attention to contextualize and position themselves to the socio-cultural values set in teaching critical thinking in diversities. secondly, the higher educational practitioner including teachers and institutions are challenged to design and choose the proper methods and techniques in teaching critical thinking supported by online activity. phirangee, demmans, and hewitt (2016) mention that the popularity of online learning has boomed over the last few years, forcing instructors to consider the best way to design their courses to support students‟ learning needs and participation. it is undeniable that some teachers do not master the use of technology yet. arend (2009) describes that some instructors seem to be unfamiliar with designing and deciding the best methods through the online-based activity for promoting critical thinking. the issue thus becomes more complicated because of the rapid growth of online learning in higher education and the emphasis on critical thinking. traditional challenges in fostering critical thinking have been compounded by a generalized lack of faculty familiarity with effective online instructional techniques (mandernach, forrest, babutzke, & manker, 2009). those described ongoing conditions technically reflect the natural conditions related to technological mastery. then, certainly, previous students who are accustomed to having traditional methods with a teacher-centered learning experience in a physical classroom will take more time to familiarize themselves with the new distance-learning environment. all in all, educationalists are challenged to wisely position themselves as the two-dimension instructors who can balance the between promoting critical thinking theoretically, culturally, and practically in the use of online learning. promoting students’ critical thinking 86 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 4.3. contextualization: critical thinking in indonesian schools unsurprisingly, the implementation of critical thinking in education in indonesia is also experiencing difficulties. it is agreed that the school or any learning environment should open the opportunity for the children to express their imagination, ideas, and innovation and should context their learning activity with social and cultural activities. unfortunately, this application has not been applied well in indonesia. subkhan (2012) found that in many cases in big cities in indonesia the early childhood learning activities were dominated by the teacher (teacher-centered). similarly, most teaching and learning process taking place in schools in indonesia was the lecture method, which was based on memorization of facts that leads students to think less critical (cobb, wood, yackel, & mcneal, 1992; duplass & ziedler, 2002). the conventional method of teachinglearning methods in which a teacher becomes the center of the learning is the main reason for the low implemented critical values. the domination of teacher lectures during any learning by talking all the time have indirectly limited the time for learners to develop their critical thinking skills (khan, 2017). this evidence further indicates that indonesia‟s learning method is still dominated by conventional methods that will obstruct the students to achieve higher-order thinking process. in addition, the promotion of students‟ critical thinking values is hidden in the way subjects are provided. in other words, studies have revealed that critical thinking can be implemented effectively in certain subjects, such as mathematics. mathematics is one of the subjects that can develop critical thinking skills (aizikovitsh & amit, 2010). critical thinking skills in mathematics are the process of critical thinking related to knowledge of mathematics, mathematical reasoning, and mathematical proofs in mathematical problem solving (krulik & rudnick, 1995). however, ironically, a study of trends in mathematics and science study (timss) (as cited in firdaus, kailani, bakar, & bakry, 2015) on secondary school students showed that the students of indonesia ranked 38th in mathematics from 42 countries (mullis et al., as cited in pane, syahputra & mulyono, 2018). further, the results of the pisa 2012 survey found indonesian students at position 64 out of the 65 countries in mathematical literacy skills (organization for economic cooperation and development, as cited in firdaus et al., 2015). similarly, in the english subject, language proficiency and mastery also becomes a notable factor affecting the students‟ critical thinking. yet, the students faced difficulties in understanding the english written and spoken forms (indah & kusuma, 2016). the findings of the studies above revealed that indonesian students mostly encountered difficulties not only in the arithmetic level but also at the lexical level, causing the students to have weak performance in non-routine problem-solving involving revelations, giving opinions, and making reasoning (hasan, tumbel & corebima, 2013). hence, all the descriptions of the learning conditions above become the reasons for the low implementation of critical thinking values in indonesia‟s schools. tathahira tathahira englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 p a g e | 87 4.4. possible strategies to overcome the challenges the author here provides several strategies to overcome the challenges faced by educational practitioners in the promotion of critical thinking through online learning. the possible strategies encompass the selected method in the teaching-learning process and other theoretical and technical approaches made by instructors in online classrooms. clark and mayer (2008) suggest that beneath the e-learning architecture sit four key pedagogical considerations: content, instructional methods, practice examples, and feedback. in terms of content, teachers are expected can introduce critical thinking concepts in provided reading material and assignments to enhance students' understanding of critical thinking. arend (2009) suggests that an assignment provided after having read the materials can practically affect the students‟ critical behavior and keep the concepts in their minds. moreover, designing online activity is expected to be interesting in any particular digital learning platform. a case study conducted by carmichael and farrell (2012) in utilizing the “blackboard” as an online learning platform found that creating a variety level of writing activity used as an approach could benefit in describing the students‟ critical behavior. the study also indicated that the success of using online resources for the development of the students' critical thinking in the higher education context at least partially depended on the students‟ developmental levels, their experience with the technology used in the academic settings, and their levels of engagement. most importantly, teachers as instructors hold a crucial role in designing the activity in online learning. some work urges instructors to adopt the role of an online facilitator: this involves clarifying course topics, keeping the discussions on track, introducing opposing views to students, helping students navigate the online platform, and emphasizing good online behavior (hew, 2015). the presence of teachers is crucial in leading the discussion to look “critical”. erikson (2019) believes that when promoting critical thinking, teacher should have the ability, disposition and motivation to distinguish the discussion that needs to be triggered by disagreement and further explanation toward students‟ opinions; hence students will try to formulate their thinking. responding to that statement, therefore, even without the presence of teachers in the learning meeting, teachers are expected to provide explicit instruction, and information through dual interaction between students. a key success of a discussion in fostering students‟ higher-order thinking strategies is the instructor‟s interactivity in leading the discussion (mandernach, 2006; mandernach, forrest, babutzke, & manker, 2009). technically, a discussion made by teachers in an online forum or digital learning platform is considered as an effective method that can encourage students to behave critically. therefore, bai (2009) agrees that “well-designed discussion questions are fundamental in developing critical thinking skills at high levels” (p. 162). nevertheless, the given work duration needs to be paid attention to by teachers. instructors should provide enough time and structure so that students can actually think about their thinking, synthesize their knowledge from prior readings, and readily provide their promoting students’ critical thinking 88 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 comments in either synchronized or unsynchronized group discussion threads (kinne & eastep, 2011). additionally, online interactions should work between students and a teacher and students with other students. all students should be involved in a group activity as an online community, and giving group assignment is found as an advantage. besides, ricci (2009) states that group assignments are an effective means of practicing and enhancing critical thinking skills. in line with ricci, ekahitanond (2013) mentions that peer feedback activity also stimulates students‟ critical thinking since each peer will prepare and anticipate their answers. briefly, this statement is reasonable because group and peer activity will give the opportunity for the students to be open-minded, to appreciate others‟ opinions, and to exchange, debate, and challenge the arguments between one another. pahl (2004) also adds that the instructor may provide a meaningful project for the students as part of active learning. the project instructed from online learning may allow the students to actively construct new skill, and to sense new experience as the process of learning in the online environment. however, the success of the aforementioned possible strategies again depends on the teachers‟ capability, awareness, elaboration, and improvement in online settings. other studies also revealed that certain strategies fostered during online course could promote learners‟ critical thinking ability. learners were supposedly encouraged to be involved in questioning activity over provided health topics; there, they would argue and debate for important actions necessarily taken to handle one health issue (lunney, frederickson, spark, & mcduffie, 2019). additionally, the use of aod (asynchronous online discussion) board has been seen as a community platform by students to encourage the interaction and to gain the sense of critical thinking (osborne, byrne, massey, & johnston, 2018). 5. conclusion in conclusion, bringing together critical thinking in an online environment is the complete package in reflecting modern education. all the essentiality and positivity of critical thinking are becoming wanted skills in facing the globalized era. the values, concepts, and behavior of critical thinking are highly encouraged by teachers as the aim of today's higher education environment. in addition, the existence of technology such as online learning is considered an undeniable factor affecting whole facets of teachinglearning systems. whether teachers want it or not, they have to familiarize themselves with the technology. online learning has shown to be an excellent support to promote students‟ critical thinking. however, the implementation and practicality of this leave some challenges for educational practitioners. those challenges encompass the sociocultural matters in defining the critical concept faced by many asian countries, especially in indonesia‟s pedagogical context. moreover, the technical and practical issues relating to the teachers‟ familiarity in the new online environment make the teachers difficult in designing and choosing the proper topics and methods. finally, to tathahira tathahira englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 p a g e | 89 overcome those challenges, several strategies are considered to be applied by the teachers including an introduction to the proper content and exciting activities related to the essence of critical concepts, and the well-designed online discussion and group assignment. references aizikovitsh, e., & amit, m. 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(2015). exploring the potential of blended learning and learning management system for higher education in aceh. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 2(2), 70-85. zhang, l. f., & sternberg, r. j. (2006). the nature of intellectual styles. mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2021, vol. 9, no. 1, 1-18 efl teachers’ online teacher professional development experiences amidst the covid-19 pandemic: practices and perceptions arief eko priyo atmojo uin raden mas said surakarta, indonesia arief.atmojo93@iain-surakarta.ac.id manuscript received m a r ch 8 , 2021, revised june 2, 2021, first published november 1, 2021, and available online november 7, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i1.9127 recommended apa citation atmojo, a. e. p. (2021). efl teachers‟ online teacher professional development experiences amidst the covid-19 pandemic: practices and perceptions. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(1), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i1.9127 abstract this research investigates the efl teachers‟ practices and perceptions of online teacher professional development (otpd) experiences to improve their competencies for teaching online language learning amidst the covid-19 pandemic. 42 efl teachers voluntarily became the participants through invitation. all participants were requested to give responses on a questionnaire. eight participants were then invited for an individual semi-structured interview. descriptive statistics were employed to analyze the questionnaire data, whilst qualitative coding was used to analyse the interview data. the results reveal many important findings regarding efl teachers‟ practices and perceptions of experiencing otpd amidst the covid-19 pandemic. the findings are beneficial to help otpd designers and providers, policy makers, and school leaders provide otpd which best fits efl teachers‟ needs, preferences, and teaching contexts. keywords: efl teachers; online language learning; online teacher professional development; professional development; covid-19 pandemic 1. introduction over recent decades, excellent teaching and professional development (pd) aimed to improve student learning outcomes have become important and relevant for teachers (powell & bodur, 2019). the development of teacher quality is essential to enhance the quality of education (borg, 2018). however, problems related to pd arise within the teaching english as a foreign language (tefl) context. these problems efl teachers’ online teacher professional development experiences amidst the covid-19 pandemic: practices and perceptions 2 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no.1, november 2021 come from the lack of knowledge about the planning of pd, the unknowingness about the different types and quality of pd, and the ignorance of local efl teachers‟ thoughts about pd initiatives (cirocki & farrell, 2019). nowadays, it has been well-informed that the covid-19 pandemic spreads throughout the world and brings impacts on education. teachers must then be prepared to deal with the postponement of face-to-face classes due to the covid-19 pandemic or other emergencies (moorhouse, 2020). fortunately, the advancement of technology makes teaching and learning a second or foreign language online possible, gradually without face-to-face meetings (shin & kang, 2018). teachers are then migrating to online learning to maintain students‟ engagement in learning. it significantly increases teachers‟ workloads since it is not only about moving teaching materials into an online learning environment, but also about employing required applications (allen, rowan, & singh, 2020). these shifts to teaching basically depend on teachers‟ support and involvement (adnan, 2018). the switch from face-to-face classes into online learning requires teachers to acquire new roles and competencies. teachers are necessarily equipped with knowledge and skills to successfully perform teaching through online technologies. pd is critical to assisting online teachers in mastering new pedagogies, adjusting to new roles, acquiring necessary competencies, and reconstructing their identity in an online learning environment (adnan, 2018). as a result of the covid-19 pandemic, language learning is forced to be fully online in a completely unpredictable situation. lots of problems related to online language learning appear from students, teachers, and students‟ parents. teachers have to improve their qualifications and equip themselves with the required knowledge and skills to enhance the quality of their teaching performance in the online learning environment. thus, research on professional development regarding the use of technology in language learning is recommended (atmojo & nugroho, 2020). although research and best practices related to online language learning are numerous, references about how to prepare language teachers for teaching in an online learning environment and the competencies required for teaching in this environment are rarely found (compton, 2009). in spite of the recent online learning movement and expanding interest in otpd, a lack of knowledge about how teachers perceive online pd experiences, how they implement what they have learned, and what experiences they prefer still exists. to obtain insights and guidance for providing online pd, research addressing the aforementioned lack of knowledge is encouraged (parsons et al., 2019). in view of the importance and many challenges faced by efl teachers in teaching within an online learning environment amidst the covid-19 pandemic and its prospects for future education, this research attempts to discover efl teachers‟ practices and perceptions of their otpd experiences to improve their competencies in teaching through an online learning environment amidst the covid-19 pandemic in indonesia. drawing on questionnaire and interview data from a group of secondary arief eko priyo atmojo englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 3 school teachers, this research contributes novel findings to the fields of teacher professional development (tpd), online teacher professional development (otpd), and online language learning (oll) about how efl teachers develop their competencies for teaching within an online learning environment amidst the covid-19 pandemic. it sheds some light on the required skills, types of activities, needed facilities, frequency, and impacts of the otpd on the efl teachers‟ competencies for teaching online language learning. eventually, this research tries to investigate the efl teachers‟ practices and perceptions of their otpd experiences to improve their competencies for teaching online language learning amidst the covid-19 pandemic in indonesia. this research is situated in indonesia, which ranks in the second place among linguistically diverse countries globally. indonesia has become one of the most prospective markets for english language teaching (elt). english is also taught as a compulsory subject in secondary schools (zein, 2019). in fact, english is often employed in classrooms, but rarely used in daily communication. it is determined as a foreign language in indonesia. if efl teachers ignore their proficiency after receiving formal training and education, their proficiency can gradually decrease as time goes by (wulyani, elgort, & coxhead, 2019). this research brings implied benefits for teacher professional development organizers about how otpd should be provided to enhance efl teachers‟ competencies for teaching online without face-to-face meeting. therefore, this research is led by two research questions as follows: (1) how do indonesian efl teachers engage themselves in otpd to improve their competencies for teaching online language learning amidst the covid-19 pandemic? (2) how do indonesian efl teachers perceive their otpd experiences in improving their competencies for teaching online language learning amidst the covid-19 pandemic? 2. literature review professional development (pd) is basically perceived as teachers‟ common growth. it usually caters to a long-term goal and helps teachers grow their understanding of teaching and themselves as teachers (richards & farrell, 2005). pd consists of many activities designed to improve teachers‟ competence. it is very strategic to improve teachers‟ quality. it is also possible to be undertaken in many forms, starting from informal, simple, and individual activities such as reading professional articles to formal, well-organized, and large-scale activities held by institutions and organizations such as ministries of education (borg, 2018). recently, online pd is increasingly flourishing. thriving technologies enable novel and various forms of pd (parsons et al., 2019). the advancement of technology has allowed language teachers all over the world to obtain professional development credentials and academic degrees online (shin & kang, 2018). online teacher professional development (otpd) is then prospective for enhancing teachers‟ knowledge, skills, and competencies through flexible, low-cost, and large-scale efl teachers’ online teacher professional development experiences amidst the covid-19 pandemic: practices and perceptions 4 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no.1, november 2021 alternatives on a wide-range of topics. it refers to teacher professional development provided in the form of courses, seminars, workshops, discussions, resources, and other forms within an online environment, synchronously, asynchronously, or blended through websites, blogs, wikis, podcasts, social media, and other platforms. however, excellent outcomes are not guaranteed by just having access to otpd. technology will not be effectively employed if it is only utilized as a medium of delivery and ignores effective design or implementation principles (powell & bodur, 2019). 3. method 3.1. research context and design this research employed a mixed-method approach by utilizing both quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis. this approach was selected in order to scrutinize this phenomenon under both quantitative and qualitative perspectives to obtain more comprehensive insights. 3.2. participants the participants were 42 efl teachers at both state and private secondary schools in indonesia. at minimum, all the teachers own a bachelor degree in teaching english as a foreign language. some of them have also pursued teacher professional education programs and obtained master's degrees. their teaching experiences range from 1 to 30 years. 42 efl teachers (called t1–t42) volunteered to become participants in this research through an invitation. there were 50 invitations. however, 8 of the invitations were rejected. all the participants had signed consent before this research was carried out. 3.3. data collection the participants were requested to give responses on a questionnaire including a list of questions (8 closed-ended items and 2 open-ended items) regarding their practices and perceptions of otpd experiences to enhance their competencies for teaching online amidst the covid-19 pandemic. as a follow-up, eight of the 42 participants (i.e., t7, t12, t18, t21, t28, t33, t36, and t41) were involved in a semistructured interview individually since they provided valuable information in their responses toward the questionnaire which were feasible for further inquiry. the interviews lasted approximately 30 minutes for each participant. the participants were asked to share and explain in detail their practices and perceptions of otpd experiences, which they undertook as an attempt to improve their competencies for teaching online amidst the covid-19 pandemic. moreover, the participants were also guided to reflect on the impacts brought about by the otpd and the valid reasons behind them. the interviews were recorded in audio format and made into transcripts to allow data analysis. arief eko priyo atmojo englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 5 3.4. data analysis descriptive statistics were utilized to analyse the questionnaire data, whilst qualitative coding was employed to analyse the interview data. in light of the research questions and current literature about otpd (e.g., powell & bodur, 2019), the interview data were conscientiously reviewed and significant codes reflecting the efl teachers‟ practices and perceptions of their otpd experiences aiming to improve their competencies for teaching online amidst the covid-19 pandemic were recognized. the impacts of otpd and the valid reasons along with the most impactful activities were also reported to discover the efl teachers‟ perceptions deeply. the interview data analysis results were obtained after making comparison, revision, and integration to discover key themes. the results of questionnaire and interview data analysis were finally displayed and discussed in details to give answers on each research question as follows: (1) how do indonesian efl teachers engage themselves in otpd to improve their competencies for teaching online language learning amidst the covid-19 pandemic? (2) how do indonesian efl teachers perceive their otpd experiences in improving their competencies for teaching online language learning amidst the covid19 pandemic? to ensure the validity of this research, methodological triangulation was employed by carrying out the interviews after the questionnaire had been responded to by all the participants (miles, huberman, & saldaña, 2014). 4. findings and discussion this section presents the research results into two key themes regarding the efl teachers‟ practices and perceptions of their otpd experiences to improve their competencies for teaching online language learning amidst the covid-19 pandemic. the results of the questionnaire are reported in descriptive statistics. drawing on the interview data, the most typical excerpts are selected to represent each key theme. 4.1. efl teachers’ practices to engage themselves in otpd drawing on the questionnaire data, the efl teachers engage themselves in various otpd activities, ranging from informal activities such as having informal conversations with colleagues through the internet or mobile network, to formal activities such as participating in a webinar. there are a total of 18 activities offered in the questionnaire. in detail, what activities carried out by the 42 efl teachers are presented in the following chart. efl teachers’ online teacher professional development experiences amidst the covid-19 pandemic: practices and perceptions 6 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no.1, november 2021 chart 1. the efl teachers‟ otpd activities based on chart 1, it can be seen that having informal conversations with colleagues becomes the most preferred activity carried out by 38 efl teachers, followed by watching tutorials done by 34 efl teachers, and developing presentation slides, handouts, or media performed by 30 efl teachers. on the contrary, none of them became presenters at online conferences or webinars. other low participation-rate activities are carrying out collaborative research, participating in online courses, and becoming a mentor in online mentoring carried out by only 2 efl teachers each activity. the efl teachers can carry out more than one activity to engage themselves in otpd, as it is also stated by them in the interviews. what i have done so far to develop myself professionally to teach within an online learning environment is seeking references on how to teach online effectively by watching videos or tutorials on youtube, participating in online conferences and webinars, and reading some online literature from blogs and journals. then, i implement what i have learned by remaking my lesson plans and teaching materials (t33). there are some problems faced by efl teachers in carrying out otpd activities. the presence of problems obstructs otpd to be successful. this issue needs to be identified and reflected on in order to seek solutions. the problems faced by efl teachers can be summarized as follows: (1) internet connection instability; (2) limited time; (3) limited internet quota; (4) limited interaction; (5) colleagues‟ limited knowledge; (6) difficulty in asking questions regarding videos or tutorials; and (7) limited facilities and infrastructure. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 38 34 10 0 13 0 4 2 19 30 21 2 13 15 17 11 4 2 arief eko priyo atmojo englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 7 i have limited time to have informal conversations with my colleagues since we have our own activities and businesses. i also experience limited interaction when communicating through an online environment, since we cannot have physical practice to use online learning applications together. in addition, a problem occurs when we have informal conversations with colleagues and we have questions about the same issue. as a result, we cannot learn from each other. the last problem i ever experience is getting difficult to ask questions about something which i do not understand from videos or tutorials on youtube (t28). the efl teachers carry out otpd activities at certain times and on certain occasions. there are times when they start doing otpd activities and when they carry out these activities last time. it is also important to know how often they carry out otpd activities to discover the frequency of their otpd activities. the frequency of otpd activities is presented in the following chart. chart 2. the frequency of otpd activities it can be seen from chart 2 that 57.1% of the efl teachers carry out otpd activities once a week at least. 19% of them engage themselves in otpd activities almost every day. 9.5% of them participate in otpd activities once every two weeks or once a month at least. 4.8% of them undertake otpd activities once every two months at least. meanwhile, none of them engages in otpd activities more than once every three weeks. moreover, efl teachers start to engage themselves in otpd activities to improve their competencies for teaching online language learning, as presented in the following chart. 19% 57,1% 9,5% 9,5% 4,8% almost every day once a weak at least once two weaks at least once a month at least once two months at least efl teachers’ online teacher professional development experiences amidst the covid-19 pandemic: practices and perceptions 8 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no.1, november 2021 chart 3. the starting times of the efl teachers‟ engagement in otpd activities based on chart 3, it is shown that 47.6% of the efl teachers participated in otpd activities at the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic. 35.7% of them engaged themselves in otpd activities before this pandemic. the rest, 16.7% of them, carry out otpd activities in the middle of this pandemic. 4.2. efl teachers’ perceptions of their otpd experiences efl teachers have some perceptions regarding their otpd experiences. their perceptions of otpd experiences are beneficial in providing otpd which best fits for efl teachers since it relies on their needs, preferences, and teaching contexts. informed by the categorization of skills required for teaching online (albrahim, 2020), the efl teachers‟ perceptions of what skills which they need to improve for teaching online are sought. the skills which need improvement are presented in the following chart. chart 4. the skills needed to improve efl teachers perceive that they need to improve their skills for teaching online. every teacher may want to improve more than one skill. 36 efl teachers perceive that they need to improve their technological skills. 27 efl teachers want to improve their social and communication skills in online learning environment. 25 efl teachers are 35,7% 47,6% 16,7% before the covid-19 pandemic in the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic in the middle of the covid-19 pandemic 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 pedagogical skills content skills design skills technological skills management and institutional skills social and communication skills 25 23 15 36 10 27 arief eko priyo atmojo englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 9 interested to improve their pedagogical skills for teaching online. 23 efl teachers consider that they need to improve their content skills. 15 efl teachers perceive that their design skills need to be improved. meanwhile, 10 efl teachers determine that they need to improve their management and institutional skills. after participating in some otpd activities based on their own experiences, the efl teachers have perceptions about what skills are successfully improved. it is important to know the gap between the skills which need improvement and the skills which are successfully improved. to this end, the skills which are successfully improved are presented in the following chart. chart 5. the skills successfully improved the efl teachers perceive that their skills for teaching online are successfully improved after engaging themselves in otpd activities. every teacher may successfully improve more than one skill. 33 efl teachers believe that they successfully improve their technological skills. 22 efl teachers perceive that their social and communication skills in an online learning environment are successfully improved. 21 efl teachers find that they successfully improve their content skills. 16 efl teachers believe that their pedagogical skills for teaching online are successfully improved. 9 efl teachers perceive that their design skills are improved successfully. six efl teachers have discovered that they can successfully improve their management and institutional skills. comparing between the skills needed to improve and the skills successfully improved, it can be concluded that the efl teachers' expectations to improve their skills for teaching online are not optimally facilitated yet. it can be seen that all the graphics in chart 4 are higher than all the graphics in chart 5, meaning that the rates of successfully improved skills are below the rates of needed or targeted skills to improve. besides improving the efl teachers‟ skills for teaching online, otpd brings several impacts as follows: (1) the efl teachers can make or provide online teaching media such as audios and videos; (2) the efl teachers have more chances to share and 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 pedagogical skills content skills design skills technological skills management and institutional skills social and communication skills 16 21 9 33 6 22 efl teachers’ online teacher professional development experiences amidst the covid-19 pandemic: practices and perceptions 10 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no.1, november 2021 discuss with colleagues; (3) the efl teachers can use some more online learning applications; (4) the efl teachers can improve the quality of online teaching materials; (5) the efl teachers can improve the quality of online assessment; (6) the efl teachers can adjust the online learning based on their students‟ conditions; (7) the efl teachers can make new friendships; (8) the efl teachers‟ motivation for teaching online increases; (9) the efl teachers become more diligent to read professional literature; (10) the efl teachers become more creative and innovative to teach online; and (11) the efl teachers‟ curiosity increases. it can be traced from the efl teachers‟ statements in the interviews. i am more curious to try and explore other online learning applications. my skill at utilizing online teaching media has also increased. i find my creativity in creating online teaching materials improves too. as a result, the quality of online teaching materials is enhanced. besides, my motivation to teach online also increases (t28). amongst the 16 otpd activities performed by the efl teachers, it is important to know which activities are impactful in improving the skills for teaching online. each teacher is only allowed to vote one activity as the most impactful activity for him and the impactful otpd activities are finally sought. the impactful otpd activities are presented in the following chart. chart 6. the impactful otpd activities efl teachers have different ideas about which activities will help them improve their online teaching skills. the most impactful activity perceived by efl teachers is developing presentation slides, handouts, or media. it is perceived as the most impactful 0,0% 5,0% 10,0% 15,0% 20,0% 25,0% 30,0% 35,0% 21,4% 2,4% 2,4% 2,4% 2,4% 31% 9,5% 2,4% 26,2% arief eko priyo atmojo englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 11 activity by 31% of efl teachers. the second impactful activity is watching tutorials, as perceived by 26.2% of the efl teachers. third, having informal conversations with colleagues is perceived as an impactful otpd activity by 21.4% of the efl teachers. meanwhile, participating in webinars, which have become popular nowadays, is found to be impactful by 9.5% of the efl teachers. the other five otpd activities are only voted on by 2.4% of the efl teachers. the impactfulness of otpd activities may depend on some influencing factors. it is important to know why these otpd activities are impactful in improving efl teachers‟ skills for teaching online. this finding can give insights into designing impactful otpd activities and contribute to the knowledge of otpd activities principles and designs. the key factors influencing the impactfulness of otpd activities are presented in the following chart. chart 7. the key factors influencing the impactfulness of otpd activities based on chart 7, the key factors influencing the impactfulness of otpd activities are observable. it can be seen that understandable explanations, tutorials, or demonstrations are the most influential amongst the key factors. it is perceived as the most influential key factor by 21.4% of efl teachers. there are two key factors which are equally influential. they are good quality content or materials, and they have lively interactions and communications. these two factors are voted on by 19% of the efl teachers each. direct practices are also influential enough and were voted on by 11.9% of the efl teachers. meanwhile, complete and adequate facilities and infrastructure are perceived to be influential by 9.5% of efl teachers. other factors, namely meaningful learning experiences and interesting discussions, are voted by 7.1% of the efl teachers each. lastly, competent speakers are believed to be influential by 4.8% of efl teachers. 0,0% 5,0% 10,0% 15,0% 20,0% 25,0% 4,8% 19% 11,9% 21,4% 9,5% 7,1% 7,1% 19% efl teachers’ online teacher professional development experiences amidst the covid-19 pandemic: practices and perceptions 12 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no.1, november 2021 these results are supported by the efl teachers‟ statements in the interviews, as they viewed that, meaningful learning experiences and interesting discussions are very influential on teacher professional development. they are done by trying to use online learning applications and having discussions with colleagues which make us familiar with the applications. interactions and communications are also important. i always communicate with my colleagues immediately to ask about something which i do not understand. my colleagues also contact me to ask something which they do not know. so, we communicate and share knowledge with each other (t28). besides the key factors, the impactfulness of otpd activities is affected by some valid reasons as follows: (1) the efl teachers can watch the tutorials repeatedly; (2) the efl teachers get easy and have no burden to share and discuss problems and solutions with colleagues; (3) the efl teachers attempt to create their own online teaching materials; (4) the efl teachers try to make their own online teaching media; (5) the efl teachers try to make their own online assessment; (6) the efl teachers explore several online learning applications; (7) the efl teachers explore some online learning resources such as youtube; (8) the efl teachers are actively involved in the discussion forums of professional development communities; (9) the efl teachers are willing to try and learn something new; (10) the efl teachers become familiar with teaching within online learning environment; and (11) the efl teachers obtain applicable knowledge and skills for teaching online. it can be seen from the efl teachers‟ statements in the interviews. as a teacher, i am still eager to learn and try something new such as educational technologies or teaching methods for teaching online to make my online learning classes more interesting. moreover, i often watch tutorials on youtube and i can repeatedly watch them to improve my competencies for teaching online (t41). overall, there are three general perceptions regarding otpd. the efl teachers perceive that (1) the otpd activities are interesting; (2) the otpd brings positive impacts on improving the efl teachers' competencies for teaching online and enhancing the quality of online learning in several aspects; and (3) the otpd is less satisfactory since there are some aspects which need improvement. it is inferred from the efl teachers‟ statements in the interviews, as they agreed that, “otpd brings many positive impacts. i have become more knowledgeable about online learning and more skillful at employing online learning applications and online teaching media.” (t12) for better otpd in the future, there are three aspects which need to be improved. those aspects are: (1) discussions; (2) interactions and communications; and (3) facilities and infrastructures. some efl teachers in the interviews mentioned that “there is an aspect which needs improvement, namely discussions. more interesting arief eko priyo atmojo englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 13 discussions can give me ideas for teaching online, resulting in good quality learning.” (t7) further, they added that “i think interactions and communications must be improved. informal conversations among teachers must be well facilitated in terms of interactions and communications. it is to strengthen their cooperation to improve the quality of their online learning classes (t12)” and “we need more adequate facilities and infrastructures which support otpd (t36).” the results presented above have discovered many important findings related to otpd in the context of online learning amidst the covid-19 pandemic. the findings about how the efl teachers engage themselves in otpd and other related otpd practices as well as the efl teachers‟ perceptions of their otpd experiences have been reported. the findings are arranged based on key themes which are supported by interview excerpts and descriptive statistics to provide more comprehensive insights about what the efl teachers have done with otpd to prepare themselves to teach within an online learning environment and what their perceptions are. the findings of this research will be very beneficial for otpd evaluation and improvement. this research is also meaningful in terms of investigating the efl teachers‟ needs, preferences, and voices. it especially happens in indonesia where pd is carried out without taking care of the efl teachers‟ voices (cirocki & farrell, 2019). at this point, it can be said that this research is the first academic publication addressing otpd issue for improving efl teachers‟ competence to teach within the online learning environment in indonesia. this research is important because teaching online is not the same as teaching in a face-to-face class. efl teachers must be well-prepared to teach in an online environment (philipsen, 2019). it is why several pd strategies need to be planned, created, and implemented to provide opportunities for efl teachers to have professional preparation regarding teaching within an online learning environment (philipsen, tondeur, roblin, vanslambrouck, & zhu, 2019). however, teachers‟ roles and competencies required for teaching online often have had little influence on pd programs whereas they deal with teachers‟ needs, individual dispositions, social demands, and particular teaching contexts (baran, correia, & thompson, 2011). fortunately, this research encounters this issue by gaining information on efl teachers‟ needs, preferences, and voices within the secondary school context. it does not only investigate how efl teachers engage themselves in otpd, but also how otpd should be designed to best fit them. some previous research on pd has existed. the previous research is available in both online and offline pd modes. however, there is no research addressing the otpd issue of improving efl teachers‟ competence to teach online language learning amidst the covid-19 pandemic or other emergency states. most research addresses offline and online pd for improving efl teachers‟ competence to teach face-to-face classes. research concerning offline or online pd for improving efl teachers‟ competence to efl teachers’ online teacher professional development experiences amidst the covid-19 pandemic: practices and perceptions 14 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no.1, november 2021 teach online language learning is still limited, especially in the context of pandemics or other emergency states. to this end, the findings of several previous studies ranging from 2015 to 2020 are presented to situate the findings of this research, which are distinctive and contribute to the body of knowledge. in offline pd and face-to-face teaching contexts, efl teachers engage themselves in pd through doing daily work (teaching and its related activities), pursuing degrees in higher education institutions, having membership in professional associations, participating in pd events, doing informal self-studies, and presenting at pd events (alibakhshi & dehvari, 2015). efl teachers are also known to carry out several offline pd activities, with three dominant activities mentioned as reading books or journal articles on language teaching, participating in a conference, and participating in a course. it is commonly found in this form regardless of industry, region, or first language (macalister, 2018).efl teachers need pd activities such as seminars, training, workshops, or focus group discussions to facilitate them in designing class activities according to technology assisted pedagogy (nugroho & mutiaraningrum, 2020). in addition to offline pd activities, efl teachers self-directedly carry out several otpd activities such as chatting, engaging themselves in pd communities, getting their ideas posted on social media, browsing through websites, reading articles, participating in online courses, presenting in webinars, and adapting or adopting teaching materials from the internet. their otpd experiences are primarily focused on acquiring knowledge and skills, with some knowledge or resource sharing thrown in for good measure (utami & prestridge, 2018).in a survey of 156 efl teachers, 145 teachers select web-browsing, 116 teachers choose sharing with colleagues, 93 teachers prefer experience reflection, 46 teachers pick reading books or e-books, and 15 teachers choose conducting research. it indicates that most efl teachers choose web-browsing as their pd activity and only few efl teachers choose conducting research (utami, 2019). offline pd is perceived to have some impacts on efl teachers. these impacts are noticed as obtaining new knowledge and skills, giving influence on classroom practices, and revisiting beliefs about teaching (sokel, 2019). by experiencing otpd self-directedly, it gives efl teachers a big chance to obtain new knowledge and skills, keep up-to-date with innovations, and work together with colleagues from other countries. online pd communities which are subject specific or pedagogical specific can function as further learning environments. web browsing also gives advantages in terms of what is available in the world (utami & prestridge, 2018). globally, various online spaces and social media sites are very valuable as being the venues where teachers enhance themselves professionally. teachers must be aware of these opportunities and take advantage of them by participating in online pd communities and social media sites (khan, 2018). actually, three factors are perceived to be the key factors of successful pd. the key factors influencing offline pd to be successful include coherence (the relatedness arief eko priyo atmojo englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 15 between theory and practice), collaboration opportunities with colleagues, and teachers‟ active engagement (sokel, 2019). moreover, several factors which influence efl teachers‟ engagement in pd activities are time, family responsibility, age, ability, effect-relevance, school culture, and personal motivation. among these factors, time, family responsibility, effect-relevance, and personal motivation are perceived to be dominantly influential. it implies that efl teachers should have more time and personal motivation to perform better in pd activities. they should be able to handle their family responsibilities. they should also be given effect-relevance factors such as certificates of participation and financial incentives to motivate them in carrying out pd activities (utami, 2019). in fact, providing teachers with all the requirements for carrying out pd, such as time, support, infrastructure, and others, is not always easy. many institutions must deal with great problems to fulfill pd requirements. given current institutional conditions, it is still unclear how teachers can improve their professional skills for teaching in an online learning environment (philipsen et al., 2019).similarly, enhancing human resources should be followed by improving internet facilities (nugroho & mutiaraningrum, 2020). despite the findings of the previous research, this research discovers many different findings which are not available in the previous research. this research has presented findings on many things including the otpd activities carried out by the efl teachers, the facilities and infrastructures needed to carry out otpd activities, the problems faced when carrying out otpd activities, how otpd activities give impacts to the efl teachers, the key factors and other valid reasons influencing the impactfulness of otpd activities, the impacts of otpd activities, the general perceptions of otpd experiences, the aspects of otpd which need improvement, the skills needed to improve for teaching online language learning, the frequency of carrying out otpd activities, the starting times of the efl teachers‟ engagement in otpd activities, the impactful otpd activities, and the skills which are successfully improved for teaching online language learning. however, the previous researches only reveal some findings which are also found in this research such as the carried out pd activities, the impacts of pd activities, the key factors of successful pd, the problems hindering engagement in pd activities, and the aspects of pd which need improvement. in short, it can be said that this research has novelty in terms of new findings revealed and different context (pd in online mode, amidst the covid-19 pandemic, and for teaching online language learning purpose in secondary schools). this research gives contributions to the body of knowledge. 5. conclusion given hard times amidst the covid-19 pandemic, many secondary schools in indonesia are shifting to online learning. this policy has an impact on all teachers, including efl teachers. in fact, efl teachers still lack competence in teaching online efl teachers’ online teacher professional development experiences amidst the covid-19 pandemic: practices and perceptions 16 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no.1, november 2021 language learning. thus, they need to engage themselves in pd. however, the covid19 pandemic makes them stay at home and work from home, leading them to improve their competence in teaching online language learning through otpd. this research addresses this empirical gap by investigating this issue and providing valuable findings related to the practices of otpd and perceptions of otpd experiences. besides five findings which are similar to the previous researches, this research reveals some new findings which are not available in the previous researches such as the facilities and infrastructures needed to carry out otpd activities, the skills needed to improve for teaching online language learning, the starting times of the efl teachers‟ engagement in otpd activities, the frequency of carrying out otpd activities, the impactful otpd activities, other valid reasons influencing the impactfulness of otpd activities, the general perceptions of otpd experiences, and the skills which are successfully improved for teaching online language learning. the findings of this research are helpful to assist otpd designers and providers, policy makers, and school leaders for providing otpd which best fits the efl teachers‟ needs, preferences, and teaching contexts since this research also gains information on the efl teachers‟ needs, preferences, and voices regarding otpd. given the most appropriate otpd, the efl teachers are expected to perform better in the future otpd and achieve better improvements in all targeted skills to improve. having successfully improved their competence for teaching online language learning, the efl teachers can refine their online teaching practices which lead to the improvement of students‟ learning outcomes. references adnan, m. 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(2019). english, multilingualism and globalisation in indonesia: a love triangle: why indonesia should move towards multilingual education. english today, 35(1), 48–53. https://doi.org/10.1017/s026607841800010x. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2021. vol. 8, no. 2, 120-137 the impact of bullying on efl students’ academic achievement at state islamic universities in indonesia safrul muluk * universitas islam negeri ar-raniry, banda aceh, indonesia safrul.muluk@ar-raniry.ac.id habiburrahim habiburrahim universitas islam negeri ar-raniry, banda aceh, indonesia habiburrahim@ar-raniry.ac.id syarifah dahliana universitas islam negeri ar-raniry, banda aceh, indonesia syarifah.dahliana@ar-raniry.ac.id saiful akmal universitas islam negeri ar-raniry, banda aceh, indonesia saiful.akmal@ar-raniry.ac.id manuscript received f e b r u a r y 1 8 , 2021, revised april 30, 2021, first published may 3, 2021, and available online may 17, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v8i2.8996 recommended apa citation muluk, s., habiburrahim, h., dahliana, s., & akmal, s. (2021). the impact of bullying on efl students‟ academic achievement at state islamic universities in indonesia. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 8(2), 120-137. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.8996 abstract issues and incidents of bullying may take place, regardless of time and place, notwithstanding at islamic education institutions. this study is aimed at finding out types of bullying and their triggering factors taking place in the university classroom; examining steps taken by lecturers to anticipate and prevent classroom bullying; and analyzing the impact of bullying on efl students‟ academic achievement. this mixedmethods study involved 546 students and 30 lecturers of the english language education department at three state islamic universities in indonesia; universitas islam negeri syarif hidayatullah in jakarta, universitas islam negeri sunan kalijaga in yogyakarta, and universitas islam negeri ar-raniry in banda aceh. both surveys and interviews were employed to collect the required data. the findings elucidate that * corresponding author https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.8996 safrul muluk, habiburrahim habiburrahim, syarifah dahliana, & saiful akmal englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 121 physical, social, verbal, and racial are among the most common emergent bullying incidents the students experienced. revealing the triggering factors of bullying, the data show that competition in academic and social life, differences in thoughts and appearances, lack of understanding of bullying meaning, and lack of regulation are pointed as the source of bullying. the findings also indicate that bullying influences students‟ academic achievement; bullying incidents have driven their victims into four pathetic conditions: less confident, stressed, anxious, and passive. some steps are applied by the lecturer to prevent and handle bullying; they are: providing classroom regulation, being a counselor for students, enforcing the regulation, and massive socialization. keywords: bullying; impact of bullying; academic achievement; islamic university 1. introduction the issue of bullying has become one of the most important areas attracting a lot of attention from stakeholders, such as the government, teachers, and communities, mainly because the effects of bullying behaviors might have on academic, social and emotional states of victims (boulton et al., 2010). incidents of physical and nonphysical violence involving students within educational environment have drawn considerable attention. the bullying actions, such as: mocking, teasing, fighting, disrespects others and so forth, often take place at school and universities. according to olweus (2013), three characteristics that always exist in the act of bullying are: (1) intentional aggression, (2) a power imbalance between aggressor and victim, and (3) repetition of the aggressive behavior. in the classroom context, bullying often goes unnoticed. most students do not realize that their comments, jokes, and body language can sometimes be put into the category of bullying. in english as a foreign language classroom, the possibility of bullying behaviour can be said quite high as students need to learn and practice a new language, thus error and mistakes are common things that often occur during the teaching and learning process. this situation opens a space for bullying incidents. bullying can and does happen in any stages of life. it does not only exist in school settings, but also in colleges or universities vicinities (northwest regional educational laboratory, 2013). while the number of research on bullying at schools is abundant, academic works on the impact of bullying at higher education (he) is limited (coleyshaw, 2010), especially in the context of state islamic universities. we believe that bullying at indonesian islamic universities are not new issues. yet, most of the bullying incidents are not exposed to public society because of various reasons. with the expectation of exploring significant factors driving students to bully, this research is aimed at scrutinizing the problem of bullying and finding out types of bullying and their triggering factors taking place in the university classroom; examining steps taken by lecturers to anticipate and prevent classroom bullying; and analyzing the impact of bullying on efl students‟ academic achievement. the impact of bullying on efl students’ academic achievement at state islamic universities in indonesia 122 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 2. literature review olweus (2019) defines bullying as the repeated occurrence of abuse between people from the same age group where an imbalance of power makes it difficult for the victims to defend themselves. thornberg et al. (2012) furthermore define bullying as repeated offensive and violence acts directed at less powerful targets in their interactions with the bully or bullies. in a similar vein, copeland et al. (2013) contend that bullying is a form of interpersonal violence that can cause shortand long-term physical, emotional, and social problems among victims. 2.1. types of bullying bullying can be divided into several types, such as verbal, physical, social, and emotional bully. physical bullying includes poking, pinching, biting, hitting, hair pulling, kicking, or beating (nasw, 2002). physical bullying usually takes place more frequently among school-age boys than school-age girls (olweus, 1996). verbal bullying consists of teasing, call calling, threats, and spreading rumors. emotional bullying involves exclusion, extortion, defamation or blackmail, and girls had been much more likely to be bullied with rumors than boys (nasw, 2002). coloroso (2003) correspondingly divides three different types of bullying: verbal, physical, and relational. the most common bullying involving boys and girls are verbal bullying which is up to 70%. this happens because verbal bullying is easy to carry out and difficult to detect. verbal bullying includes racist slurs, name-calling, sexually abusive remarks, and belittling. the second is physical bullying such as slapping, poking, kicking, and spitting. the frequency of this type of bullying is one-third of all the bullying types. physical bullying is the most detectable, contrasted with the other types. the third form of bullying is relational bullying including ignoring, isolating, shunning, snickers, and hostile body language. this type is the most undetectable bullying and is often unnoticed (coloroso, 2003). bullying also can be categorized into two other forms. the first form is direct bullying including teasing, hitting, punching, stealing, etc. in other words, it is known as physical actions which most generally done by boys. the second form is indirect bullying which is commonly done by girls. it includes spreading rumors or excluding an individual from social situations (rowan, 2007). 2.2. characteristics of victims and bullies victims of bullying turn to be passive, anxious, insecure, cautious, quiet, and sensitive person. they feel inferior being in the public spaces (shellard, 2002). the victims also decided to withdraw themselves from school activities, and also not to participate in classroom schedules. due to their inability to engage in school activities, their academic success is also declining (ma et al., 2001; brank et al., 2012). on the other hand, bullies can be described as “having an aggressive reaction pattern which, in the case of boys, is combined with physical strength” (olweus, 1997, safrul muluk, habiburrahim habiburrahim, syarifah dahliana, & saiful akmal englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 123 p.500). beane (2005) also states that bullies think themselves as the winner and tend to blame others for their mistakes and are not accountable for their deeds. bullies only have a few friends, and they are difficult to fit into other groups. finally, bullies tend to abuse others to satisfy their willingness (beane, 2005). 2.3. effects of bullying bullying will affect bullies, victims, and bystanders in term of academic, physical, and emotional. it results in negative impacts on the students‟ opportunity to study safely at school (shellard & turner, 2004). victims will be difficult to focus on their school projects and may result in poor academic performance. the impact of frequent bullying will stay long with victims into adulthood; it often leads to a higher risk of depression and other mental health problems (shellard, 2002). bullying also gives negative effects on bullies. they are less popular in the school and are more likely to involve in crime. bullies tend to develop antisocial behaviors, such as vandalism, shoplifting, skipping and dropping out of school, fighting, and doing drugs and alcohol (office of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention, 2001). bullying similarly has an effect on bystanders. the witness are more likely to suffer depression, anxiety, anger, posttraumatic stress, alcohol use, and low scores (shellard, 2002). students who frequently witness bullying may afraid of being bullied in the future (shellard & turner, 2004). futhermore, classroom bullying may bring negative impact on students‟ academic performances (mynard et al., 1996). mynard et al. (1996) say that there is a positive relationship between victims of bullying and academic achievement. many students fail to concentrate on their academic tasks because of the fear of being bullied. classroom bullying also causes lack of social acceptance on victims resulting in negative impacts on a students‟ attendance. mehta et al. (2013) assert that when students feel unsafe, and when they feel bullying takes place at their school, it will be likely that they have less motivation to participate in school activities. this has immediate and long term effects on students, which often affects students‟ performance. 3. method 3.1. research design to examine the problem of bullying in the context of islamic higher education, researchers utilize mixed-method research design to explore in-depth understanding on the topic being researched. this research design is believed to help the researchers to obtain comprehensive information from participants on the issue under investigation. 3.2. participants the investigation on classroom bullying was conducted at three state islamic universities (uin sunan kalijaga, yogyakarta, uin syarief hidayatullah, jakarta, and uin ar-raniry, banda aceh) under the ministry of religious affairs. survey the impact of bullying on efl students’ academic achievement at state islamic universities in indonesia 124 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 questionnaires were distributed to efl students at these three state islamic universities in order to identify students experiencing bullying. the total of 546 students from the three universities (207 from uin ar-raniry, 181 from uin syarif hidayatullah, and 158 students from uin sunan kalijaga) returned the questionnaires related to the issue under investigation. to understand the issue from lecturers‟ perspective, 30 efl lecturers, ten from each university, were also selected as respondents; they were interviewed about bullying in university and the strategies they use to prevent bullying in the classroom. they participated voluntarily in this study. for ethical consideration, all participants are written as anonymous. 3.3. data collection to collect the data, interview technique was used. several interview questions were given to reveal lecturers‟ understanding and experiences of classroom bullying, and their strategies to cope with the issue. respondents were given the liberty to answer the questions in indonesian if they cannot express their ideas in english. this is important to ensure their experiences are correctly articulated. the interviews took approximately thirty to sixty minutes. to get comprehensive information in relation to the issues investigated, semi-structured interview was used in this study. semi-structured interview allows participants to express their views in their own terms. it also enables researchers to acquire reliable, comparable qualitative data. based on the participants‟ preferences, the interviews, which were conducted in english, were audio recorded. research participants could also use indonesian when they have trouble expressing their opinions in english. to get the data on students‟ bullying experiences, a survey questionnaire was distributed to the students. the students had to answer thirty questions related to bullying experiences in university in form of likert-scale questionnaire. from this questionnaire, the data about students‟ background and academic achievement were also noted. 3.4. data analysis to ensure the reliability of the study, the data from questionnaires were analyzed by using spss software in order to identify efl students experiencing bullying. the interview data were partially transcribed; relevant data corresponding to the research questions were identified and irrelevant information were discarded. during the transcription process, the identification and abstraction of appropriate information, comments and suggestions were carried out carefully and systematically (monette et al., 2010). the data were coded after transcription based on emerging themes from the interviews. classifying the data into specific group categories (monette et al., 2010) was carried out to enable researcher to link it to theoretical framework and to produce a conceptual framework. relevant information was then coded, by classifying the data safrul muluk, habiburrahim habiburrahim, syarifah dahliana, & saiful akmal englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 125 into specific group categories, which then be analyzed by using open coding (corbin & strauss, 2008). common emerging themes were categorized, which were used to synthesize the data from interview. research ethics related to the current research were obtained from the office of centre for research of uin ar-raniry where the researchers work as lecturers. 4. findings and discussion based on the survey and interview, some results can be revealed. these results are divided into several themes which relate to the aims of the study. the themes include common types of bully in the university, triggering factors of bullying, the impacts of bullying, and the lecturers‟ efforts in preventing and handling bully. 4.1. types of bullying in the university based on the survey, the most common bullying type happens surrounding the islamic higher education is physical, in which this bullying type takes the first position, followed by social related bullying actions. in the third position, racial bullying type is reported as the less common bullying actions happen at the three mentioned islamic higher institutions. verbal bullying place the fourth position. the table below shares significant information on types of bullying that students at three universities commonly face. table 1 types of bullying students have ever faced. no type of bullying experienced institution uin ar-raniry (n=207) uin syarif hidayatullah (n=181) uin sunan kalijaga (n=158) 1 physical 25.1 26.5 25.9 2 social 20.8 23.8 18.4 3 racial 5.3 7.2 8.2 4 verbal 5.1 6.5 7.2 physical bullying usually happens outside classroom as the control of the lecturer or university is low. this bullying includes slapping, poking, kicking, and spitting. sometimes, the students may only want to make a joke but the victims may think differently. one lecturer said:”i often find that some students kick or poke their friend when they are joking, but the victims may accept differently, they may not think that it si a joke, as each person is different” (uinsya2-mk). certain words and actions from peers may create an uncomfortable feeling for some students. meanwhile, verbal bullying is more common in the classroom during the teaching-learning process. one lecturer told her experience with one student who seems to be „special‟ in the class as everytime the lecturer calls his name or ask him to answer the questions, all his friend laugh and make a joke of him; the lecturer said: “i do not the impact of bullying on efl students’ academic achievement at state islamic universities in indonesia 126 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 understand why, everytime i call him to answer the questions or do certain tasks, all his friends laugh” (uinsya3-fn). the lecturer assumed that this students may have a particular backround that lead him to be the object of bullying; it could be his performance or accent. social and racial bullying can be experienced by the students inside and outside the classroom. one participant states: “i think social bullying is also one of the kinds, such as forming a so-called exclusive group; some calls it “gang” or “clicks”, in the form of western of korea movie fans, or boarding school alumni group” (uinar2ma). these “gangs” may have the same cultural background, socio-economic, and intellectual. one lecturer found that there is a group whose members are students with high intellectual competency. they often do activities together, inside and outside campus. this exclusive group leads other students who feel as „a standard student‟ will lack confidence to join. in addition, as indonesia is a very diverse country representing many different geographic, race and cultural differences ranging from sabang in aceh and meurake in papua then the possibility of racial bullying is quite high. in jakarta, likewise, students are calling their fellow students from java, especially east javanese, with an invented label such as “you are javanese, jokau...” (uinsya-dh). in jogjakarta, the victims of racial slurs are mostly east indonesian students, as explained by a participant stating that “the victims of race insult often the ones coming from papua, bima or ntt” (uinsu5). 4.2. bullying triggering factors some factors are indicated as sources of bullying. these factors include competition in academic and social life, differences in thoughts and appearance, lack of understanding on bullying meaning, and lack of regulation. 4.2.1. competition in academic and social life one of the most persistent factors that trigger bullying in university classroom is intellectual jealousy. some students are particularly worried about being left by classmates and teacher or neglected by parents once they appear to be intellectually incapable. there are times when intellectual jealousy among university students remains serious problems as part of normal sense of competitiveness. this is what exactly echoed by a lecturer at uin ar-raniry noting that “often, bullying was typically practiced by students with personal problems, or more precisely, personal jealousy. they are not happy to see other students performing better than them” (uinar1-az). intellectual jealousy among university students is becoming a major concern in academic backdrop. likewise, cismaru and cismaru (2018) have found that students moving from rural to urban community will be more exposed to the type intellectual jealousy. in the context of uin ar-raniry banda aceh such findings may be relevant safrul muluk, habiburrahim habiburrahim, syarifah dahliana, & saiful akmal englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 127 considering the fact that most students are coming from the regions outside the capital city where the university located. therefore, there are some kinds of feelings of certain pressures to academically perform higher to compete with the urban students. in a global context, intellectual capital is the main ingredient to mobilized universities‟ competitiveness and sustainability (secundo, de beer, schutte, & passiante, 2017). this has led to the fact that students suffered psychological setback like being jealous once they see somebody is performing better than him or her and they were unable to catch up with them. 4.2.2. differences in thoughts and appearances one of the common factors that lead someone commit to bullying behaviour come from the individual uniqueness; there is something different or unusual in the person being bullied. these differences may be in personality, performance, opinions, and behaviour. one participant states: “what appears is that maybe because he does not fit into his group, then he is considered different. there were some bullies that were caused due to different appearances, somewhat like that, so it was considered inappropriate..”(uinsya2-kr). another participant says: “ because she/he is different from others or different opinions” (uinsuka2-kp). the differences usually make one individu become a centre of attention and may raise curiousity among others as well as increase the possibility to be bullied. one participant adds: “some students are a little different because they are a bit feminine. i know from the students‟ talk, from class as well, from the observations during the learning process...he felt that from side of his appearance he was a bit feminine... many of his friends stayed away, maybe affraid of being influenced” (uinsuka3-fm). 4.2.3. lack of understanding on bullying meaning of course, different students have dissimilar takes on the notion of bullying. though the point here is that bullying understanding is in fact is not only varied from one person to another, but more importantly it is unknown or simply undefined for many reasons. simply put, the lack of information and education on bullying has impacted the precise understanding of what bully really means (harrison, fox, & hulme, 2020). here is what a lecturer found in her classroom: “they do not seem to know what bully really is” (uinar2ma). of all the aspect that triggers bullying, we can safely say that the insufficient knowledge on bullying has formed a major factor. knowing this does not necessarily or straightforwardly reduce the practice of bullying, but it can give control for further probe on what actually cause bullying. this, in turn, as has been pointed out by branch and murray (2015), could lead to inaction within the university surrounding. 4.2.4. lack of regulation the impact of bullying on efl students’ academic achievement at state islamic universities in indonesia 128 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 over the past years, complaints on the lack of institutionalized regulations and enforcement have effectively hampered the strategies to overcome bullying in the university. according to hollis (2017), workplace bullying, and in this case within university surrounding, is one apparent civilizational deficiency. this has led to an increasing belief that students, lecturers and all university actors received less protection. as one participant asserts “no warning, no enforcement and lacking the required regulation” (uinar3-rt). we have repeatedly used this excuse as a starting point for making a free-bullying workplace, including in university. the reason is because it endorses commonly agreed and formal regulations that can take place and reflect upon its enforcement mechanism. as it appears we have only „emotional regulation‟ (mahady, craig, & pepler, 2000) and „personal self-regulation‟ (de la fuente et al., 2014) in handling serious issues like bullying. 4.3. impact of bullying on students’ academic achievement when asked if the bullying incidents affect their academic attainments, not all students agreed that bullying has detrimental effect on their academic accomplishment. the students‟ reflection if bullying affects their academic achievement or not is illustrated in the following table. table 2 the effects of bullying on academic performance. no do you think the bullying experience affect your study? institution uin ar-raniry (n=207) uin syarif hidayatullah (n=181) uin sunan kalijaga (n=158) 1 yes 70.5 33.7% 34.2 2 sometimes 0 47.5% 44.9 3 no 29.5 18.8% 20.9 overall, regarding the effects of bullying on academic achievement, the students from three islamic higher education institutions convey the same information, in which bullying affects their academic attainments. among the surveyed students, the majority of students from uin ar-raniry claimed that bullying significantly affects their academic achievement; its percentage reaches 70.5 percent. while the majority of students from both uin syarif hidayatullah and uin sunan kalijaga claimed that sometimes bullying affects their academic achievements. regarding the effects that the students feel when they are bullied, the survey illuminates four significant issues as described in the following table. safrul muluk, habiburrahim habiburrahim, syarifah dahliana, & saiful akmal englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 129 table 3 the effects of bullying. no what effect do you feel when getting bullied? institution uin ar-raniry (n=207) uin syarif hidayatullah (n=181) uin sunan kalijaga (n=158) 1 less confident 64.7 60.8 53.2 2 stressful 33.3 39.2 32.3 3 anxious 23.2 34.8 34.8 4 passive 18.8 31.5 21.5 the table above elaborates significant effects of bullying toward students. the majority of students from three universities said that the biggest effects that they feel as the result of bullying is less confident (64,7% in uin ar-raniry, 60,8% in uin syarif hidayatullah, and 53.2% in uin sunan kalijaga), followed by stressful (39, 2% in uin syarif hidayatullah, 33.3% in uin ar-raniry, and 32.3% in uin sunan kalijaga). meanwhile anxious feelings share the same percentage between uin syarif hidayatullah and uin sunan kalijaga, 34, 8 %. the lowest effect that they feel after being bullied is becoming passive students sharing 31.5 % at uin syarif hidayatullah, 21, 5 % at uin sunan kalijaga, and 18.8 % at uin ar-raniry respectively. traditionally, the first and foremost impact of bullying on students‟ academic achievement is the serious decreased of learning interests and enthusiasm. these are seen as the key negative impact of bullying. a large part of the decreasing learning interests and enthusiasm are generated by the psychological stress and distress felt by the victims where the creative power and spirit in learning were discouraged following the incident and remain unforgettable during a considerable length of time. youngjones, fursa, byrket, and sly (2015) describe that bullying and victimization in higher education like in universities settings have seriously given damaging downturn for student academic motivation. a lecturer participated in this study highlights this impact here saying that “yes, the impact left the mark on the bullied students. their learning enthusiasm or interests is decreasing and it eventually led to their overall academic performance” (uinar1-az). in a similar light, another participant contends that: it is infectious, very much contagious. they see themselves as incapable, belittled, and excluded and being kept away from friends. they become lazier, then psychologically studying with no enthusiasm. that is why i always ask my students if they missed the class three consecutive meetings, why? …. (uinsya5-mw). academic performance is believed to be the special aspect that reflects the complexity of the bullied students to activate their learning motivation, including that of interest and enthusiasm. as shown by the above interview, bullying also distracts the attention for learning and is being the cause of both the lack of concentration and the impact of bullying on efl students’ academic achievement at state islamic universities in indonesia 130 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 strategic ability to cope with problem. positive learning environment may give more positive atmosphere for learning and of course positive attitude and personalities that trigger better academic performances (cowie & myers, 2015). the following example demonstrates how bullying can left permanent mark on the victim personal confidence. the act of bullying often struggled to perform well in the classroom, especially in public presentation and the likes. although the victims of bullying understanding of the subject matter is up to scratch, but clear evidence suggests that the psychological impact on confidence will last longer that one could imagine as illustrated by a participant: “of course it is bad for the self-confidence. they felt unappreciated, unaccepted or rejected, inferior, unable to perform well in the classroom” (uinsya1-ha). this finding is in line with singh‟s (2017) examination that the loss of confidence and self-esteem is notable amongst the victim of bullying. although the reported selfconfidence corrodes is qualitatively unknown and mostly related to the level or scale of bullying behavior, serious impact must not be left unattended. 4.4. classroom bullying prevention dealing with bullying issues, the lecturers have tried to do some preventive steps to minimize bullying behaviour among the students. providing classroom regulation, being a councelor for students, enforcing regulation, and massive socialization are some ways used by the lecturer to prevent and handle bullying incidents. 4.4.1. providing classroom regulation most lecturers take the opportunity to socialize appropriate behaviour at the beginning semester by providing classroom regulation. thus, the students understand what the lecturers expect from them. one lecturer says: at the beginning of the semester, we usually have a contract. at this time, i said that we are all the same here. i explained that everyone has the same rights and obligations; what makes the difference is your achievement. thus, at the beginning of the semester, i reminded the students that arbitrary actions were not right (uinsya2-fa). even if providing a better and protective environment is the responsibility of the whole university citizens, a responsible and well-educated individual or lecturer is required to make proper intervention for bullying acts. hypothetically, any lecturer is the heart and the state of the art in which they can provide a clear framework in their respective classrooms and students under their supervision. for example, the following excerpt demonstrates: i always firmly address this issue in my first meeting of the class. this is about morality and respect. if it gets worse, i will stop the class and do the personal interrogation and correction. or else, in ma’had (students‟ dorm) safrul muluk, habiburrahim habiburrahim, syarifah dahliana, & saiful akmal englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 131 they can get more advice by their mentors that islam should not let bullying happens (uinar2ma). this present study indicated that the need to arrange for a special precondition to support a more effective classroom atmosphere to address the issues. however, lewis (2004) emphasizes the importance of the correct advice, since inappropriate and wrong advices can even escalate tension between university actors. 4.4.2. being a counsellor as an educator, one of lecturer‟s role is a councellor. the students may come to see the lecturer for asking some advices. thus, it is the time for the lecturer to provide appropriate advices that offer some solutions for the students. one lecturer states: “a lecturer has space to communicate before learning. in the middle of learning, we can use a few minutes for giving advices” (uinsya3-mw). another lecturer says: in the classroom, i do not immediately admonish students because they are adult learners, so their actions are no longer pedagogical but androgogical, i call them to talk face to face, the one who bully his/her friends and the one who is the victim (uinsya2-fa). an interesting finding also said that psychological help for victims does repair mental health. it appears that managing psychological impact, particularly those involved engaging counseling unit or department, as puts forward by this participant can be a way out too “we must treat them well, assist them. bring them to psychological counseling department or counseling unit” (uinsu2-ma). this speaks to the power of the faculty and university in getting involved in enhancing the psychological consequences reduced and supportive climate upheld (eliot et al., 2010). by this step, it is expected that the students willingness to speak and to let go what has happened can occur, or else, the enthusiasm to find help and support is flourishing. 4.4.3. enforcing regulation as noted above, the top down regulation and enforcement with serious sanction and ethical code is noteworthy to be implemented. even if the face of the many faces of rules, regulation and ethical code implementation may vary from one institution to another, it reveals that university leaders pay thoughtful consideration on bullying, especially when bottom up approach did not effectively work “once the personal approach didn‟t work, use the ethical code and its sanction” (uinsu2-ma). building from the comment, the captured finding from several interviews discloses that the prevalence of bullying in higher education may depend on the operationalization of the sufficient time frame to enforce regulation and sanction to take effect. to certain degree, a revitalized regulatory scheme to address bullying is the impact of bullying on efl students’ academic achievement at state islamic universities in indonesia 132 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 desperately needed (harthill, 2009), though the „compliance trap‟ in responsive regulatory enforcement is lurking (parker, 2006). 4.4.4. massive campaign and socialization taking into account the prospective for bullying situation to explode and involve more people in university settings, the evidence suggests that massive campaign and extensive socialization is urgently needed. we recognize that the following response from our participant indicates this need, whereby socialization and campaign is rarely considered as important as taking curative actions in post-bullying backdrops “socialization to resist the temptation to pose comments, though difficulty because everyone will argue that is part of freedom of speech and intellectual freedom” (uinsu4). socialization and campaign can involve multi-stakeholder participation, ranging from parents to lecturers and from staffs to peer students (sullivan, 2010). the antibullying campaign and intervention must take into consideration every level of a student‟s experience (kern, 2010). another way is incorporating anti-bullying concept into religious courses, as proposed by the following participant, considering the nature of islamic state university contexts “maybe we can integrate it into religious courses. islam doesn‟t teach such things. address bullying in religious activities, talk show, sermons, etc.” (uinsu1-na). 5. conclusion bullying occurs in the university in various forms. different students experience different types of bully depend on the surrounding circumstances. the main source of bullying comes from something that is considered different by a person or a group of people over others. these differences of appearance, idea, and performance have been a reason for making fun. although the lecturers mentioned that they have already taken appropriate measures to prevent bullying during the teaching and learning process, the students themselves are not sure that bullying has already been well tackled in the classroom and university environment. we also found that bullying affects students‟ academic achievement as it strikes students‟ performance and behavior in the classroom. the lecturers seem to emphasize verbal bullying as the most common one occurring in the classroom. the lecturers detect verbal bullying actions during the teaching and learning process. verbal bullying is common among the students, particularly in higher education level (hogue & disbrow, 2013; coloroso, 2003; shellard, 2002). however, the majority of students also mention that they also experience physical, social, and racial bullying during their study. for the lecturers, they can only detect bullying actions in the classroom; they may lose information of what happen outside the classroom if the students do not report to them. safrul muluk, habiburrahim habiburrahim, syarifah dahliana, & saiful akmal englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 133 in terms of triggering factors of bullying, competition in academic and social life, differences in thoughts and appearances, lack of understanding on bullying meaning, and lack of regulation are indicated as the source of bullying. competition leads someone to commit on bullying behaviour by gossiping, saying negative words, judging without reasons and so forth. the uniquness of of individul also often stimulate bullying occur. for some students, when they see and face something difference in terms of intellectual, opinions, personality, social background, power and hierarchy, they may have a reason to make fun of others through their behavior, words, and actions. lack of regulation, then, is mentioned by the lecturer as the main cause of bullying actions continues. in addition, the findings also indicate that bullying influences students‟ academic achievement. majority students believe that bullying inhibits their learning process as their psychological state may be disruptive which affect their study habit and behaviour. bullying incidents have driven their victims into four pathetic conditions: less confident, stressed, anxious, and passive. all these conditions have relation with successfull learning as they determine students‟ enthusiasm and participation in classroom activities. some efforts are utilized by the lecturers to prevent and handle bullying; they are: providing classroom regulation, being a councelor for students, enforcing regulation, and massive socialization. for the students, the rules are important but their implementation is also crucial; for this reason, providing rewards and punishment related to bullying actions may become a solution to prevent bullying. it educates students to stay away from engaging in bullying actions. although the lecturers say that they actually implicitly prevent bullying through their advice during teaching and learning process, the students may not be aware that the lecturers‟ advice refers to bullying issues; they may think that the lecturers just talk about behavior in general. personal approach is also often used by the lecturers when bullying occurs in the classroom by calling all the students involved in bullying actions. however, this action may have limited solution as one or two bullying cases may need bigger actions from higher management at the university. a strong force is required to make bullying issues more sounded. in this case, each university needs to enforce any regulation on bullying prevention and provide report mechanism; the students should be given clear information of where to go and to whom they should report and talk to. based on the interviews with the lecturers, there is no regulation from the university related to bullying issues; there is only ethics regulation. anti-bullying policies are required due to the increase of bullying actions in campus. the lack of anti-bullying policies at the higher level of management at the university has led bullying case inappropriately tackled (hollis, 2017). the impact of bullying on efl students’ academic achievement at state islamic universities in indonesia 134 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 references al-rahmi, w. m., yahaya, n., alamri, m. m., aljarboa, n. a., kamin, y. b., & moafa, f. a. 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portfolios are actually beneficial to the educational process. this piece of work overviews recent literature related to the use of electronic portfolios and examines the issues and challenges of effectively implementing and using electronic portfolios in educational institutions. keywords: artifacts; digital documentation; electronic portfolios; personal reflection introduction for decades, many educators have been voicing their concerns about the disadvantages standardized achievement tests may cause to ell learners. standardized achievement tests, they argue, fail to include ell learners, who may come from linguistically diverse backgrounds, in the norming group (abedi, 2002, p. 232), to consider “… the match or mismatch between a student’s cultural and school experiences…” (navarrette & gustke, 1996, p. 2), and to provide bias-free and fair test items (green & griffore, 1980, p. 240-48). indeed, according to law and eckes (2007): benefits of web-based or electronic portfolio assessment in esl classroom 2 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 tests rarely reveal students’ strategies, attitudes, interests, or explicit understandings of processes; they reveal control over language and content matter. because a student’s performance on a test so often has nothing to do with his competence in the subject matter, we believe it is not a good idea to use tests as the sole measure of learning or the only resource for making educational decisions (p. 146). these failure and discrepancy have led to the birth of alternative types of assessment methods that can facilitate these segments of learners and allow them to have more options to construct and demonstrate their aptitude. among these alternative types of assessment, portfolios are ones that have been gaining popularity “… at the forefront of the movement…” because they are “… the most useful and revealing way of showing growth, mastery, and true pictures of where a student is functioning” (law & eckes, 2007, p. 226). a portfolio, according to genesee and upshur, can be defined as a purposeful collection of students’ work that demonstrates to students and others in their efforts, progress, and achievements in given areas” (as cited in brown, 1994, p. 418). the invasion of computer and internet into language classroom in this digital age, however, has also brought about changes and innovation in the face, use, and features of portfolio assessment as an educational tool. a new type of portfolio, called electronic portfolios, as a result, was born out of this. park university defines an electronic portfolio as a “purposeful collection of student work designed to showcase a student’s progress toward, and achievement of, course-specific learning objectives… [which] include students’ self-reflection on their learning processes and experiences as well as instructors’, mentors’, and peers’ comments on what students have submitted” (as cited in lorenzo & ittelson, 2015, p. 2). discussion despite its relatively new introduction and integration in language classroom compared to other alternative assessment tools, electronic portfolios, also widely known as web-based, technology-based, digital, or e-portfolios, have proved to be a valuable resource for both language teachers and ell learners. indeed, i believe zulfikar englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 3 that, the use of electronic portfolios can offer positive impacts in language teaching and learning can offer positive impacts for several reasons. first, the use of electronic portfolios in esl classroom supports a lifelong learning and assessment. according to cambridge, “lifelong learning is an ongoing process of developing knowledge, skills, and strategies; putting capabilities and selfunderstanding into action over time; and thereby establishing an identity. to support lifelong learning, higher education needs to look beyond the content knowledge, practical techniques, and professional capabilities that have been its primary focus” (2010, p. ix). electronic portfolios give solutions to address this conception of education goals. as stated by candy, “active engagement in the e-portfolio approach to learning and teaching may be seen to progress lifelong learning activity through the reflective process” (as cited in mcallister et al., 2008, p. 247). in their electronic portfolios, learners can exhibit proofs of their years-long academic and professional progress and achievement and use them throughout their educational and professional journeys. all the evidence, most importantly, is conveniently accessible for long term use. indeed, batson suggested that this feature of electronic portfolios provides the learners an opportunity “… to easily show [their] prospective schools and employers their development and overall strengths in using english” (as cited in grant, 2010, p. 21). therefore, electronic portfolios promote an everlasting assessment, self-evaluation, and learning for ells because they can serve as a storage of the learner’s life experience, thoughts, and chronicles, which can be utilized both in the present and in the future. second, electronic portfolios help ells to keep up with the development in technological advance and improve their mastery of computer use in learning. for ells who are already familiar with the use of technology in their daily life, electronic portfolios is not an unconventional work and does not require too much effort. for these computer-literate ells, then, electronic portfolios are only an extension of their regular routines with computers. through electronic portfolios, learners are able to show not only their mastery of english skills, but also their ability to use the skills in computer-related areas. they are used to using a range of electronic devices for various purposes. for instance, they are used to using skype for calling their families back home, twitter and facebook for social-networking, and blogs for sharing their benefits of web-based or electronic portfolio assessment in esl classroom 4 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 ideas. as a matter of fact, they are often required to utilize computers for academic purposes such as typing and turning in homework assignments, attending online courses, and simply browsing. babaee (as cited in babaee & tikoduadua, 2013, p. 52) reinforced that “such social media including facebook, websites, and blogs are part of learners’ everyday lives; and connections between daily experiences and learning processes aids learning.” understandably, they will most likely appreciate the chance to also utilize their skills in using technology to demonstrate their language aptitude. for ells who are not ‘tech-savvy’, electronic portfolios can help them develop their computer literacy, especially for academic purpose. in any case, ells, whose english proficiency is usually assessed by means of standardized achievement tests, can now use an alternative way to show their aptitude while at the same time learning to utilize such media as images, sounds, or videos as supporting elements. the teachers, then, are able to not only read but also to see, watch, and listen to samples of students’ work. in this case, e-portfolios can function as “… a more holistic assessment of the student experience… allowing them to define their experience as a whole” (cambridge, 2012, p. 106). indeed, this process of producing multi-faceted portfolios by utilizing multimedia and web-based technology “… facilitates students to learn and apply computer-related technology. in other words, students’ computer literacy is enhanced through e-portfolio, hence improving their competitiveness…” (chan & kennis, 2013, p. 98). commenting on how electronic portfolio helped her students increase their computer literacy, one instructor remarked, “the kids like using computers, so it’s great in terms of computer skills. the kids had to download pictures and they had to make attachments and stuff, so it’s great in terms of computer technology” (meyer, wade, & abrami, 2013, p. 273). another instructor reported how electronic portfolios enabled the incorporation of technology teaching in her course, stating: “i think their technology competencies were more of the goal than the actual writing competency, because we do a lot of writing also in class. so the kids are able to learn how to attach files, learn how to save files, learn how to go and search for things…” (p. 273). third, electronic portfolios have a higher level of practicality than conventional paper-based portfolios. electronic portfolios seize less time and effort zulfikar englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 5 from both learners and teachers. they also can be easily reproduced and accessed because they can be retrieved anytime and anywhere. jaen affirmed that electronic portfolios’ “… practicality is what makes it so appealing; user-friendly websites are easy to maintain and cds are easy to copy, change, carry or mail. digital files make it easy to share information with fellow designers… and school administrators” (2012, p. 112). all items of the learners’ progress and accomplishment, such as writing samples, study projects, published articles, achievements and awards are electronically stored in various digital formats on a website, hard drives, zip disks, or cd-rom and thus, are available for long term needs and have very minimal risks of loss. they can continually and conveniently access, review, adjust, modify, and display their portfolios whenever needed no matter where they are in the world without having to bring along a heavy folder (grant, 2010, p. 20). also, the artifacts of their learning progress and achievement can be constantly loaded 24 hours per day, 7 days using multiple devices from their personal computers or mobile devices. even for teachers, electronic portfolios can be highly practical. as affirmed by ng (2015), when utilized as a tool to assess learners’ performance, electronic portfolios allow teachers “… to monitor students' mastery of a core curriculum area over time… [and] enhance the assessment process by enabling the student to demonstrate academic achievements and research skills through a number of completed digital assignments and tasks that showcase the students' abilities in an eportfolio” (p. 119). in other words, they can get access to the comprehensive artifacts of their students' work easily. fourthly, electronic portfolios provide a uniform assessment method. as maintained by ayres et al., some types of electronic portfolios “… allow a uniform implementation across an entire institution” (2009, p. 149). when implemented as an institution-, faculty-, or schoolwide assessment, electronic portfolios will enable the school to assess the teaching and learning outcome across levels on the same criteria in a unified way. additionally, “administrators can easily see where students left off in a previous level, without having to compare several different means of assessment” (grant, 2010, p. 22). while it may be true that school-wide adoption of e-portfolio assessment method will require significant investment, it can surely pay off. according to chalk and wire (as cited in polly & persichite, 2012), school-wide benefits of web-based or electronic portfolio assessment in esl classroom 6 | englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 electronic portfolio system “provide[s] the ability to aggregate at different levels of the organization,” (p. 276) meaning that data mining at various learning stages is a possibility. in addition, as strudler and wetzel affirm, it allows teachers or the faculty to synchronize course products with certain institutional standards in a region (p. 277). these features will be most likely tempting to school committees and stakeholders. schools adopting this system, thus, have taken a step forward toward community learning by promoting and constructing virtual learning community. next, there are numerous websites available for creating, managing, and viewing e-portfolios, and many of them offer a variety of convenient features that teachers can select to meet the needs of their specific course and students. some of these websites even provide service to develop “e-portfolios [that] were more personal, planned, and educational without any type of commercial concerns compared to regular websites” (alawdat, 2013, p. 343). blog, doyoubuzz, pathbrite, flavors.me, opresume, shown’d, weebly, and portfolio gen are among e-portfolio website providers that offer service free of charge. teachers only need to direct their learners to one of them to arrange their personal, professional and academic works. in case they prefer a more personalized e-portfolios that they can modify the way they want, there are also such e-portfolio service as facebook based e‐portfolios, pebble pad based e‐portfolios, and wiki-based electronic portfolios (babaee and tikoduadua, 2013, p. 51), which allow more freedom for their users to organize their exteriors. finally, research has shown that using e-portfolios as an assessment tool can encourage learner’s autonomy in learning. in organizing e-portfolios, learners will be in charge of creating and organizing their materials for a particular purpose, assessing their own work, and making a reflection on their own learning experiences and progress (goldsmith, as cited in yastibas & cepik, 2015, p. 516). they can control every phase in developing their e-portfolios, from selecting the content to evaluating their own learning outcome. as a result, they can present their eportfolios in a more personalized way and will be more motivated to study. according to gonzalez, the whole process of being in charge of their own eportfolios promotes learning autonomy because learners play the role of the directors of their own learning (as cited in yastibas & cepik, 2015, p. 516). in an zulfikar englisia vol. 4, no. 1, november 2016 | 7 investigation on the impact of weblog-based e-portfolio assessment on the improvement of syntactic component of writing among iranian intermediate efl learners, motallebzadeh and babaee (as cited in babaee & tikoduadua, 2013, p. 51) also confirmed that learners participating in the e‐ portfolio based learning were more involved in self‐monitoring their own learning by writing more reflective writing logs. further, in a study to analyze students’ perceptions of using e-portfolio assessment management system (eams) to support their learning and assessment conducted by tubaishat (2014), a student participant commented: my e-portfolio helps me monitor my progress towards achieving goals in my degree program: this question was designed to learn about the student’s impression from the use of the e-assessment tool to help them monitor their progress towards achieving their learning goals in their degree program. about 65 percent of the students either agreed or strongly agreed to that statement, 25 percent were undecided whether their e-assessment tool helped them monitor their progress towards achieve their goals. around 10 percent disagreed or strongly disagree to that statement (p. 376). conclusion in short, changes in the learning environment have enhanced classroom practices and have impacted teachers’ approach in evaluating and assessing learners’ work. internet and computer have offered new way for teachers to expose students to the wider world, opening ways for learners to acquire information and expand their knowledge. e-portfolios, in this case, can be used effectively and efficiently in assessment because of the numerous advantages learners can greatly benefit from them. references abedi, j. 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(2015). affordances of new digital technologies in education. new digital technology in education: conceptualizing professional learning for educators, 95-123. doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-05822-1_5 polly, d., mims, c., & persichitte, k. a. (2012). developing technology-rich teacher education programs: key issues. hershey, pa: information science reference. tubaishat, a. (2014). e-portfolio assessment for learning: ten years later – an experience from an outcome-based university. international journal of advanced computer science and information technology (ijacsit), 3(4), 368-78. retrieved from: http://elvedit.com/journals/ijacsit/wpcontent/uploads/2015/01/e-portfolio-assessment-for-learning.pdf yastibas, a. e., & cepik, s. teachers’ attitudes toward the use of e-portfolios in speaking classes in english language teaching and learning. procedia – social and behavioral sciences. 176 (2015), 514 – 525. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.01.505 englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2021. vol. 9, no. 1, 165-182 secondary school students’ english literacy achievement based on pisa reading literacy test 2009 soni mirizon * sriwijaya university, palembang, indonesia smirizon@unsri.ac.id machdalena vianty sriwijaya university, palembang, indonesia machdalenavianty@unsri.ac.id ida rosmalina sriwijaya university, palembang, indonesia ida_rosmalina@unsri.ac.id erlina erlina sriwijaya university, palembang, indonesia erlina@fkip.unsri.ac.id manuscript received a p r i l 2 4 , 2021, revised august 29, 2021, first published november 1, 2021, and available online november 7, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i1.10492 recommended apa citation mirizon, s., vianty, m., rosmalina, i., & erlina, e. (2021). secondary school students’ english literacy achievement based on pisa reading literacy test 2009. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(1), 165-182. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i1.10492 abstract reading literacy has become global concern that organisation for economic cooperation and development (oecd) has conducted program for international student assessment (pisa) reading literacy test to assess what students know and can do in reading. participating in pisa test since 2000, indonesian students’ reading literacy has not shown a significant improvement. because pisa reading literacy test is adapted into language of instruction of each participating country, it is indonesian students’ reading literacy in indonesian language which is not satisfactory. considering the fact that indonesian fifteen-year-old students study english as a compulsory subject, investigating students’ reading literacy in english is considered important. there has * corresponding author mailto:smirizon@unsri.ac.id mailto:machdalena074@yahoo.com2 mailto:ida_rosmalina@unsri.ac. mailto:erlina@fkip.unsri.ac.id secondary school students’ english literacy achievement based on pisa reading literacy test 2009 166 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 been much research investigating issues in reading achievement in indonesia, but there are limited studies focussing on pisa reading literacy based on school location, school accreditation, gender, and academic major. employing survey study design, this study assessed reading literacy of two thousand and two hundred secondary school students sampled from twenty four public secondary schools accredited a+, a, and b in palembang. data were obtained using pisa reading literacy test 2009 and were analysed statistically. the findings revealed that students’ english literacy was in level 3 (low category). students studied at schools in central urban district performed better than those of in peri urban district. those from secondary schools accredited a+ outperformed their counterparts in schools accredited a and b. female students performed slightly better than male. students majoring in science were better than those of majoring in social. the results lead to the conclusion that students’ english literacy achievement should be enhanced using innovating strategies to achieve targeted literacy level that is needed to survive in school academic life. keywords: english literacy; pisa reading literacy test; secondary school students 1. introduction reading is not merely able to comprehend written text but is also able to make meaning from what is read (roe, 2014). meaning deals with context and is derived from one’s prior knowledge (cook, 2008). it is the ability to decode messages presented and correctly understand them (grabe & stoller, 2002). in reading, it is not a matter of decoding the messages but also recalling previous knowledge and making meaning from what is read. reading provides access to crucial information at work and in school (komiyama, 2009). it is for the society as well for each individual. for indonesian secondary students (year 7-12), reading in indonesian language as well as in english is important that it can help students access the information they need for studying. in addition, both indonesian language and english are the compulsory subjects for indonesian secondary students (lauder, 2008). therefore, having good reading skills is very important for the students. the importance of reading has become a global concern that organisation for economic co-operation and development (oecd) has conducted program for international student assessment program for international student assessment (pisa) reading literacy test to assess what students are familiar with and able to do in reading. according to oecd (2016, p. 9), ―reading is usually figured out as the process of interpreting silently or practicing loudly‖. therefore, oecd uses the term ―reading literacy‖ which is based on pisa 2009, 2012 and 2015 and is described as ―understanding, using, reflecting on and engaging with written texts, in order to achieve one’s goals, to develop one’s knowledge and potential, and to participate in society‖ (oecd, 2016, p. 6). oecd (2016) believes that reading literacy is crucial for students’ personal life and their role in taking part in the community irrespective of their academic life need and labour-force demand. referring to what the scholars have stated, oecd believes that reading literacy achievement is not only the basis of other subject achievement but also a determinant of most adult life success (cunningham & soni mirizon, machdalena vianty, ida rosmalina, & erlina erlina 167 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 stanovich, 1998; oecd, 2013a; smith, mikulecky, kibby, dreher, & dole, 2000). pisa reading literacy test is for students aged 15 who are selected from the end level of compulsory education, usually at year 9, of participating countries (thomson, hillman, & de bortoli, 2013). in accordance with this, the aims of pisa assessment is ―to measure how well young adults, at age 15 and therefore near the end of compulsory schooling in most participating education systems, have acquired and are able to use knowledge and skills in particular areas to meet real-life challenges‖ (thomson et al., 2013, p. 2). in other words, this international assessment is meant to map reading literacy of students at their compulsory education level of the participating countries. indonesia is one of the countries participating in pisa assessment. however, indonesian students did not show satisfactory results in reading literacy. it was reported that indonesia ranked in 57 th of 65 countries in 2009 (oecd, 2010) and 60 th of 65 countries in 2012 (oecd, 2013b). the result of pisa reading literacy test in 2015 has not shown a significant improvement but it lifted up indonesia six ranks from its last position in 2012 (kementerian pendidikan dan kebudayaan, 2016). since pisa reading literacy test is adapted into language of instruction of each participating country, it is indonesian students’ reading literacy in indonesian language which is not satisfactory. considering that english is also the compulsory subject for the indonesian secondary school students (year 7-9), investigating students’ reading literacy in english is worth doing. it is due to the fact that english has been being taught to secondary school students for decades but it is found that the results were not satisfactory yet. literacy still becomes problematic for indonesian students compared to other south asian nations (dilas, mackie, huang & trines, 2019). although they study the four language skills in english, which are all important, but reading is the foundation of the other three language skills, as pointed out below. reading is an essential skill for learners of english. for most of learners it is the most important skill to master in order to ensure success in learning. with strengthened reading skills, learners of english tend to make greater progress in other areas of language learning (anderson, 2003, p. 2) it is apparent that having good skill in reading facilitates learners in accessing information which is necessary to support their academic life. as anderson (2003) pointed out, reading is the language skill that can help the successful learning of the other language skills: listening, speaking and writing. having the information concerning english reading literacy of the students can provide a picture about how well the students can access and get the information, integrate, interpret and evaluate what they have read. there are a lot of studies investigating issues in reading achievement in general and in english in international setting. there also has been much research investigating secondary school students’ english literacy achievement based on pisa reading literacy test 2009 168 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 issues in reading achievement in english in indonesia, but there are limited studies focussing on pisa reading literacy based on the variables of this current study. this study aims at reporting the reading literacy in english as measured by pisa 2009 of year 10 students sampled from twenty four state senior high schools in palembang, indonesia based on school location, school accreditation, gender, and students’ major. 2. literature review pisa which is instigated by oecd is an international measure which aims to map 15 year old randomly selected students’ literacy achievement in reading, mathematics, and science. the results of the pisa study are presented in the form of information about students' knowledge, skills, and competencies. according to yusuf (2008), literacy team reading center for education assessment of ministry of national education, pisa study results can be used as comparative in the formulation of policies in improving the quality of basic education in indonesia, especially in determining the threshold and ideal threshold (benchmark) on 3 cognitive domains, i.e. reading, mathematics, and science at the end of compulsory school age. in addition, the pisa study results can also be obtained from some contextual indicators of student demographics, schools, teachers, and other variables that influence student knowledge, skills and competence (oecd, 2009). in the past century, literacy has generally been attributed only to the ability to communicate in writing (dando, 2016). the traditional conceptions of the literacy notion also occur in the field of mathematics. until a few years ago, mathematics education was a means used to provide scientific knowledge and skills in mathematics that is needed in a livelihood financially and professionally (ojose, 2011). however, in pisa, mathematics literacy refers to the ability someone has in recognizing and understanding mathematics role in life, creating a good foundation of understanding, and communicating mathematical knowledge and skills effectively, and capable of answering and explaining mathematical problem related to numbers (oecd, 2009). parallel to the idea of mathematical literacy based on oecd 2009, the notion of mathematical literacy in modern life is now generally defined as a unity of knowledge, understanding, and skills that people need to function effectively in modern life (yusuf, 2008). in pisa, there are three major components of mathematical literacy assessment namely process component, content component, and context component. in process component, assessment is used to observe student competence in reasoning, analyzing, communicating idea, and formulating and solving problem. in content component, mathematical content that needs to observe are change, relationship, space, and shape. in the third component, context of mathematics application, mathematical content is the abstraction of results in hundred years of human civilization. as a result, what learned in mathematics has frequently become very abstract, very far from the context of application. in mathematical literacy, context of mathematics application component has crucial portion which means that students do not only need to adequately understand soni mirizon, machdalena vianty, ida rosmalina, & erlina erlina 169 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 mathematics but have to be able to make reason and solve problem with mathematics, also required to understand its application and carry out the application. nowadays, the development of modern society has turned bringing about a change that one is required for the literature of science. according to oecd (2015), ―pisa identifies science literacy as the ability to use science knowledge, identifies problems, and draws conclusions based on evidence, in order to understand and make decisions about nature and changes made to nature through human activity‖ the notion of science literacy as mentioned above does not mean that someone is required to master more science knowledge, but more importantly is capable of thinking scientifically (scientific thinking) and apply it in the context of the problem in national, social, and global context (yusuf, 2008). in science literacy assessment, there are three main aspects identified by pisa, i.e. science process, science content, and context of science application. in science process, pisa sees science education as a process to prepare future citizen who are able to participate in the society who are affected by the advancement of science and technology, so that it is necessary to develop student competence to understand the essence of science, procedure of science, and the strength and weakness of science, including kinds of questions that can or cannot be answered by science, know what evidence needed in science investigation, and know which conclusion appropriate with existing evidence. in science content, pisa does not limit the scope of science to the content stated in the curriculum of science at school but involves knowledge that is important for science literacy including the ones which can be obtained from other sources outside of school curriculum. in the context of science application, pisa stresses on the importance of understanding the context of science application and able to put it into application in solving real problem students face related to their personal, local community where they belong, and in global life. according to oecd (2010), reading literacy is the ability to understand, use, and interpret the content of reading that aims to achieve one goal of developing knowledge and abilities, and participate in society. in reading literacy, pisa measures three main literacy processes: the ability to seek and find information, the ability to develop meaning and interpret reading content, and the ability to reflect and evaluate the content of the reading in relation to the experience day-to-day, previously acquired knowledge, and the development of ideas from the information it acquires. reading literacy is categorized into four specific objectives, namely: functional reading literacy, reading literacy in the workplace, content reading literacy, and critical reading literacy (yusuf, 2008). functional reading literacy is the ability to seek information useful for certain need. it focuses on the reading ability for certain objective in daily life such as looking for specific information in newspaper, magazine, traffic lights, and other public information. reading literacy in the workplace includes skills in applying reading literacy strategies in working in various situations. content reading literacy refers to the reading ability to seek new information about the content of knowledge, including secondary school students’ english literacy achievement based on pisa reading literacy test 2009 170 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 reading ability in general, knowledge about certain discipline known, and reading ability in particular discipline. critical reading literacy involves the ability to deal with questions which require answers through proposing hypothesis, making conclusion from implicit questions, and evaluating and giving opinion toward certain issues. 2.1. pisa and reading literacy reading literacy aims to determine the ability of students in understanding, using, and identifying the information contained in the reading as well as reflecting and evaluating the reading (reflecting on written text) (oecd, 2009). pisa aims to measure how well students, toward the end of their compulsory education age, are prepared to face the challenges of today's life. therefore, the literacy concept developed in pisa refers to the students’ capacity to apply knowledge and skills in analyzing, constructing arguments, and communicating effectively when dealing with, solving and interpreting problems in different situations. in this respect, the literacy instrument developed in pisa is used to measure literacy skills based on 6 levels of reading ability, as described in table 1 below. table 1 summary of description for the even levels of proficiency in reading. level score characteristics of tasks 6 698 tasks at this level typically require the reader to make multiple inferences, comparisons and contrasts that are both detailed and precise. 5 626 tasks at this level that involve retrieving information require the reader to locate and organize several pieces of deeply embedded information, inferring which information in the text is relevant. 4 553 task at this level involve retrieving information require the reader to locate and organize several pieces of embedded information. 3 480 tasks at this level require the reader to locate, and in some cases recognize the relationship between several pieces of information that must meet multiple conditions. 2 407 some tasks at this level require the reader to locate one or more pieces of information, which may need to be inferred and may need to meet several conditions. 1 below 407 tasks at this level require the reader to locate one or more independent pieces of explicitly stated information, to recognize the main theme or author’s purpose in a text about a familiar topic, or to make a simple connection between information in the text and common, everyday knowledge. (source: oecd, 2010) according to oecd (2009, p. 25), literacy assessment of pisa reading is based on three main dimensions, namely (1) situations—the range of texts that have been read when reading occurs, (2) the text—the scope of material read, and (3) aspect—cognitive approach how reader deals with reading materials. text types include prose text (such as stories, articles, and manual texts) and non-continuous text (such as graphics, images, maps, schemes, tables, and advertisements) that reflect various uses or settings where soni mirizon, machdalena vianty, ida rosmalina, & erlina erlina 171 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 knowledge and skills are used. pisa text type measures ―three reading processes, namely the ability to search and locate information; develop interpretation, reflect and evaluate the content of a text, and reflect and evaluate the text form‖ (u.s department of education, 2010). 2.2. pisa reading literacy level of indonesian students according to the education sector analytical and capacity development partnership (acdp) indonesia (2015), indonesia became the 4 th fastest country in terms of overall student achievement—and not partial—by 22.1 points reflecting improvements to its education system, countries included in the pisa test. however, reading literacy of indonesian students was still classified as very low compared to 15year-olds at international level. according to pisa 2009, reading literacy includes the skills of finding information, understanding and interpreting the reading, as well as reflecting and evaluating what it reads. based on oecd pisa 2009 data, from 65 countries surveyed, indonesian students ranked 57 th with an average of 402. one to ten places were held by students from other developed countries. it indicated that indonesian students’ ability was below the students of indonesia's neighboring countries, namely thailand ranked 50th with a value of 421. according to the literacy team of the center for educational assessment of the ministry of national education (2011), the pisa study results showed that a number of ―31.1% of indonesian students are below level-1, 37.6% are at level-1, 24.8% are in level-2, 6.1% level-3, and only 0.4% are at level-4, and no one had scored on level5‖. ability for each of these levels was still far below the average capability of the countries surveyed. for retrieving information, the survey results showed that as many as 42.9% of indonesian students are were below level-1, 31.5% at level-1, 19.5% at level-2, 5.5% at level-3, and only 0.6% were at level-4, and no one was at level-5. likewise for the skills to understand and interpret the more difficult readings of the first skill, the survey showed that as many as 27.6% of students were below level-1, 40.3% were at level-1, 26.1% were at level-2, 5.7% were at level3, 0.3% were at level-4 and none at level-5. at the most difficult skill level, the skills of reflecting and evaluating the content of the reading, the survey illustrated that 32.5% of indonesian students were under level-1, 28.7% were at level-1, 24.3% were at level-2, 11.2% level-3, 2.9% were at level-4, and 0.4% at level-5. these international measures labeled that indonesian student literacy apparently was still below the average of international students. it implies that attention in enhancing reading literacy of indonesian students should be paid and necessary action to upgrade indonesian student literacy should be taken so that they become more literate and are able to retrieve necessary information needed to support their academic life. secondary school students’ english literacy achievement based on pisa reading literacy test 2009 172 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 2.3. school location previous studies indicated school location may affect student achievement in various fields. owoeye and yara (2011) conducted a study investigating whether school location related to student academic performance in nigeria. the study involved students from 50 secondary schools both in urban and rural areas. it was found that there was a discrepancy of students’ academic achievement where students in urban areas outperformed their counterparts in rural areas. similarly, adepoju (2001) did a survey in 100 secondary schools looking at the influence of schools location on student performance. it was revealed that there was a significant relationship between schools location and academic performance in english and mathematics in urban and rural places where students in urban schools overtook their colleagues in rural areas. likewise, warwick (1992) carried out a study in fifty countries surveying reading literacy of 9-14 years old students. the findings showed that students who studied in schools located in urban areas had better achievement in reading literacy compared to those who studied in rural areas schools. also, osokaya and akuche (2012) examined school location influence on secondary students’ achievement in physics by giving intervention to more than 500 secondary school students from eight secondary schools. the results indicated that there was a significant effect of school location on students’ cognitive achievement and practical skills performance. akinwumi (2017) investigated school location impact on english reading achievement of 270 students from nine public secondary schools in applying a quasi-experimental design involving experimental and control group. it was found that in the experimental group students from urban schools showed better achievement than their rural counterparts in reading comprehension, inferring word meanings. 2.4. school accreditation accreditation refers to a process of external quality review created and used to scrutinize schools and universities for quality assurance and improvement. according to ewell (2001), in accreditation an institution is required to examine its institutional effectiveness through self-study and review process. as stipulated in law no.20/2003 about national education system that accreditation is required to determine whether a school is operationally qualified formal/non-formal education unit in a given level. in indonesian secondary school, accreditation is carried out by the government through the national accreditation board for schools/madrasahs (ban s/m). school accreditation status is assumed to be related to its school community. an accredited school is often associated with qualified teachers, administrators, and leaders. despite the fact that a school has been accredited, it does not mean that it is free from any problems. haryati (2014) pointed out that although a school is accredited a or b, it does not mean that everything is perfect. school accreditation status does not guarantee its students good achievement. a study by yustika, diem & petrus (2019) reported that school accreditation status and teachers’ performance did not have any influence on soni mirizon, machdalena vianty, ida rosmalina, & erlina erlina 173 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 students’ english achievement in secondary schools in south sumatera. in line with this, kurniawan (2018) and darusmiati (2018) found that there was no correlation between school accreditation status with students’ english achievement in public vocational and high schools. however, siahaan (2018) reported different result that there was significant correlation between school accreditation status and students’ english achievement in private senior high schools. 2.5. gender and reading ability among several factors that affected reading ability, previous research findings showed that gender was one of the factors that may affect the ability to read. logan and medford (2011) reported that male students were deeply involved in reading activities, while female students were not. this is contrary to the results of pisa research findings on the three countries studied (usa, uk, and ireland) that women had more positive attitude toward reading, read more often, and outperformed men in reading skills (kirsch et al., 2002). in terms of choosing the type of reading, it was found that women tended to read longer texts to read for pleasure, such as novels while men preferred to read short, informative texts such as newspapers, comics, emails and websites. meanwhile, a study conducted by caroll and fox (2017) showed no distinction between male and female students in terms of reading ability. akinwumi (2017) also found no significant difference in reading achievement of male and female students. in addition, similar trend was reported that reading achievement between female and male students was not far different, except that male students were more expressive that female students (diem & lestari, 2016). in line with this, mirizon, diem and vianty (2018) in their study also discovered that significant different was not found between female and male students. there was no significant difference found in the students’ english comprehension between males and females. it could be inferred that there was still a dispute about the role of gender in reading ability. therefore, this study tries to look at the role of gender in a more specific context, which is the ability to read based on pisa using english as a foreign language. 2.6. academic major in indonesian society, it was believed that different academic major at secondary school may show different achievements. natural science major students are considered more competent than social science students. they also have more opportunity and choices to pursue higher education compared to their counterparts majoring in social science. they are allowed to choose education field in social science whereas their counterparts are not. however, no prior research has been found to report to student achievement related to school major. therefore, investigating the extent to which academic major affects student achievement in school is crucial. secondary school students’ english literacy achievement based on pisa reading literacy test 2009 174 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 3. method 3.1. participants and data collection this study involved 2,202 students from 24 public senior high schools in palembang. they were selected purposively based on the grade level, that was grade 10 th students, considering that they were in the age of 15 years old as it is required by pisa. every school was represented by one class of science majoring students and one class of social majoring students. the instrument used for data collection was a ready-made test, reading literacy pisa test 2009 which consisted of 39 items. students were asked to do the test to find out about their performance of reading literacy in english. since this kind of test had been used many times across countries, certainly its validity and reliability had been measured so trying out the test again was unnecessary. 3.2. data analyses students’ scores obtained from this research were analyzed using descriptive statistics. then to see the specific information, the score was categorized based on the districts of the school location in the city, school accreditation, gender, and students’ academic major. 4. findings the data obtained from pisa reading literacy test 2009 instrument were analyzed descriptively. the total mean score of the students’ competence is shown in table 2. table 2 senior high school students’ reading literacy test results (n=2,202). percentage pisa level n valid 2,202 2202 missing 0 0 mean 24.5112 497.809 std. deviation 12.63771 75.37662 minimum 0.00 341.48 maximum 83.33 719.76 it is apparent that the average score of the students’ reading literacy test result of the 24 state senior high schools in palembang city is 497.809 (level 3) which is equal to 24.51% (low category) which is distributed in 341.48 (the lowest score obtained) and 719.76 (the highest score obtained). when the data were categorized based on the districts where the schools located, it was revealed that students studied in schools of certain district performed better than their counterparts in the other districts. of the 13 districts in palembang city, students whose schools located in the sukarami district (urban area) performed relatively better (mean =579.96) than those whose schools located in other districts, whereas students soni mirizon, machdalena vianty, ida rosmalina, & erlina erlina 175 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 whose schools located in the gandus district (rural area) performed the worst (mean=389.03), as shown in table 3 below. table 3 senior high school students’ reading literacy test results based on school districts. district n mean l e v e l sd se 95% confidence interval for mean min. max. lower bound upper bound seberang ulu 1 178 526.73 3 97.129 7.2801 512.36 541.09 306.04 777.05 seberang ulu 2 125 512.68 3 79.966 7.1523 498.53 526.84 362.57 758.21 plaju 76 443.63 2 62.977 7.2240 429.24 458.02 324.88 588.65 kertapati 125 469.13 2 69.227 6.1919 456.87 481.38 306.04 682.85 ilir barat 1 377 490.65 3 104.901 5.4026 480.03 501.27 306.04 871.25 ilir timur 1 104 507.85 3 64.982 6.3720 495.22 520.49 362.57 682.85 ilir timur 2 178 521.97 3 66.395 4.9765 512.15 531.79 343.73 701.69 kalidoni 100 530.99 3 101.610 10.161 510.84 551.16 324.88 777.05 kemuning 178 511.38 3 74.156 5.5582 500.41 522.35 306.04 758.21 sako 212 451.43 2 68.570 4.7094 442.15 460.72 306.04 720.53 sukarami 282 579.96 4 118.742 7.0710 566.04 593.88 381.41 965.45 alang-alang lebar 99 518.81 3 89.963 9.0416 500.86 536.75 362.57 833.57 gandus 168 389.03 1 48.975 3.7785 381.57 396.49 306.04 569.81 total 2202 500 100 2.1310 495.82 504.18 306.04 965.45 (sd=std. deviation; se=std. error) the students’ reading score were also categorized based on the status of school accreditation. it was found out that the student whose school accredited a+ performed better than those whose schools accredited a and b (see table 4). table 4 senior high school students’ reading literacy test results based on school accreditation status. school n mean level sd se 95% confidence interval for mean min. max. lower bound upper bound ps1 99 516.33 3 116.721 11.731 493.05 539.61 306 758 ps2 89 513.71 3 105.740 11.208 491.44 535.99 325 871 ps3 84 478.97 2 79.135 8.634 461.80 496.14 306 758 ps4 76 443.63 2 62.978 7.224 429.24 458.02 325 589 ps5 84 527.87 3 64.827 7.073 513.80 541.93 381 702 ps6 94 540.35 3 55.503 5.725 528.98 551.71 419 664 ps7 100 531.00 3 101.611 10.161 510.84 551.16 325 777 ps8 125 512.68 3 79.966 7.152 498.53 526.84 363 758 ps9 125 469.13 2 69.228 6.192 456.87 481.38 306 683 ps10 92 508.37 3 93.008 9.697 489.11 527.63 344 702 ps11 97 426.47 2 71.461 7.256 412.06 440.87 306 664 ps12 94 384.61 1 50.466 5.205 374.28 394.95 306 532 ps13 95 595.19 4 78.395 8.043 579.22 611.16 400 965 secondary school students’ english literacy achievement based on pisa reading literacy test 2009 176 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 ps14 106 432.77 3 75.205 7.305 418.29 447.26 306 721 ps15 104 507.85 3 64.983 6.372 495.22 520.49 363 683 ps16 106 470.10 2 55.584 5.399 459.39 480.8 306 607 ps17 92 671.38 5 118.827 12.389 646.77 695.99 381 947 ps18 94 516.69 3 67.674 6.980 502.83 530.56 344 683 ps19 65 475.32 2 80.036 9.927 455.49 495.15 306 645 ps20 74 394.64 1 46.749 5.434 383.81 405.48 306 570 ps21 95 476.20 2 55.131 5.656 464.97 487.43 381 626 ps22 99 518.81 3 89.963 9.042 500.86 536.75 363 834 ps23 26 443.00 2 50.147 9.835 422.74 463.25 344 513 ps24 87 590.16 4 75.701 8.116 574.03 606.3 419 777 total 2202 500 100 2.131 495.82 504.18 306 965 as shown in table 4, public school 17 and public school 24 had the highest mean scores (671.38 and 590.16 respectively) compared to the other schools. these two schools were accredited a+, while other schools (public schools 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 13, 14, 19) were accredited a and b (public schools 5, 7, 9, 11, 12, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, and 23). furthermore, when the data were categorized based on gender, it was found that female students outperformed their male counterparts with mean score 503.31 as compared to 494.78 respectively, as shown in table 5 below. table 5 senior high school students’ reading literacy test results based on gender. gender n mean level sd se 95% confidence interval for mean min. max. lower bound upper bound female 1347 503.31 3 95.031 2.5893 498.23 508.39 306.04 890.09 male 855 494.78 3 107.211 3.6665 487.58 501.97 306.04 965.45 total 2202 500 100 2.1310 495.82 504.17 306.04 965.45 in terms of academic major, students majoring in natural science (mean=517.56) had better english literacy achievement than those of studying in the social science major (mean=455.49) as displayed in table 6 below. table 6 senior high school students’ reading literacy test results based on academic major. major n mean level sd se 95% confidence interval for mean min. max. lower bound upper bound science 1579 517.56 3 97.808 2.4614 512.731 522.387 306.04 965.45 social 623 455.49 2 91.375 3.6609 448.307 462.685 306.04 946.61 total 2202 500 100 2.1310 495.820 504.179 306.04 965.45 5. discussion the findings of this study indicate that school location seems to play crucial role soni mirizon, machdalena vianty, ida rosmalina, & erlina erlina 177 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 in english literacy achievement of students. it is assumed that the farther the location of the schools district from the centre of business district (cbd) the lower the students english literacy achievement would be. it is likely due to the facts that schools located in cbd have many advantages compared to the ones located farther from cbd, such as there are more english supplementary courses offered after school hours available in cbd area. in addition, in terms of accessibility, such as transportation, is available almost 24 hours and easier to find even in the evening. in this case, students have an ease in taking extra hours for studying english after school without being worried of unable to get a bus to go home. in other words, students whose school district location is in cbd area are likely to be benefited compared to their counterparts whose schools district location are not located in the cbd area. this finding is in line with the study of mirizon, diem, and vianty (2018) where school location affects students english comprehension skills. previous related studies also indicated that student academic achievement was affected by school district location. students whose school situated in urban areas showed better academic achievement as compared to those schools situated in rural areas (owoeye & yara, 2011). other studies also reported students in urban schools manifested more brilliant performance than students in rural areas (adepoju & akinwumi, 2001; jakaitiene, želvys, dukynaitė, & vaitekaitis, 2020; nnenna & adukwu, 2017; warwick, 1992; xu, 2009). these studies indicated that school location could become determining factor that may influence student achievement in many subjects. it may be caused by some factors where school located in urban or cbd area have better teachers, supplied with better ict, provided with support services, and better infrastructure compared to school located in rural or not in cbd area. certainly more research on school location and student achievement is needed (othman & muijs, 2013). in terms of school accreditation status, it is logical that students who study in a school which has better accreditation are likely to have better achievement. it other words, it is not wrong to say that the better the accreditation status of a school is, the better the english literacy achievement of its students would be. it is proven in the findings of this study that schools accredited a+ (public school 17 and public school 24) had better mean score in their students’ english reading literacy achievement than those of the other schools accredited a and schools accredited a had better achievement in their students’ english reading literacy achievement than those of the other schools accredited b. this finding is in line with previous study carried out by siahaan (2018) where better accredited schools had better students’ academic achievement. this trend makes sense since schools with a+ accreditation have better students input than schools accredited in a and b since only prospective students with very good achievement are accepted in the student recruitment. furthermore, school with a+ accreditation are supported with more complete infrastructure and facilities and much government https://library.iated.org/authors/audrone_jakaitiene https://library.iated.org/authors/rimantas_%c5%bdelvys https://library.iated.org/authors/rita_dukynait%c4%97 https://library.iated.org/authors/jogaila_vaitekaitis secondary school students’ english literacy achievement based on pisa reading literacy test 2009 178 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 funding compared to the other schools accredited a and b. in relation to gender, the finding of this study reveals that female students slightly had better mean score (503.31) than male students (494.78). previous studies related to academic achievement in general also indicated that female students performed better than their male counterparts in many parts of the world such as in australia, usa, and china (chiu & chang, 2006; dee, 2005; rothman, 2002), but in this study, such a difference was not that significant. similar finding was also found in mirizon, diem, and vianty (2018) where female students outperformed slightly better than their male counterparts in english specific comprehension skills. similarly, voyer and voyer (2014) found that female students showed better achievement in language but male students outperformed them in mathematics achievement. this gender disparity in academic achievement had been subject of much discussion and ended up in different findings. these findings may suggest that gender is not the only factor that may influence students’ english literacy achievement. when students’ english reading literacy achievement was seen based on their academic major, it was found that those majoring in science performed better (mean =517.56) than those majoring in social (mean=455.49). it is presumably related to the selection criteria in determining students’ major that are commonly conducted by schools. school usually place students with better achievement in science major while social major is provided for students with average achievement. the learning atmosphere of these two majors is likely to be different as well where science major is more advantageous to have better achievement students than social major with average achievement students. this condition may contribute to different academic performance of students. 6. conclusion reading is important for students that it can support their academic life. the students’ reading literacy can determine their academic performance; it is through reading textbooks or other reading materials the students can gain information they need to do or complete their school assignments. as shown by the findings of this study, the secondary students’ reading performance as measured by pisa reading literacy test 2009 was not satisfactory. there are many factors that may cause this low achievement. therefore, knowing the students’ reading performance is extremely important for the teachers as well as the schools that it can provide them with the information about how well their students perform in reading english texts and sources. since students have to learn english as an obligatory subject at secondary schools in indonesia, the teachers or the schools can do an effort, such as by providing an intervention program, to help the students improve their reading literacy, disregarding where they go to schools, what their major is, what their gender is, and what accreditation status of the school they attend. soni mirizon, machdalena vianty, ida rosmalina, & erlina erlina 179 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 references education sector analytical and capacity development partnership. 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(2020). poor reading comprehension issue in efl classroom among indonesian secondary school students: scrutinizing the causes, impacts and possible solutions. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 8(1), 12-24. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6771 abstract reading comprehension is considered a challenging part of learning english for many indonesian secondary school students. this study aims to explore the causes, impacts, and possible solutions for poor reading comprehension issues. the study scrutinizes the issue by reviewing previous studies, in which a number of articles and books were critically analyzed. the results indicate that poor reading comprehension occurs due to three remarkable factors, which are students’ lack of motivation, low prior knowledge, and poor english vocabulary. moreover, this issue also leads to three main adverse impacts, such as reducing students’ learning achievement, hindering students’ problemsolving skills, and inhibiting students’ future studies and careers. therefore, in responding to the problem above, this study proposes two learning approaches, which are the cooperative integrated and reading composition (circ) technique and metacognitive strategy. keywords: reading comprehension; circ; metacognitive strategy; reading issue * corresponding author mailto:dodi.widiananda@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i1.6771 dodi widia nanda & khairul azmy englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 1 3 1. introduction reading comprehension might be considered a challenging aspect of studying english for indonesian secondary school students (syahabuddin, yusny, & zahara, 2019). most of the indonesian students might not understand what they read in various english texts even though they have been learning english (dahliana, 2016; moriyanti, muna, & ismail, 2019; syatriana, 2013; usman, fata, & pratiwi, 2018). moreover, jayanti (2016) reveals that indonesian secondary students often find difficulties in reading the information from texts. in contrast to the condition above, the newest indonesian curriculum, the 2013 curriculum under the regulation of the ministry of education and culture 2013 of the basic competence of senior high school and junior high school mandates that indonesian secondary students must comprehend various english texts such as recount, report, narrative and descriptive texts effectively (ministry of education and culture, 2013). besides, previous studies have shown several causes and effects of poor reading comprehension. for instance, hamra and syatriana (2010) contend that poor reading comprehension among indonesian secondary learners occurs due to students’ lack of vocabulary, learning support, and reading motivation. whereas, cahyono and widiati (2006) conclude that poor prior knowledge also contributes to the low level of reading comprehension. in relation to the adverse effects of the related problem, karanja (2015) reports that poor readers often have low self-esteem which results in their decreasing learning achievement. also, poor reading comprehension can hinder problem-solving skills as well because people need to fully understand what they read in order to be competent problem solvers (ozdemir, 2009). ultimately, cordeur (2010) and park (2020) note that reading comprehension is the ability to remember important details and draw conclusions. these related skills are beneficial to participate in a democratic process such as finding jobs, passing an examination, and completing education (barton, 2000, as cited in arnbak, 2004). responding to the related condition, this study suggests two approaches to cope with the reading comprehension issue, which are the cooperative integrated reading and composition (circ) technique and the metacognitive theory. the former is suggested to cope with problems regarding students’ problem-solving skills and low motivation, while the latter is considered a suitable method to deal with students’ lack of vocabulary and low prior knowledge. a brief explanation of the two approaches is discussed in detail in the fundamental notion part of this paper. furthermore, the result of this investigation is hoped to offer a remarkable advantage for efl students, english teachers, researchers, and indonesian education stakeholders. the result of this study can be used as a self-reflection by efl students to deal with the reading comprehension issue. in addition, efl teachers and researchers can reflect on the solutions offered in this study to deal with the students’ reading comprehension issues in classrooms. at last, it is expected that this investigation can be utilized as a valuable guide for indonesian policymakers in the educational field to poor reading comprehension issue in efl classroom 14 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 provide teacher training regarding teaching reading strategies for indonesian english teachers to address the issue. 2. literature review silawi, shalhoub-awwad, and prior (2020) emphasize that reading comprehension has three components, which are process strategies (word recognition), prior knowledge and conceptual abilities. beginner readers focus on process strategies, while skilled readers use abstract conceptual skills and utilize their prior knowledge efficiently to predict the given information in the text (coady, 1979, as cited in grabe, 1991). on the other hand, jayanti (2016) concludes that students’ vocabulary knowledge, motivation, and strategy use are several factors which hinder the improvement of indonesian students’ reading comprehension. based on these notions, the paper attempts to synthesize the possible causes and impacts of the related problem. this paper argues that the causes consist of students’ lack of motivation, low prior knowledge and poor vocabulary, whereas the negative effects comprise decreasing students’ learning achievement, hindering students’ problem-solving abilities and inhibiting their future study and career. therefore, this paper also scrutinizes the viable solutions to deal with the related issue. the first approach offered in the investigation is the cooperative integrated reading and composition (circ) technique and the second approach is metacognitive theory. the circ is a part of the cooperative learning method implemented to alleviate the problems regarding students’ lack of motivation and problem-solving skills issues. the technique was firstly developed by stevens, madden, slavin and farnish (1987, as cited in gonzales & torres, 2015). gupta and ahuja (2014) reveal that circ is a comprehensive approach to instruction in reading. in the learning process, “students are taught in reading groups and then return to mixed ability teams to work one series of cooperative activities, including partner reading, making predictions, identification of characters, settings, problems and problem solutions, summary, spelling and reading comprehension exercises” (p. 39). furthermore, the metacognitive strategy is suggested to cope with the reduced reading comprehension issue regarding students’ poor vocabulary and lack of prior knowledge. metacognition itself is defined as thinking about thinking in which students are required to do self-reflection during learning processes (anderson, 2002). the metacognitive strategy is beneficial to create more profound learning and especially improve struggling learners’ performance (anderson, 2002). anderson (2002) divides a model of metacognition into five major components, which are “preparing and planning for learning, selecting and using learning strategies, monitoring strategy use, orchestrating various strategies and evaluating strategy use and learning” (p. 2). 3. method this study belongs to the type of literature study by scrutinizing previous dodi widia nanda & khairul azmy englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 1 5 studies and theories that are relevant to the issue being investigated. the previous references obtained by means of research in the literature study serve as the basic foundation and main tool for the practice of field research. furthermore, bryman (2016) reveals that the literature study is a summary of articles from journals, books, and other documents that describe information. moreover, bryman (2016) postulates that a literature study is a method used to collect data or sources from previous studies. therefore, the study investigates a number of existed literature reviews. several academic pieces of research and works were also critically analyzed. the literature was selected from various resources, such as academic journals and books, among others. the selected literature was discussed and evaluated to find the information. the information and evidence are used to build sound arguments in the study. 4. findings and discussion 4.1. the causes of poor reading comprehension the first factor linked to reading comprehension difficulties in the efl context in indonesian secondary students is students’ lack of motivation. the students are mostly not interested in reading and analyzing the english texts because they do not get used to doing the related activity in their daily routines. moreover, cahyono and widiati (2006) claim that the declining interest of indonesian students in comprehending english passages occur due to their learning habits. the students only read english texts if their teachers give an assignment (cahyono & widiati, 2006). consequently, they lose their interest to do further reading comprehension activities. in line with the related opinion, guthrie (2008, as cited in sanford, 2015) notes that reading comprehension issue happens when students lose their interests and disengage from reading. in addition, low prior knowledge has been considered as another cause of reading difficulties among indonesian secondary students. based on the students’ responses conducted in one of the senior high schools in indonesia, zuhra (2015) found that the students faced difficulties to comprehend english texts because they did not have sufficient prior knowledge to understand the given texts. the related phenomenon occurred since the lessons had not been appropriately learned and they had never read similar reading passages previously (zuhra, 2015). in contrast with the related condition, to comprehend english passages, learners are required to draw inferences that rely on having rich prior knowledge (neuman, kaefar, & pinkam, 2014). hence, indonesian learners will always find problems toward reading comprehension if they do not have enough prior knowledge. ultimately, the third contribution of the reading comprehension issue in indonesian secondary students is poor vocabulary. having limited vocabulary has been identified as an impairment of reading comprehension among indonesian students (floris & divina, 2009; garcia-castro, 2020; sutarsyah, 2008). moreover, the indonesian government emphasizes that students must master between 2,500 to 3,000 english words to comprehend english academic texts; however, several studies show poor reading comprehension issue in efl classroom 16 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 that indonesian learners were predicted to have only mastered 1,000 words (sutarsyah, 2008). consequently, the related circumstances lead to a low level of reading comprehension among indonesian secondary students. 4.2. the adverse impacts of poor reading comprehension the first negative effect of poor reading comprehension is decreasing students’ learning achievement. the decline of the students’ learning achievement occurs because they feel unconfident and have a low self-esteem after having difficulties in comprehending texts. moreover, this type of reader often feels less valued in their classrooms. guthrie and davis (2003) and widharyanto and binawan (2020) reveal that many struggling readers in secondary school feel socially marginalized, and they do not intend to have peer relationships in a school environment. struggling readers also often procrastinate their works and tend to avoid studying (guthrie & davis, 2003). as a consequence, this situation affects the students’ concentration on learning and gives way to reduce their learning achievement. secondly, hindering students’ problem-solving skills has been considered as another adverse effect of poor reading comprehension. it is likely to happen because reading is an essential step for solving a problem (ozdemir, 2009). in other words, the students are asked to read and analyze texts first before addressing the problems or questions given in the texts (mehl, 1985). the evidence supporting the view provided by hite (2009), although all of her students could speak english, she still noticed that their students’ lack of reading accuracy and comprehension resulted in their difficulties to reach solutions to problems. moreover, danesh and nourdad (2017) found that students with low problem-solving skills would always encounter difficulties in reading comprehension activities. the third negative consequence of poor reading comprehension is inhibiting the students’ future studies and careers. this happens because students need english proficiency tests like the test of english as a foreign language (toefl) and an international english language testing system (ielts) to enroll in tertiary education (hung & huang, 2019). the test is needed as well in a workplace such as having a work promotion (mahmud, 2014). in this case, in both english proficiency tests, reading comprehension skills are tested. jayanti (2016) and kovbasko (2020) note that many students faced difficulties in completing the reading comprehension section in english proficiency tests. as a result, the students failed to accomplish the given tests, causing them to postpone their studies or hinder them to find appropriate jobs. after discussing and analyzing all of the causes and impacts of poor reading comprehension, this study proposes two main approaches to cope with the issue, which are the cooperative and integrative reading and composition (circ) technique and metacognitive strategy. the first approach is offered to cope with students’ issues regarding the students’ low problem-solving abilities and low motivation, while the latter is suggested to deal with the students’ problems regarding the lack of vocabulary dodi widia nanda & khairul azmy englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 1 7 and low prior knowledge. the detailed advantages of the two approaches are discussed in detail in the possible solutions part below. 4.3. the possible solutions 4.3.1. cooperative integrated reading and composition (circ) technique the first benefit of circ implementation is to enrich the students’ problemsolving abilities. this phenomenon happens since the students can share their own experiences, leading them to know about particular knowledge or information that they do not understand previously. moreover, in circ activities, the students are required to work with their group members on a series of cognitive activities such as making a prediction, reading to one another, creating responses to stories, and even practicing decoding as well as vocabulary together (slavin, 1996). in line with this, the circ technique is ideal to enhance the students’ abilities in problem-solving because they collaborate in groups for solving the given tasks (khairun, 2013, as cited in sundary, 2013). by doing this, it will automatically establish their problem-solving skills because they can elaborate and explore their understanding of each other from different insights. another advantage of the circ technique is to enhance the students’ motivation towards the learning process. dividing students to collaborate in groups is a nature of circ activities which help and give them a convincing feeling that they can accomplish the given tasks and achieve the goals brilliantly. this confident feeling is often difficult to be achieved by the students if they work individually (slavin, 1996). the evidence of the successful implementation of the technique towards the students’ confidence also happened in another efl context, shown in a study conducted by varisoglu (2016). the study indicated that turkish students felt confident in group activities which resulted in the rise of their reading comprehension abilities (varisoglu, 2016). hence, based on the evidence above, it can be assumed that the implementation of circ may be effective as well to motivate the students if it is implemented in the indonesian context since both indonesia and turkey use english as a foreign language (efl). however, a study conducted by liu and wang (2015) in english language learners at the 4th grade level in america shows a different outcome. the study revealed that the pupils performed better regarding reading comprehension abilities in independent learning methods compared to working in teams (liu & wang, 2015). this occurs, perhaps, because studying independently allows the pupils to read silently without the pressure of being distracted by their peers (krashen, 2011, as cited in liu & wang, 2015). the related phenomenon is likely to happen because sometimes dividing students into group work activities lead the class to be noisy and they tend to have a chat with each other. as a consequence, they do not do the given work efficiently. another weakness in creating a cooperative learning activity is that the given technique is susceptible to lead personal clashes among the students. the study by jarvela, volet, and järvenoja (2010) indicated that the students who were divided into groups tended to have different characteristics and goals which led to conflict among poor reading comprehension issue in efl classroom 18 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 them. consequently, the circumstances would give rise to decreased motivation in learning. in a similar vein, sun and shen (2014) explain that dividing students into group learning activities is vulnerable to students’ clash because they often have different learning styles and purposes. to refute the arguments above, it seems that distraction may not happen if it is implemented in indonesian secondary school contexts since the secondary students are older compared to elementary students. hence, the students will focus on doing reading activities which may result in the consistency of their reading comprehension achievement. this argument is supported by slavin (1996) who notes that the circ technique has given a remarkable impact on the students’ achievement in reading comprehension in secondary schools. the consistent positive achievement has been counted in approximately 23 out of 30 related studies, which is equal to 77% (slavin, 1996). hence, it can be stated that there will be a high possibility of successful implementation if the technique is implemented in indonesian secondary schools. furthermore, concerning a noisy class and personal clash issues during the students’ group activities, teachers can anticipate them since the teachers’ role in circ activities is as a supervisor. the supervisors set up a learning design, monitor the students’ progress or development within the group activities, and provide feedback as well to them (madden, 2004, as cited in sundary, 2013). in summary, it can be stated that the circ technique is beneficial to the students’ personal development. the related technique not only helps the students to build their prior knowledge but also strengthen their motivation to learn. these benefits will be suitable to cope with the students’ reading comprehension issues in indonesian secondary students. on the other hand, during the circ implementation, the students in secondary contexts should be able to behave positively in the classroom compared to primary students. moreover, the teachers can also act as supervisors and anticipate the related disruptions in the implementation of circ. 4.3.2. the metacognitive strategy the metacognitive strategy is advantageous to enhance the students’ vocabulary. metacognitive instruction teaches learners various learning techniques and tells the appropriate time to implement the related technique (anderson, 2002). to exemplify, in a study conducted by rasekh and ranjbary (2003), they implemented various vocabulary learning approaches as a part of metacognitive instruction. the aim is to anticipate when one strategy is not working to enrich the students’ vocabulary; then, they are taught to find another suitable strategy (rasekh & ranjbary, 2003). by doing so, the students will comprehend several methods that they can implement to increase their vocabulary. it will automatically help the students to be aware of several unfamiliar words in english reading passages and improve their reading comprehension. in addition, stimulating the students’ prior knowledge is considered as another benefit in implementing the metacognitive strategy. this happens because the dodi widia nanda & khairul azmy englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 1 9 metacognitive strategy has preparation and planning components as explained by anderson (2002). the related components require the students to prepare and plan their learning goals (anderson, 2002). hence, the students will be stimulated to think and reflect on the methods that they have to do for achieving their goals. the related circumstances will automatically train their problem-solving skills, and the related skill is crucial to increase their reading comprehension abilities. another example of the usefulness of the metacognitive strategy is shown by the implementation of the cognitive academic language learning approach (calla). the approach was proposed by chamot and o’malley (as cited in rasekh & ranjbary, 2003) in 1994. both the metacognitive strategy and the calla approach are correlated with each other since both of them provide transitional instructions and ask the students to use learning strategies based on a cognitive model. calla lesson plans have a preparation phase in which the students are required to brainstorm what they already know about a particular topic and the students can relate it to the new ideas given in a lesson (o’malley, 1988). as a consequence, the related activity can be used as regular training to enhance their prior knowledge. on the other hand, implementing the metacognitive strategy may lead to adverse effects as well, particularly for the students who have low self-esteem. alshammari (2015) reveals that the approach is not appropriate for the students with poor selfesteem because the metacognitive strategy requires the students to have a better understanding of the instructions and goals explained in a given task, and learners with poor self-esteem lack confidence to plan and evaluate their learning skills. low selfesteem will hinder their improvement regarding reading comprehension skills as the students are asked to have good self-evaluation to comprehend a given passage. moreover, a study conducted by meniado (2016) on efl college students in saudi arabia supports the argument above. the study indicated that there was no significant relationship between the implementation of the metacognitive strategy and the students’ reading comprehension improvement. in other words, the metacognitive strategy did not give a positive impact on efl college students’ reading comprehension in saudi arabia (meniado, 2016). to challenge the argument above, this study argues that the metacognitive strategy is still beneficial to strengthen the students’ self-esteem. the reason is that the students are given well-organized and explicit instructions in the following related strategy. this argument is supported by a recent study conducted by noghabaee (2016) in one of the high schools in iran. the finding showed that the metacognitive strategy had a considerable impact on the students’ self-esteem (noghabaee, 2016). the successful implementation occurred because the metacognitive strategy required the students to do self-evaluation and self-reflection during the learning activities which gave rise to their positive self-esteem (noghabaee, 2016). the ineffectiveness of the metacognitive strategy toward the students’ reading comprehension shown in a study conducted by meniado (2016) in saudi arabia, poor reading comprehension issue in efl classroom 20 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 perhaps, happens due to two factors. the two factors are the different contexts of implementation and the kinds of metacognitive strategies used in the related investigation. a different result may happen if it is implemented in indonesian secondary schools because cahyono and widiati (2006) state that the teaching of english at tertiary institutions is different compared to secondary schools regarding status, number of hours, instructional objective and teaching method. this argument is supported by another study conducted by alaraj (2015) in saudi arabia, which investigated it in a secondary school context and used a think-aloud technique as part of the metacognitive strategy. the finding showed that the metacognitive strategy improved the students’ reading comprehension (alaraj, 2015). hence, it is very likely that the successful implementation of the metacognitive strategy can occur to enhance the students’ reading comprehension in indonesian secondary school contexts. to support this argument, fitrisia, kok, and yusuf (2015) found that metacognitive awareness in reading strategies has been effective to enhance the reading comprehension skills in indonesian secondary school students. in brief, the implementation of the metacognitive strategy is like two sides of a coin. the related strategy may offer a positive impact on the students’ reading comprehension skills. on the other hand, the strategy may yield less effective improvement in the students’ reading comprehension skills. however, the effectiveness of the metacognitive strategy can be increased or maximized by choosing an appropriate technique that links with the metacognitive strategy to deal with poor reading comprehension issues. 5. conclusion poor reading comprehension in the efl context among indonesian secondary school students is a debilitating problem affected by three significant factors: the students’ lack of motivation, low prior knowledge, and poor english vocabulary. this issue also triggers three primary adverse consequences which affect the students’ development both inside and outside the classroom such as decreasing students’ learning achievement, hindering students’ problem-solving skills and inhibiting their future studies and careers. this study proposes two suggested approaches to alleviate the problem: cooperative integrated reading and composition (circ) technique and metacognitive strategy. based on the related literature discussed in the investigation, it is found that the circ technique is effective to address the students’ problems regarding lack of motivation and problem-solving skills. the metacognitive strategy may be advantageous to enhance the students’ vocabulary acquisition and establish their prior knowledge. consequently, all the main causes of poor reading comprehension issues in indonesian secondary schools can be solved by implementing the two approaches. however, personal clashes among the students and a noisy class are considered to be the negative effects in implementing circ, whereas the metacognitive strategy is dodi widia nanda & khairul azmy englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.1, november 2020 | 2 1 not suitable to be implemented for the students with poor self-esteem. the investigation has found that all of those weaknesses may not be an issue if the teachers and students work together to comprehend the teaching procedures and goals of the two approaches. therefore, both circ and metacognitive strategies are considered effective methods to tackle indonesian secondary students’ issues in comprehending english texts. 6. limitation and recommendation this study aims to scrutinize several previous studies concerning the causes, impacts, and possible solutions for poor reading comprehension issues in indonesian secondary school students. however, some previous studies were analyzed from different countries which may or may not be applicable in the indonesian context. this occurs because the researchers intend to globalize the issue in order to build sound arguments. it also happens due to the lack of references 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(2013). developing the students’ reading comprehension through cognitive reading strategies of the first year students of sman 16 makassar (master’s thesis). retrieved from http://engl.niu.edu/international/_images/eny%20syatriana.pdf. usman, b., fata, i. a., & pratiwi, r. (2018). teaching reading through know-want-learned (kwl) strategy: the effects and benefits. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 6(1), 35-42. varisoglu, b. (2016). influence of cooperative integrated reading and composition technique on foreign students' reading and writing skills in turkish. educational research and reviews, 11(12), 1168-1179. widharyanto, b., & binawan, h. (2020). learning style and language learning strategies of students from various ethnics in indonesia. cakrawala pendidikan, 39(2), 480-492. zuhra, z. (2015). senior high school students’ difficulties in reading comprehension. english education journal, 6(3), 430-441. http://engl.niu.edu/international/_images/eny%20syatriana.pdf englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2021. vol. 8, no. 2, 84-93 subtle racism in english language: a sociosemiotic analysis of black-prefixed english lexicons oladotun opeoluwa olagbaju * school of arts and sciences, university of the gambia, brikama, the gambia oolagbaju@utg.edu.gm dotunolagbaju@yahoo.com kehinde olufemi ogunyemi department of arts education, adekunle ajasin university, akungba-akoko, nigeria kehinde.ogunyemi@aaua.edu.ng manuscript received o c t o b er 2 9 , 2020, revised april 26, 2021, first published may 3, 2021, and available online may 17, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v8i2.8132 recommended apa citation olagbaju, o. o., & ogunyemi, k. o. (2021). subtle racism in english language: a socio-semiotic analysis of black-prefixed english lexicons. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 8(2), 84-93. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.8132 abstract the english language has become a global language and as such, it is expected to be devoid of racial discrimination and prejudice. the english language has both verbal and non-verbal systems of communication which often requires semantic and semiotic analyses for the purpose of generating meaning. most english words with the prefix 'black' have meanings that are either connotative or derogative. using jakobson’s transmutation theory, the study establishes the relationship between colour, culture, and racial prejudice in english language black-prefixed lexicons. this is a subtle form of racism when such words are taught in schools. the design adopted for this research was a qualitative, and no variables were manipulated because it was a library research. the study examined the socio-semiotics elements of black-prefixed words in the english language to establish that there is subtle racism in english expressions used and taught in schools. it was concluded that instruction in the language should be revitalized to eradicate racism of any form, especially in the second language classroom. keywords: racism; transmutation; semiotics; black-prefixed-words; english lexicons * corresponding author https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.8132 oladotun opeoluwa olagbaju & kehinde olufemi ogunyemi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 85 1. introduction the english language is unarguably one of the most powerful languages in the world because it has evolved from being the language of a country or region to a global language. lyons (2017) puts the estimate of people who use the english language either as the first language (mother tongue), official language, or foreign language at approximately 1.5 billion which constitute 20% of the earth’s population. also, through the metamorphosis in form of slave trade, commerce, colonialism, religion, education and globalization, the english language is spoken beyond the shores of the united kingdom and america across all the continents and racial demarcations. for example, in anglophone west africa, english is used as the official language, language of instruction and a core subject taught in schools. the implication of this is that all the students in these west african countries and by extension, all the commonwealth states are exposed to the english language as the language of instruction or an important school subject. notably, a language with such immense spread, enormous responsibility and power should be devoid of racial sentiments. however, there are several racial inclined lexicons in the english language diction used in formal and informal setting and this continues to project subtle yet systemic racism in english language classrooms across the globe. in its strict sense, racism is a form of prejudice borne out of the belief that a particular race possesses certain qualities, characteristics, or abilities, which distinguishes it as inferior or superior to another. also, racial prejudice creates a basis for intolerance, discrimination, or bigotry often directed against individuals or groups. the prevalence of racism or racial prejudice particularly against africans across the globe can no longer be denied because it has become part of their daily experiences in politics, justice system, sports, and education. for example, in the justice system, racism occurs in form of police brutality, massive raids and unlawful arrests of african americans and other africans in the diaspora. the killing of george floyd, an unarmed black man, in the united states in june 2020 and the resultant global protests/campaigns against racism further show the nature and extent of the problem. other forms of systemic racism are subtle but propagated through english language education across the world. according to watts-jones (2004), racism exists in many everyday english expressions. for example, the continued teaching or use of certain lexicons with racial sentiments, mostly words formed with the prefix ‘black’ in the english language classroom, is a propagation of racism. the word ‘black’ has a racial colouration to it and this is a form of subtle yet systemic racism in the english language. almalech and habil (2014) describe colour as visual or natural language signs with unique capacity to be a cultural unit to be treated as a language or part of a communicative system. in other words, colours are culture-based and they can be used to communicate. this suggests that the use of the colour ‘black’ as a prefix to another word has an undertone both in semantic and semiotic nuances. the meaning of the subtle racism in english language: a socio-semiotic analysis of black-prefixed english lexicons 86 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 prefix ‘black’ is metaphorical, cultural and racial because it attaches a discriminatory meaning to whatever word it is used with. socio-semiotic analysis of lexicon items suggests that the use of selected images, symbols or colours with words in language and expression is not often accidental because they can be interpreted or consistently translated as metaphorical or cultural non-verbal objects. jakobson (2004) cited in kourdis (2014) describes the interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of non-verbal systems as inter-semiotic translation or transmutation. colours are codes with implied meanings that differ from one society to another. therefore, the choice of colour in language use is meaningful and defined by social conventions. for example, colour ‘white’ represents purity while ‘red’ means danger among the indigenous yoruba speaking tribe in west africa. by convention, black has become a word or colour that is used to refer to africans or afro-americans over the years. similarly, colour ‘black’ is a prefix that is commonly used with other words in english language to alter or bring a fresh perspective to the meaning of the word. some of the examples of english words with the prefix ‘black’ include blackmail, blacklist, blackout, blackboard, black-death, black economy, black amoor, black eye, black face, black sheep, black magic, black head, black hole, black lung, black mark, black spot, black market, black mass, black muslim, black widow. the list above cannot be exhausted; however, when semantics is considered, all the words have derogatory and prejudiced meanings. considering the transmutation socio-semiotic theory as presented by jakobson, such consistent occurrences cannot be said to be accidental. the choice of the prefix ‘black’ with the words are not only intentional, they are racial. language operates within the society and that relationship between language use and cultural symbols or objects like colours and images cannot be overemphasized. according to kourdis (2014), the socio-semiotic point of view suggests that culture cannot be divorced from the meaning of words within a speech community. to fully understand the meaning of words and expressions, cultural relevance of symbols, images or colours should be thoroughly analysed. kourdis (2014) submits that an intersemiotic translator from source to target language should be a cultural mediator with ample socio-cultural knowledge especially when the target text has a colour. the study adopted a qualitative approach to examine and analyze the different forms of subtle racism in the use of english language, especially with regards to the black-prefixed lexicons. therefore, this study analyzed the socio-semiotic properties of the selected english words with the prefix ‘black’ to ascertain if such words have racial colourations. 2. theoretical framework: jakobson’s transmutation theory the transmutation theory as proposed by jakobson (2004) underpins this study. jakobson’s concern was the interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonoladotun opeoluwa olagbaju & kehinde olufemi ogunyemi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 87 verbal systems and the theory establishes the use of non-verbal symbols such as texture, form or colour to convey message(s). the intersemiotic theorists argue that iconic signs like colours constitute an autonomous representation or meaning which are culturerelated (groupe μ, 1995). almalech and habil (2014) describe colours as metaphors that constitute semiotic challenges in the process of translation because of diversity in culture. however, interpretations in non-verbal form of language are often both product of culture and semiotics (kourdis, 2014). colour plays a significant role in the generation of meaning from verbal or non-verbal channels of communication. conventionally, the use of colour ‘black’ has been ‘transmutated’ to have several semiotic connotations such as sadness, mourning, racism and so on. this study examines both the cultural and semiotic elements behind of the use of colour ’black’ as prefix in selected english words using socio-semiotic analysis to establish if their meanings are denotative or derogatory. jakobson as cited in dusi (2015) projected his ideas of transformation and adaption in the interpretation of non-verbal signs to verbal signs by expanding the concept into three categories namely: intralingual translation (rewording is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the same language). interlingual translation (translation proper is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language). intersemiotic translation (transmutation is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems). transmutation theory establishes the interrelationship between all semiotic systems and not just the linguistic one, for example in the intersemiotic transmutations or translations between cinema and theatre (dusi, 2015). the transmutation theory explains that images, textures or colours can be effectively interpreted and assigned meanings that are beyond the linguistic or denotative sense. the theorists argued that the interpretation of colours and other symbols fall into the category of intersemiotic translations or transmutations because the use or choice of colours, images and symbols is not often by accidentally or in isolation because every colour or image has an underlying meaning or expression beyond words attached to symbols, images and colours in most cases. the theory suggests that an understanding of the intersemiotic processes or properties of a colour or image, and the concept of transmutation helps in the comprehensive interpretation of a text. therefore, this is the basis for the choice of the theory in this study. 3. socio-semiotic elements and racial colouration in english language lexicons colour refers to the property possessed by an object which allows it to produce sight-sensitive sensations when it is exposed to light (darrodi, 2012). colours are subject to visual perceptions and interpretation after exposure to light or illumination. all forms of colours have conventional meanings that are mostly religious, societal and culturally-related. al-shraideh and el-sharif (2019) observe that colours could have psychological effects, either positive or negative, on people. for example, colour ‘red’ subtle racism in english language: a socio-semiotic analysis of black-prefixed english lexicons 88 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 stands for love/passion, green for nature and blue for serenity. similarly, kenney (2005) describes colour as an expression of an individual’s personal inner experience of the external, physical and symbolic world. certain colours have been assigned universal meanings, which affect people’s ideologies, perceptions, beliefs, thoughts and messages. notably, colour ‘white’ is universally perceived or accepted to represent holiness, godly, purity or good, while ‘black’ is seen as the direct opposite of ‘white’. the semiotic properties of colour deal with meaning association between colours and words by cultural or linguistic society. mapedzahama and kwansah-aidoo (2017) aver that the word ‘black’ is often used with racial colouration to describe a category of people either assigned ‘blackness’ due to their phenotype or connections with africa with a shared diversity of black experiences and black subjectivities. although colours have meanings that are influenced by cultural orientations and socio-semiotics consciousness of the language users, the colour ‘black’ is often used to indicate racial prejudice or discrimination, especially in language. there is a strong relationship between culture and language use, and this has been established in different studies (torop, 2002; 2008). semiotics plays an integral role in the interaction between culture and translation or interpretation of words during the process of communication. effectiveness in the interpretation or translation of any language cuts across the sociosemiotics of signs, symbols, colours, icons and so on. similarly, kourdis (2014) describes the process of intersemiotic translation between verbal and visual semiotic systems by examining the translatability of colour in communication as a non-verbal semiotic system. pastoureau (2009) considers colour as a social phenomenon ascribed a unique meaning, code or value by the society. all colours have codes that define their use and the code can be interpreted by language users through socio-semiotic analysis into institutionalized image (caivano & lópez, 2006). by implication, colour can be used to project racism, sorrow, danger, purity and any other emotion or thoughts. this suggests that the use of colour, sign or image in language communicates non-verbal semiotic cues in the use of language. therefore, the choice of colour ’black’ as a prefix to some english words has semiotic properties that are tainted by racial prejudice and discrimination. the use of colour as a symbol of meaning in the english language has a very long history. the colour ‘black’ in particular has been conventionally projected to represent evil or inferior because of agelong racial inclinations towards the colour. although mcclean (1988) agrees that racism exists in language, he insists that there are no linguistic associations between the word ‘black’ and evil or darkness in relation to africans or black-skinned people. on the contrary, oshodi (2006) laments that most white americans consider the use of colour ‘black’ as evil, unhealthy, and hostile with english words such as black market, blacklist, black out, black mood, black magic, black death, black sheep, black face, black hand, black hole, black shirt, blackmail, blackball, black mark and so on – all portray negativity. to oshodi (2006), the use of ‘black’ as a prefix does not suggest any racial sentiments, however, any oladotun opeoluwa olagbaju & kehinde olufemi ogunyemi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 89 black-skinned persons consciously or unconsciously interprets the symbol of the colour ‘black’ to represent inferiority or evil. for example, an analysis of the use of the black colour as prefix of certain english words has both denotative and derogatory: table 1 list of selected english words with the prefix ‘black’. n0 word meaning status/ use 1 blackboard a board coloured ‘black’ with a smooth surface for writing. denotative 2 black head small spot on people’s skin with black head denotative 3 black currant a fruit: black berries denotative 4 black out total darkness caused by lack of power supply derogatory 5 black maria vehicle used for transporting prisoners derogatory 6 blackmail a crime derogatory 7 black market an illegal form of trade derogatory 8 black leg a strike breaker derogatory 9 black sheep the odd one derogatory 10 black guard a dishonest man derogatory from the table above, it is evident that the use of black-prefixed words in english language is often derogatory. for example, maria, mail, sheep, guard, leg and out in the examples above have unique meanings apart from the derogatory meanings above. this supports the views of some scholars (oshodi, 2006; mapedzahama & kwansah-aidoo, 2017) that the word black is usually used in english language and in most cultures to represent negativity or inferiority. austin (2004, p.12) described the word ‘black’ as a ‘curse’ that is placed upon a whole group of people thereby the negative associations of the word with a group of people or other english words (in form of prefix) by culture and society has become more and more conditioned to prejudice. for oshodi (2006), the continued use of the colour ‘black’ as prefix in a demeaning way is dispiriting and denigrating. also, watts-jones (2004) posits that there is subtle racism in the english language because some of the words or phrases in the language are capable of reminding black-skinned people that their colour is related to extortion (blackmail), rejection (blackball), banishment (blacklist), illicitness (black market), and death. this is perhaps why oshodi (2006) recommended that black scholars of the english language should start a campaign for the removal of these negative usages from standard dictionaries. also, the choice of the prefix ‘black’ in table 1 above can be described as intentional because it did not alter the meaning of the words denotatively as it can be seen below: table 2 use of prefix in denotative meaning. no word synonym prefixed meaning status/use 1 legal lawful il-legal crime denotative 2 write inscribe un-written not written denotative subtle racism in english language: a socio-semiotic analysis of black-prefixed english lexicons 90 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 3 agree support dis-agree not supported denotative 4 appropriation supply misappropriation to mismanage denotative 5 dependence supported in-dependence freedom/liberty denotative 6 organise arrange dis-organise not arranged denotative 7 solicited requested un-solicited not requested denotative 8 legible bold il-legible not seen denotative 9 plugged connected un-plugged not connected denotative 10 qualify eligible dis-qualify not eligible denotative tables 1 and 2 show that the use of colour ‘black’ as a prefix with words in english language has an established semiotics undertone borne out of cultural and racial sentiments. colours can be used to elicit certain meanings in the reader or user of a language. for example, the choice of colour ‘white’ for a wedding dress can suggest purity or virginity depending on the culture of the language users. similarly, alshraideh and el-sharif (2019, p.24) found that the use of colour ‘black’ in the holy quran projects a negative connotation as the term ‘black faces’ was used to represent unbelievers that would have a predestined end of shame, fear, catastrophic destiny, and punishment. in addition, lyons (2020) posits that the english language certainly has its fair share of racist words and phrases because there are several racism-induced words in the language. these words have been found to have underlying racial colourations and their continued use without opting for their less offensive synonyms suggests that it is intentional. lyons (2002) avers that most of the english words or expressions with racial colouration have their origins in slavery or racism. according to lyons (2020), english words or phrases with racial colourations include gypped/jipped from the word ‘gypsy’ often used as a derogatory name for the roma tribe of india, whites only (apartheid-related), sold down the river (slave trade-related). most of these conventionally convenient english words or phrases with subtle racial roots, especially the words with prefix ‘black’ are derogatory. watts-jones (2004) avers that the use of the colour ‘black’ in the english idiom, ‘black sheep’ often has nothing to do with being african or african american, but it is often used to project a negative meaning. however, mcclean (1988) opines that it is difficult to understand how english words such as ‘blackball’, ‘black book’, ‘blackguard’, ‘black hole’, ‘blacklist’ or ‘blackmail’ convey subtle racial connotations more than words like white lies, whitecap, white-witch, white-hot and whitewash. in conclusion, the arguments of mcclean with reference to the racial connotations in the use of the colours ‘black’ and ‘white’ is not convincing because the use of prefix ‘white’ in each of the words is not derogatory unlike the meanings of the words prefixed with black. from the foregoing, the racial connotation of words with prefix ‘black’ and the semiotic elements of colour as a symbol or image in language use is evident. the common connection between english words with the prefix colour ‘black’ and their meanings suggest a consistent yet subtle form of racism in the english language. oladotun opeoluwa olagbaju & kehinde olufemi ogunyemi englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 91 4. implications for english as a second language (esl) instruction meanings can be generated from all languages based on the interpretations of verbal and non-verbal systems. processing the meanings of non-verbal elements such as images, symbols or colours in linguistic expressions requires an understanding of the cultural and socio-semiotic elements of the colour or image. the intersemiotic translation or transmutation between language and colour suggests that choice or use of colour in language is not accidental because non-verbal cues such as colours, images or symbols in language can be interpreted. an analysis of the socio-semiotic properties of the black colour shows that both the word and colour ‘black’ are often used as symbol or emblem of racism, negativity and inferiority. social interpretation of the black colour across cultures shows that the colour is associated with racial colouration and discrimination. black is both a word and colour that is often used in the english language as a prefix with words that are mostly derogative in meaning or represent negativity and racial inclinations. these words are taught during english language instruction in schools as part of affixation and idiomatic expressions to unconsciously institutionalize systemic racism globally. the irony is that most english as a second language (esl) teachers are unaware that they are channels for propagating racism in the classroom through the continued teaching of english lexicons or idioms with racial roots. english language learners of african descent are compelled to accept that the use of the black colour often stands for negativity and words that are prefixed with ‘black’ have derogatory meanings. the knowledge of intersemiotic translations and transmutation should be demonstrated by second language teachers in the process of instruction. instruction in esl classroom should extend beyond the linguistic properties of the words, because the learners need to be taught or exposed to the concept of meanings using the knowledge of transmutation. all forms of racial sentiment should be discouraged and the blackprefixed english lexicon should be taught primary based on their linguistic properties. 5. conclusion in conclusion, considering the intersemiotic properties of language and the expression of meanings, there is a need to correct the current dogma associated with the use of the english lexicon ‘black’ when used as a prefix with other words. language teachers need to actively teach affixation as an aspect of the english language to initiate a new consciousness that is devoid of racist colouration, perception and interpretation of the word/colour black in the english language. instruction in esl classrooms should be rebranded and restructured to be devoid of racism and racial prejudice. addressing the issue of racism in english language through classroom instruction is important because education is capable of engendering a measurable change in the behaviour of the recipients. therefore, to effectively challenge the existing conventions and semiotics on subtle racism in english language: a socio-semiotic analysis of black-prefixed english lexicons 92 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 the colour black in the english language, there is a need for the revitalization of language education or instruction in schools. references almalech, m. and habil, n. 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(2020). efl learners‟ difficulties in the structure and written expression section of toefl test in an indonesian university. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 7(2), 156-180. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v7i2.6472 abstract this study examined the english for foreign language (efl) learners‟ difficult topics in the structure and written expression section of the toefl prediction test, and reasons why they consider that these topics were difficult. a mixed-method research design was used in this study. fifteen participants were selected through a purposive sampling mechanism from the seventh-semester students of the department of english language education, universitas islam negeri ar-raniry who have participated in the toefl prediction test to identify the difficult topics they encountered. then, the semistructured interviews were conducted with six underachieving student‟s participants with the most recorded errors made in the test to know the reasons behind their difficulties. findings indicated that students encountered difficulties mostly when * corresponding author mailto:.akmal@ar-raniry.ac.id mailto:akbar-rasyid@uin-alauddin.ac.id mailto:masna@ar-raniry.ac.id mailto:cutnatasha24@gmail.com https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v7i2.6472 saiful akmal, muhammad nur akbar rasyid, yuliar masna & cut natasha soraya englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 157 dealing with determiners, conjunctions, adjective clauses, apposition phrases, and reduced clauses in the structure section. meanwhile, adverb connectors, subject-verb agreement, and clause of concession, relative clause, and quantifier are the difficulties they encountered in the written expression section of the test. thus, the findings also revealed several factors identified as the reasons behind those difficulties, namely lack of practice, grammar incompetence, vocabulary shortage, time management, and low self-confidence. given the significant impact of this study, we suggested that the lectures and english departments should address these difficulties. it is crucial that the focus of the courses related to grammar and efl proficiency tests be incorporated into the syllabus. keywords: efl learners; structure; written expression; toefl test 1. introduction the rapid growth of test of english as a foreign language (toefl) and its widespread uses in higher education, such as introducing toefl in the curriculum, using toefl score as university admission or graduation, demand more discussions to understand and overcome english for foreign learners‟ difficulties in answering the test. in this light, abboud and hussein (2011, p.111) reported that “more than 5,000 colleges, universities, and licensing agencies in 90 countries accept the toefl scores”. in the asian context, the international spread of english and its proficiency tests, like toefl, has become part of globalization phenomena. this has paved the way for english to be used more often and is considered as an emerging “asian language” (hamid & nguyen, 2016). such developments, to some extent, were dominantly influenced by the language foreign policy imposed in international education. this phenomenon has forced national or domestic language proficiency centres to be able to connect to global cultures and identities (baker, 2012). because a language, as hamid and kirkpatrick (2016) put forward, is one aspect of national resources that needs to be properly addressed and managed. some studies even argued that the introduction of english in education in asian countries could no longer be considered only as a medium of instruction (dang, nguyen, & le, 2013), yet it could also be linked to the regional economic growth (hayes, 2017), and the use of english as lingua franca (baker, 2012). in the southeast asian context, todd and shih (2013) assess the use of english proficiency in two categories: the expanding circle of english and the outer circle of english. most of the southeast asian countries like indonesia, thailand, vietnam, myanmar, laos, and cambodia adopted english as a foreign language (efl), and they were marked by a relatively low score on international english tests. on the other hand, countries like malaysia, singapore, brunei, and the philippines fall into the outer circle of english, and they have been using english as their official language proven by the higher rating of english proficiency test‟s scores. they, moreover, add that the southeast asian countries almost have a similar heavily test-oriented education system. efl learners’ difficulties in the structure and written expression section 158 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 indonesian higher education institutions, like their fellow southeast asian countries, have started to seriously introduce english proficiency tests. as a country in which english served as a foreign language (efl), the use of english proficiency test, especially toefl, have been very popular amongst students and lecturers. these uses are various, ranging from toefl matriculation program (herwandar, safryono, & haryono, 2012; noviyenty, 2018), toefl preparation class (masfufah, 2018), toefl school in online learning platform (nimasari, mufanti, & gestanti, 2019), and graduation requirement (aziz, 2016; susanti, 2014). given this massive use of toefl, the teaching and learning process, the syllabus construction, and the curriculum design are greatly influenced by the need to improve students‟ toefl scores. the use of toefl for acehnese universities has subsequently led to the implementation of the toefl test requirement for educational purposes. in syiah kuala university, the minimum toefl score is used as a precondition for the thesis examination (kasim, 2016). likewise, in universitas muhammadiyah aceh, the toefl prediction test is required for undergraduate students (netta & trisnawati, 2020). similarly, samudra university in langsa applies the same regulation, obligating students to take the toefl test before graduation (devira & makhroji, 2017). in recent times, students at uin ar-raniry banda aceh must take the toefl course and prediction test as pre-requirement before their bachelor thesis exam. the university management has set the minimum score of the toefl prediction score is 475 for english department students, and 400 for non-english department students prior to graduation. † in response to the global call, national and international competition, from 2017 to 2020, the department of english language education has gradually raised the minimum toefl score requirement from 470 to 500 for graduation requirements. 1.1. prior study huang (2006) piloted an interesting assessment of north american esl students on their campuses. it showed that chinese students experienced difficulties in understanding academic lectures and delivering presentations despite their high toefl scores. in a similar tone, takanashi (2004) conducted research and discovered that japanese students repeatedly feel difficult to attain communicative english skills at school. although most japanese students were very eager to learn english, their toefl scores are still low. the same case occurred in the context of indonesian universities. according to samad and fitriani (2016), indonesian students at syiah kuala university banda aceh also unsuccessfully fell short to meet the minimum toefl score. they said that among 1916 toefl test-participants at syiah kuala university, only 53 students achieved a score between 450 and 497. having said that students can experience difficulties in answering the toefl test, the three sections of (1) listening, (2) structure and written expression, and (3) reading comprehension provided in the toefl test can pose various levels of † circular no: 756/un.08/r/pp.00.9/02/2017 saiful akmal, muhammad nur akbar rasyid, yuliar masna & cut natasha soraya englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 159 difficulties for students. depending on many factors, each section requires different skills to achieve the desired toefl score. for example, an investigation conducted by hambali (2008) disclosed that students still have many problems in answering the structure and written expression section of the toefl tests, namely: identifying verbs, identifying the correct words order of subject and verb in a noun clause, and identifying words with derivation and function. in line with this, mahmud (2014) also confirmed that most test-takers generally had problems in answering structure and written expression sections of the toefl test. those prior researches have proven that students‟ difficulty in answering the structure and written expression section of the toefl test is apparent. test takers think there are a lot of rules or sentence patterns that should be remembered and memorized. ananda (2016) found that the most-recurring problem in section two of the toefl test is questions on inversions and the least-frequent one is the use of verbs. another study believes that students are troubled with questions about a subject-verb agreement in toefl (atmojo, 2018). however, those problems are not only inevitable for the nonenglish department students but also encountered by the english department students. similar to such previous research, even though english department students learned all the grammar courses or even passed the english language proficiency subjects, they remained facing difficulties when answering the structure section in the toefl test. thus, based on this problem, it needs to conduct research and find the reasons why the english students are still difficult to answer the toefl test, especially in the structure and a written section. although these above mentioned current studies were valuable, they were mostly embarked on the general problems, challenges, and difficulties in answering the complete toefl test. it provides little information on the specific difficulties experienced by english department students at islamic higher education institutions context in indonesia. this present study, therefore, seeks to find out (1) the difficult topics of efl learners in completing the structure section of the toefl test, and (2) the factors behind efl learners‟ difficulties in answering the structure section of the toefl test in the given context. 2. literature review test of english as a foreign language or also known as toefl is a standardized test recognizing worldwide. warfield, laribee, and geyer, (2013) argue that toefl is acknowledged globally and universally. it is designed to measure people‟s english language ability to see whether they are good enough to take a course at a university or college in an english-speaking country. this test has become one of the requisites that must be met if someone wants to continue his/her study abroad. toefl itself has different types such as paper-based, computer-based, and internetbased test. brown (2005) states that toefl is a way for assessing someone‟s skill, familiarity, or enactment in a given domain, i.e. listening, structure, written expression, and reading comprehension. however, for the purpose of this present study, we focus efl learners’ difficulties in the structure and written expression section 160 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 only on the second section of the structure and written expression section in the institutional testing program (itp) toefl test. 2.1. structure and written expressions structure and written expression are the second sections in the toefl test that focuses on written english. this segment consists of two parts: (a): structure and (b): written expression in which the test-takers are given 25 minutes time to answer the total 40 questions. part a has fifteen multiple choice questions marked with a, b, c, and d probable answers as part of sentence completion, whereas the second part has twenty five questions. in the second part, the test-takers will encounter error-analysis type of questions in each sentence. moreover, structure and written expression are not only existed in itp toefl but also in pbt toefl. the difference between the two is that pbt toefl has one section namely test of written english or known as twe. philips (2001) classifies the structure and written expression section into the following topics; there are at least 10 main topics and it can be seen in the table below: table 1 main topics in section two of the toefl test. no name of topics 1 subject-verb agreement 2 verb-tense agreement 3 word forms 4 reduced clause 5 connectors 6 gerund and infinitive 7 comparisons 8 clause-formation 9 parallel structure 10 redundancy subject-verb agreement is the situation when subject and verb have to agree on numbering order, meaning that both of them must be singular or plural. the test-takers are requested to identify the errors of those agreements. then, the verb-tense agreement means keeping tenses consistent within sentences. the tenses should not be changed unless there is a need to change because of the time or others. the test-takers are questioned to identify the inconsistent tenses in a clause or sentence. subsequently, word forms are related to the actual forms of nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs. the test-takers are given an incorrect form of the word and asked to identify the correct form. afterward, reduced clauses denote the shortened form of a relative saiful akmal, muhammad nur akbar rasyid, yuliar masna & cut natasha soraya englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 161 clause, which transforms the subject of a sentence. reduced relative clauses can change the subject, but not the object, both in the active and passive voice sentences. connectors are words joining two words, phrases, clauses, and sentences together. the connectors can be categorised into four types: preposition, conjunction, and transition. the test takers are tested to recognise the correct use of connectors in words, phrases, clauses, or sentences. gerunds and infinitives are from time to time referred to as verb accompaniments. a gerund is a noun made from a verb by placing “ing” at the end of a word, while infinitive is the “to” form the verb. a comparison expresses the degree of contrast by using adjectives and adverbs. it is also branded as comparative and superlative. the test takers are questioned to find the correct comparison to represent the likeness of the dissimilar things in a sentence. then, clause-formation evaluates the format of dependent or independent clauses such as noun clause, adjective clause, adverb clause, negation clause, and the likes. parallel structure is the usage of the equivalent grammatical structures for connected notions of equal importance. related ideas of equal importance frequently happen in the form of a list that is linked by conjunction, such as and, but, and or. finally, redundancy is understood as the use of two or more words that say a similar thing. the test-takers are demanded to find the different words which have the same meaning. 2.2. question types in section two of the toefl test this section has two types of questions with a special track for each. these types of questions will be explained below: 2.2.1. structure the test-takers must choose one answer that best completes the sentence. such sentences and their answers are mentioned (abboud & husein, 2011, p.124) example: engineers ______ for work on the new space program. a. necessary b. are needed c. hopefully d. next month in this example, you should notice immediately that the sentence has subject engineers and it is not a verb. because option b “are needed” is a verb, it is the most suitable answer for this question. options a, c, and d are not verb; therefore they are not correct answers (philips, 2011, p. 200). 2.2.2. written expression the participants will see that each sentence has four underlined words or phrases. they must find one underlined choice that must be corrected in order for the sentence to be accurate. for example: efl learners’ difficulties in the structure and written expression section 162 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 representative democracy seemed evolve simultaneously during a b c the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in britain, europe, and the united states. d the correct choice is (a) (sharpe, 2004, p. 112) 2.3. efl learners and structure and written expression in the toefl test according to kempa (1991) difficulty is the situation where the students fail to comprehend and understand a concept or idea. these situations are caused by some factors such as lack of students‟ motivation (wulandari, 2016), learning strategies (mahmud, 2014; samad, jannah, & fitriani, 2017), vocabulary (saadian & bagheri, 2014), a complexity of pragmatic and grammatical competence (xu, case, & wang, 2009) and lack of exposure to the foreign language atmosphere (alrabai, 2016). ananda (2016) revealed that students agreed that part b of the toefl test is more difficult than part a. this finding is confirmed and put into more detail by fitri (2018) revealing that parallel structure is the most difficult question in section b of the written expression of the toefl test. given the complexities of grammar problems in the toefl test for efl learners, some proposed a variety of approaches for remedial. chujo, oghigian, and akasegawa (2015) for instance introduce a corpus and grammatical browsing mechanism to tackle grammar problems for their students, whereas seyedtajaddini (2014) uses audio input impact to enhance efl learners‟ grammar learning. using focused and unfocused, direct, and indirect written corrective feedback on efl learners‟ grammatical precision was also one of the attempts to address these complexities (farrokhi & sattarpour, 2011; hosseiny, 2014). 3. method the present study applied a mixed-method design in which the data were collected by using tests and semi-structured interviews (kawachi-furlan, amorim, & finardi, 2017). the quantitative part of the study design used simple statistics form to analyse the toefl test results, and therefore it can be categorized as descriptive statistics design (guetterman, 2015; woods, fletcher, & hughes, 1986). test, distributed to 15 students, was used in this study to find the most difficult topic in the structure and written expression. those students were selected purposively based on their itp toefl score. all participants were the seventh-semester students of the english language education department; they had a minimum of 470 toefl scores, and they had passed all grammar and introduction to english proficiency test courses. 470 was the minimum toefl score for university graduation requirements in english language education department. the structure and written expression test given to the participants was adopted from the ets toefl preparation kit 2002. the format of the test was the same as the general toefl test. it consisted of two parts: saiful akmal, muhammad nur akbar rasyid, yuliar masna & cut natasha soraya englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 163 part a: word completion and part b: error analysis. part a had 15 questions and part b consisted of 25 questions with the total questions of the test were 40 questions. the participants had 25 minutes to complete the test. as the interview is used in most qualitative research no matter what qualitative strategies are being used (creswell, 2007). griffee (2012) sees an interview as a personto-person conversation where its purpose is to find and create meaningful data which have to be collected and analysed. there are three common types of interviews including structured, semi-structured, and unstructured interviews (stuckey, 2013). therefore, the second part of the data collection used to denote the qualitative traits in this study was semi-structured interviews. this was used to know why the topics were regarded as difficult for them and given to six underperforming students with the lowest scores in the toefl structure and written expression test. resembling the structured interview, this type of interview also has a rough draft of a topic question. although there is a set of guided questions, the response from participants allows the flexibility to ask more enhanced questions (stuckey, 2013). semi-structured interviews also allow informants to express their views in their own terms and can provide reliable and comparable qualitative data (griffee, 2012). there are some reasons why the interview was chosen as the data collection technique in this study. firstly, as stated by gray (2004), by doing an interview, there is a need to attain highly personalized data. secondly, as adhabi and christina (2017) explain that the advantage of an interview is that we can pinpoint delicate subjects. in addition, the strength of the interview is “a researcher can prompt and probe deeper in the given situation” (annabel, 2005, p.6). 3.1. technique of data analysis the data from this research were analysed with different stages using the descriptive statistics method (woods, fletcher, & hughes, 1986). for the test, answer sheets from the students were checked and classified into correct and incorrect answers. the percentage of error was counted in each topic by using a formula by sudijono (2006). p = f x 100% n in which: p: percentage of error in each topic f: the number of wrong in each topic n: total number of all wrong answer for the interview, the data were analysed by using a coding procedure. as miles and huberman (2013, p.56) state that “codes are tags or labels for assigning units of meaning to the descriptive or inferential information compiled during a study”. code efl learners’ difficulties in the structure and written expression section 164 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 is an analytical process in both qualitative and quantitative research used to analyse the data by labelling and symbolizing them into theme to descriptive information. in this study, open coding was used to analyse the data of the interview. esterberg (2002, p.158) suggests that open coding is “a process where you work intensively with your data, line by line, identify themes and categorize that seem of interest.” first, we started writing the document transcript from the interview‟s audio recorder. then, the data were read to gain information and ideas from the participants. next, the data were coded, categorized them into themes, and interpreted. 4. findings 4.1. the difficult topics faced by efl learners in the structure and written expression section in the toefl test this research examined english learners‟ difficulties toward toefl in the structure and written expression section. we used a test, only for the toefl structure and written expression section as the instrument for data collection to figure out the difficult topics faced by english learners in the structure and written expression section. table 2 participants‟ error percentage in part a. number correct answer percentage incorrect answer percentage 1 9 60% 6 40% 2 9 60% 6 40% 3 3 20% 12 80% 4 10 67% 5 33% 5 8 53% 7 47% 6 5 33% 10 67% 7 8 53% 7 47% 8 4 27% 11 73% 9 5 33% 10 67% 10 7 47% 8 53% 11 0 0% 15 100% 12 3 20% 12 80% 13 4 27% 11 73% 14 0 0% 15 100% 15 6 40% 9 60% total 81 144 average 36% 64% table 2 shows the result of the test in the structure and written section in part a. the highest percentages of the incorrect answers are question number 11 and 14 saiful akmal, muhammad nur akbar rasyid, yuliar masna & cut natasha soraya englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 165 with 100%, followed by question 3 and 12 with 80% and question number 8 and 13 with 73%. the medium percentage of the incorrect answers is seen in number 10 with 53%. 4.1.1. structure – part a 4.1.1.1. determiner and conjunction the following captions are the questions of number 11 and 14 where all participants made mistake. these questions discuss determiner and conjunction topic. figure 1. screenshot of toefl test sheets in structure and written expression section part a. adopted from “ets preparation kit 2002”. as for question number 11, 100% of participants failed to answer this question. this means all participants still completely did not understand the use of determiner. the test-takers said that the word “so” was appropriate with the sentence in the question. besides, they did not realize that the question was actually questioning the use of a determiner in a particular context. 4.1.1.2. subordinating conjunction and adjective clause the next most difficult questions are on subordinating conjunction and the adjective clause in questions number 3 and 12 with a total of 80 % of incorrect answers. efl learners’ difficulties in the structure and written expression section 166 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 figure 2. screenshot of toefl test sheets in structure and written expression section part a. adopted from “ets preparation kit 2002”. 4.1.1.3. apposition phrase and reduced clause figure 3. screenshot of toefl test sheets in structure and written expression section part a. adopted from “ets preparation kit 2002”. the third most difficult subject of the structure section is apposition phrase and reduced clause with question 8 and 13 with (73 %). 4.1.2. written expression – part b table 3 error percentage in part b. number correct answer percentage incorrect answer percentage 16 11 73% 4 27% 17 6 40% 9 60% 18 9 60% 6 40% 19 8 53% 7 47% 20 10 67% 5 33% 21 6 40% 9 60% 22 8 53% 7 47% 23 4 27% 11 73% saiful akmal, muhammad nur akbar rasyid, yuliar masna & cut natasha soraya englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 167 24 1 7% 14 93% 25 9 60% 6 40% 26 6 40% 9 60% 27 11 73% 4 27% 28 6 40% 9 60% 29 5 33% 10 67% 30 2 13% 13 87% 31 5 33% 10 67% 32 2 13% 13 87% 33 6 40% 9 60% 34 6 40% 9 60% 35 4 27% 11 73% 36 1 7% 14 93% 37 0 0% 15 100% 38 1 7% 14 93% 39 5 33% 10 67% 40 12 80% 3 20% total 144 231 average 38% 62% table 3 above illustrates the result of the participants‟ test in the structure and written expression section in part b. here, the utmost ratio of participants‟ incorrect answers are understood in question number 37 with 100%, followed by number 24, 36, and 38 which were 93%, then number 30 and 32 with 87%. the medium percentage of participants‟ incorrect answer is shown in numbers 17, 21, 26, 38, 33, and 34 with 60%. furthermore, the lowest percentage of participants‟ errors are represented in numbers 16 and 27 with 27%, followed by the number 40% which was 20%. all participants produced more errors in questions about conjunction, quantifier, subject-verb agreement, and determiner were considered easy topics here. 4.1.2.1. adverb connectors here, most ratios of participants‟ incorrect answers are understood in question number 37 with 100%. this question discusses adverb connectors. efl learners’ difficulties in the structure and written expression section 168 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 figure 4. screenshot of toefl test sheets in structure and written expression section part b. adopted from “ets preparation kit 2002”. 4.1.2.2. subject-verb agreement and clause of concession then, it is followed by numbers 24, 36, and 38 which were 93% of participants failed to answer these questions correctly. these questions discuss subject-verb agreement, and clause of concession. figure 5. screenshot of toefl test sheets in structure and written expression section part b. adopted from “ets preparation kit 2002”. 4.1.2.3. relatives clause and quantifier then, it is followed by number 30 and 32 that there were 87% of participants did not answer these questions well. it is about relatives clause and quantifier. figure 6. screenshot of toefl test sheets in structure and written expression section part b. adopted from “ets preparation kit 2002”. question no.30 was about a relative clause and only 87 %, or two participants managed to correctly answer the question. test-takers said that the relative clause topic was hard to be analysed in the question. saiful akmal, muhammad nur akbar rasyid, yuliar masna & cut natasha soraya englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 169 it can be said from the findings that all participants made mistake on those topics because of several reasons. first, the participants did not understand well and did not realize about the topic in the questions. second, the participants were nervous and confused during the test. the final reason was the ways the questions were constructed in the test. this result was supported by hajri, jufrizal, and wahyuni (2018) stating that among 10 main items assessed in the structure and written expression subtest, three items were categorized as difficult items: reduced clause, parallel structure, and format of negation. also, four items were categorized as medium items: singular and plural, verb-agreement, gerund and infinitive, and reduced in the active sentence. 4.2. factors affecting english learners’ difficulties in answering structure section in the toefl test here, the result of the interview with six participants is discussed. they were selected based on the most-recorded wrong answers of the test to explore the reason of efl learners‟ difficulties in answering the structure section in toefl. the findings of the interview indicated that there were some factors affecting the difficulties for english learners in answering the structure and written expression section. 4.2.1. lack of practice most responses mentioned that the main difficulty in answering the structure and written expression section in the toefl test was caused by a lack of practice. they agreed if someone does not practice their grammar skills by answering and learning through toefl questions, they will experience difficulties in the real toefl test. one of the participants‟ responses is shown below: i don‟t practice my grammar correctly. that‟s why it makes me difficult to answer the toefl test, even though i have passed all of grammar course. yeah, like we know that, if we never practice we never be good in that thing. [ibr] in relation to this concern, another participant said: i think the most (dominant) factor is lack of practice, because based on my experience when i learn and practice toefl in the structure section every day, my score is higher than the first one. practice is important, because when i joined the course at ldc, i just learn grammar in the class. outside the class, i don‟t practice it anymore. [rzj] she believed that if someone put big effort into practicing toefl especially in structure, they could succeed in the real test. in addition, another participant further explained based on her experience, she said: efl learners’ difficulties in the structure and written expression section 170 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 i think because of lack of preparation and lack of practice because like i said before based on my experience when i take toefl for the first time, i did not take any course or learns something and my score is low. but when i took the toefl course and downloaded the (toefl) application, my score increased. so, if english learners do not practice or learn more, it‟s going to be difficult for them. [ard] most of the participants approved that the main factor was due to a lack of practice or preparation. based on their answer, it can be concluded that practice is extremely important for participants, particularly english department students either in the classroom or outside the classroom to prepare them for the toefl. 4.2.2. grammar incompetence the second factor that also takes the big concern affecting the difficulties of english learners is due to the lack of grammar skills. most of the participants thought that they had bad skills in grammar and lack of grammar understanding. an example of the participant‟s response to grammar incompetence is shown as following: “honestly, i don‟t really understand grammar. my grammar is too bad” [ibr]. in relation to this concern, other participants said: yes, of course, when we learned grammar we only learned about the formula without understanding the use of grammar. also in grammar, we just learned simple sentence simple topics, but in toefl in the test the sentences (are) more complex. [rzj] she believed that when she learned grammar courses and took the toefl test, it was a different level of questions and different levels of the sentence. in addition, another participant thought that the way the lecturer explained grammar course was the factor that made her poor in understanding grammar. the participant response is as following; “it seemed to me that my lecturer explained all grammar issues in grammar course very fast. it was very hard for me to understand them well”. [sn] based on the findings, it was clear that most participants still had problems with grammar even if they were already learned grammar in their first and second year. 4.2.3. shortage of vocabulary the majority of the test-takers sanctioned that vocabulary is crucial in answering the toefl test. in fact, they said that they still encountered difficulties in answering toefl due to a lack of vocabulary mastery. it appeared when some learners found unfamiliar vocabulary during the test. for example: in my opinion, we seldom learn about the toefl test. the biggest problem is because we don‟t learn or practice it. then, lack of vocabulary also. sometimes, sentences i don‟t know the meaning. as we know, in saiful akmal, muhammad nur akbar rasyid, yuliar masna & cut natasha soraya englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 171 toefl the vocabulary is higher and it talked about science, economic, etc. [ibr] another factor is vocabulary. it is also important. because when i know about the meaning of the sentence, i can know the best answer. for example, in error analysis, if someone doesn‟t know the meaning it‟s hard to choose the correct answer. [adl] based on the findings, the participants specified the difficulty in terms of lack of vocabulary. all participants emphasized the role of vocabulary in answering the toefl test. as noted by ibr, the vocabulary used in toefl is higher and more difficult than those used in the usual reading material. also, vocabulary in toefl utilizes all of the topics such as economic, social, education, health, geography, etc. 4.2.4. time management based on the interview result, this study revealed that most participants‟ responses were still concerned with the lack of time. most of the learners stated that lack of time made them failed in the toefl test. some participants‟ responses are shown as following: “and also, the time is also not enough for 40 questions in 25 minutes. it‟s hard for me and took a long time for me in one question” [sn]. other factors are time was limited; i don‟t have enough time to answer 40 questions in 25 minutes and lack of understanding of grammar itself” [rzj]. the findings indicated that all test-takers faced difficulties in answering toefl due to lack of time. they revealed the time was so limited to answer 40 questions in 25 minutes. also, most participants spent more time answering a question. the result of the interview figured out that the majority of english department students could not manage the time wisely during the test. 4.2.5. low self-confidence most participants claimed that they were not feeling confident when taking the toefl test. in addition, some said they felt distracted when choosing the answer. the participants‟ responses toward this aspect are described below: i think the difficult one is less preparation. because when i follow the test for the first time without preparation, i feel so confused and my score is under 400. then, i also feel nervous when taking the test, so that‟s why it makes me difficult. also, time is not enough for me to answer the questions. [rzj] and also, i‟m a little bit nervous when i take a test. it‟s different when you learn and when you take the test, it‟s so different feeling. [ard] as the learners‟ responses above, they indicated that most of the participants showed their anxiety during the toefl test. anxiety is a common phenomenon for efl learners’ difficulties in the structure and written expression section 172 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 every participant taking the test. however, anxiety can be resolved by doing a lot of practices and taking the toefl prediction test repeatedly. 5. discussion from the data above, there were at least three levels of difficulties: very difficult, difficult, and medium which participants encountered in the toefl test, and there were five major causes of these difficulties. those topics are discussed in the following sections. the first section elaborates on the categories of difficulty found from the participants‟ answer sheets. then afterward, the factors causing those difficulties are analyzed. 5.1. most difficult 5.1.1. determiner question number 11, 100% of participants failed to answer this question. this question was considered very difficult, which means all participants still did not completely understand the use of determiner. the participants said that they thought that the word “so” was appropriate with the sentence in the question. besides, they did not realize that the question was in fact questioning about determiner. in the same light, snape (2006) believes that non-native english speakers may have problems in the acquisition, and therefore may have similar problems in noticing determiner. 5.1.2. compound-adjective this topic appeared in question number 37 in which 100% of participants failed to respond to this question. this question was also considered very difficult, meaning that all participants still did not recognize the compound-adjective. all of the test-takers chose the wrong answer to this question. they admitted that they did not understand what the question was discussed. also, they were distracted by feeling nervous when answering the question. besides, question number 37 has a difficult level of difficulty. thus, they could not answer the question. in a similar vein, dehham (2014) analyzes iraqi efl learners in using english compound adjectives in which she found that they had serious difficulties at the level of producing compound adjectives. 5.2. difficult 5.2.1. parallelism the next topic is parallelism. this topic is presented in question 24 in which 93% of participants failed to find the correct answer. it pointed out that they did not know the concept of parallelism. it happened because the test-takers were not aware that they had to make sentences which had the same structure. besides, they did not realize the question asked about parallelism and they said the way the question constructed was difficult. saiful akmal, muhammad nur akbar rasyid, yuliar masna & cut natasha soraya englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 173 this point is comparable to ahmed‟s findings (2010) that efl learners encountered difficulties in differentiating repetition and parallelism in a sentence. it was concluded that a lack of coherence and cohesion understanding of english may be the main reason for such occurrences (ahmed, 2010). 5.2.2. conjunction there are 3 questions on conjunction, namely question number 3, 14, and 38. in question number 14, for example, only 40% of the participants answered correctly. then question 38, whereby 93% of participants failed to find the correct answer. in addition, question number 3 was a little bit easier with 84% of the participants managed to answer it correctly. it indicated that most english learners still did not understand this basic topic very well. despite the fact that conjunction is considered by many as one of the easiest topics in grammar, participants still made mistakes here. some participants‟ revealed that they did not realize those questions were about conjunction. although this study did not specifically look into details of what type of conjunction errors were made by the participants, this finding apparently confirms darweesh and kadhim‟s analysis (2016). they said that conjunction problems often occur between efl learners, especially because they did not entirely know the real meaning and specific uses of different conjunction types. 5.2.3. quantifier thus, the topic is about quantifier is also dubbed as difficult. it was represented in question 32 in which most participants‟ failed to get the correct answer with an 87% percentage of error. almost all participants could not answer this item correctly. quantifier is also considered as the simple topic in grammar course. almost all participants selected the wrong answer for this part. there are two possible reasons why the participants made mistake here. first, the participants did not realize about the topic in the questions. in the same way, as subramanian and khan (2016) argue, explicit instruction might be recommended to overcome such problems. second, the participants were nervous and confused during the test, as also asserted by ebadi and khakzar (2014). the last reason was the ways the questions were constructed in the test. this is partly because the nature of the toefl test is lacking communicative competence, unlike what we have seen in ielts for example (chapelle, et.al. 2011). 5.3. not so difficult-medium 5.3.1. subject-verb agreement the first topic is the subject verb agreement (sva). then, question number 12 with 80% success rate is considered not so difficult or medium. hence, only three participants passed this question. most of the test-takers selected wrong answers about the subject-verb agreement. it was admitted that the questions on subject verb agreement (sva) were truly difficult to answer in a short time (alshammari, 2013). efl learners’ difficulties in the structure and written expression section 174 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 5.3.2. reduced clause here, 73% of participants failed to answer the question, whereas the level of difficulty in this number is medium in question number 8 for example. it showed that the majority of the participants did not fully understand about reduced clause. in question no. 30, only two participants correctly answered the question (87%). this result was supported by hajri (2018) who stated that among 10 main items assessed in the structure and written expression subtest, three items were categorized as difficult items: reduced clause, parallel structure, and format of negation. following the discussion on the categorization of participants‟ level difficulty in the toefl test, the subsequent elaboration on the factors that cause participants‟ difficulties in the toefl test is described. the first main factor affecting english learners‟ difficulties was the lack of practice of grammar, especially for the toefl test. they said that they did not practice well in learning toefl when they wanted to take the toefl test. they took the test without any practices and preparation. the result was supported by pan (2009) stating that practice is needed in order to make the students familiar with the questions, so they know how to prepare themselves for the test. the second factor was the grammar incompetence. all participants said they did not master the proper grammar skills or deficient knowledge of grammar concepts. they also said they knew the theory on the grammar but when they were confronted with toefl questions, they did not know how to solve it. this result is reinforced by mahmud‟s research (2014), indicating participants failed in answering the questions because they had low english grammar understanding. furthermore, the third factor causing the problem is insufficient vocabulary. all participants agreed that vocabulary was very helpful to understand the question. the participants could not answer the questions because they did not understand the meaning of the words. also, the questions consisted of most unfamiliar vocabularies. according to alqahtani (2013) and gu (2010), vocabulary is viewed as a crucial tool for second language learners and language development. then, the fourth factor is time limitation or time management. participants said that they did not have enough time to answer those questions. they revealed that the time was incredibly limited for them to choose the answers to 40 questions in 25 minutes. thus, they should train themselves to manage their time during the test. the finding was similar to the result of abboud and hussein (2011) who stated that students face difficulty in the test because of not having enough time. it was explained that if the students had more time they would have done better and passed the test (abboud & hussein, 2011). the fifth factor influencing the difficulty in answering toefl in the structure section is the participants‟ low self-confidence. most participants agreed that they lost their self-confidence during the toefl test. they revealed they were more distracted when dealing with part b of error analysis. from the result of the interview, saiful akmal, muhammad nur akbar rasyid, yuliar masna & cut natasha soraya englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 | 175 participants‟ struggled to answer the question in part b due to low self-confidence. this is particularly linked to the idea that one of the greatest psychological challenges for young language learners is self-confidence (nikolov, 2016). apart from those five factors, we presupposed some other factors causing these participants‟ difficulties in the toefl test. the fact is that joining the toefl training and preparation program does not always provide a final solution for participants to answer structure questions in toefl. this is proven by four out of six research participants having problems with the toefl training program. the participants admitted that they did not get any improvement in understanding structure topics even after joining the training. the participants said that it happened due to several factors. first, it was due to the lack of effectiveness in organizing the training class and creating a conducive learning atmosphere. the staff of the language development centre (ldc) arranged the class by combining the students from various majors, including mixing non-english students with the english department students. the participants revealed that this approach seemed to be less-effective. the lecturers, very often, also have to repeat the same explanation on the same basic topics causing some delays in the classroom to move forward and discuss the next topics for toefl preparation. as a result, the english department students will feel tedious and such lacklustre will disturb the whole process and test performance. these findings are seemingly against most studies on the toefl preparation course (i.e. nikolaieva, 2016; erfani, 2012) that stressed the advantages of toefl preparation courses and classes for students. second, the way lecturers convey the material was not too deep. the participants said that some lecturers delivered the material in unstructured ways. they argued that lecturers did not clearly explain in detail and offered a lack of discussion time. it made the participants hard to understand the topic and eventually led to difficulties to answer those questions. in addition, the lecturers also rarely provided quick tricks or tips in answering the questions in the structure section. however, communicative language teaching is believed to have improved students‟ motivation and of course, their final performance on proficiency tests (martono, 2013). 6. conclusion having analysed the data in the previous section of findings, several conclusions can be drawn. the findings of the present study suggested that the students of the english language education department urgently need to practice a lot in structure and written expression section in the toefl test. by practicing a lot, they will not only acquire knowledge of grammar, but also in terms of time management. the students should also be given short training and detailed orientation in toefl particularly in the structure section, especially for students who have passed the introduction to english proficiency test course. this is performed to strengthen their understanding of toefl particularly in the structure and written section. the training can be carried out, at least, efl learners’ difficulties in the structure and written expression section 176 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.7, no.2, may 2020 in one month‟s time with eight meetings. in addition to this, the english language education department may provide a learning module containing materials about toefl structure and the exercises to facilitate students in understanding these difficult topics. subsequently, 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(2009). pragmatic and grammatical competence, length of residence, and overall l2 proficiency. system, 37(2), 205-216. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2021. vol. 8, no. 2, 106-119 the strengths and pitfalls of edmodo to indonesian efl learners: student and teachers’ voices rizka safriyani * uin sunan ampel surabaya, surabaya, indonesia rizkasafriyani@uinsby.ac.id siti uswatun khasanah uin sunan ampel surabaya, surabaya, indonesia sitiuswatun47@gmail.com manuscript received o c t o b er 1 9 , 2020, revised february 16, 2021, first published may 3, 2021, and available online may 17, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v8i2.8092 recommended apa citation safriyani, r., & khasanah, s. u. (2021). the strengths and pitfalls of edmodo to indonesian efl learner: student and teachers’ voices. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 8(2), 106-119. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.8092 abstract the covid-19 pandemic impacted indonesia's education system to change the teaching and learning activities immediately. edmodo is one of the learning management system (lms) platforms widely used for english teaching and learning in indonesia. previous studies about edmodo focus on the positive impact of edmodo on the student's competence and performance. however, few studies discuss the pitfalls of edmodo in efl settings. a survey design was employed through the administration of the questionnaire. this survey research aims to investigate the strengths and the pitfalls of edmodo to indonesian efl learners, particularly in the university context. fifteen university students and ten lecturers were involved in the survey. the study results indicate that students and teachers have the same opinion about the strengths of edmodo in terms of practicality and efficiency. however, a different opinion occurs on the use of edmodo to complement face-to-face activity. some teachers agree that edmodo could not facilitate collaborative learning, but some lecturers said it was possible to do collaborative learning. furthermore, students and teachers stated that the weakness of edmodo is that it needs a good internet connection. this research, therefore, contributes some empirical insights into the use of edmodo in english language teaching. keywords: edmodo; efl learner; online learning * corresponding author https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.8092 rizka safriyani & siti uswatun khasanah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 107 1. introduction as technology continues to develop, it changes the way students learn and how teachers teach. the model and design of the material have also changed. it allows the teachers to design flexible and innovative material to enable students to collaborate and work together in a new way. the students may feel much more interactive and full of exciting fields when assisted by technology through the internet. in this era, teachers and students can do online learning outside the classroom by using several platforms that are already available on the internet. learning management system (lms) is an elearning platform that meets a set of features for creating and managing courses in the distance. here, the learning management system (lms) enables the students with their teachers to communicate and interact with each other doing the learning process together in enjoyable ways. edmodo, schoology, or google classroom offers many forums that facilitate the teaching and learning process. users may exchange information in different formats, such as text, image, video, and sound by using these resources. after 2016, smartphone and tablet formats have overtaken laptop formats in global internet use, according to statcounter (2016), and the use of these portable formats has become a popular experience for generation z students (carter, 2018). previous studies have been conducted about edmodo discussing the strength and the pitfall of edmodo to efl learners. for online learning, pardede (2017) has acknowledged various advantages of edmodo, such as its ability to promote intense communication that is highly important in the efl environment, its ability to help run different forms of active learning, and helps teachers to address the needs of the different students, encourages a sense of community among students. edmodo makes them feel valued and essential in the teaching and learning process. furthermore, edmodo provides not only flexibility but also accessibility and compatibility. edmodo research studies have already recognized its potential and reported many indications that edmodo can significantly help improve the language skills of learners, especially in improving the reading and writing skills of learners (gay & sofyan, 2017; warawudhi, 2017), vocabulary mastery (evenddy & harmer, 2016). however, most research focuses on the positive impact of edmodo on the student's competence and performance. the weakness of edmodo has remained unclear. this is increasingly important for language researcher to discuss the pitfalls or the weaknesses of edmodo in english language teaching. this study aims to investigate the strengths and pitfalls of edmodo to indonesian islamic university students from the point of view of the students and the lecturers. 2. literature review the industrial revolution 4.0 has led to unlimited technology such as a learning management system in education. it can support online learning to proceed effectively to be carried out even though the educators and students stayed in different places. using technology when online learning is carried out as an alternative to the learning the strengths and pitfalls of edmodo to indonesian efl learners: student and teachers’ voices 108 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 process continues. participants can learn as usual (ahmadi, 2018) even though face-toface learning cannot be carried out directly (herliandry, nurhasanah, suban, & kuswanto, 2020). edmodo is a free web platform that educators can use to create and manage an effective way to do online learning (hakim & kodriyah, 2015). this platform is available at www.edmodo.com; it was created in 2008 by jeff o' hara and nick borg (kongchan, 2013). edmodo has privacy access between teacher and student. it can be accessed only for students who have received the teacher's group code to register in the online class. thus, students from another class cannot join the group. it is safe and more private without anyone else being able to spy and participate without permission from the group. edmodo is social networking that was adjusted towards the students' necessity (gushiken, 2013). it could significantly impact how students learn and collaborate in their world, rather than they grew up in the school setting. edmodo and other platforms' differences are for sharing knowledge and discussing with teachers, students, and parents. edmodo is an online learning platform established for communicative, collaborative, and interactive (ekici, 2017). the students can also share material, take quizzes, submit assignments and homework, receive feedback from teachers, and give voting (jarc, 2010). in using edmodo, the interaction between the teacher and students is more intensive. there are several ways to expand students' learning outcomes by implementing an online platform. using edmodo as an alternative for substitute face-toface interaction, the student can improve their english proficiency. since it will increase the interaction between the students and teachers and facilitate the students for peer feedback, they will create a productive learning environment (gay & sofyan, 2017a). numerous researchers have investigated the use of edmodo as the media for learning english for various teaching and learning objectives. fauzi (2017) asserted that the post-test score was better than the pre-test score, and there was a significant difference in the students' scores after being taught using edmodo. gay and sofyan (2017) investigated edmodo's effectiveness in the advanced writing course to increase the students' ability. this research investigated the effectiveness of using the computermediated communication (cmc) device to improve the students' writing skills, especially to explore the use of edmodo. the result revealed that the use of edmodo is useful in facilitating the students' interest and motivate them in improving their writing skills. furthermore, santoso (2014) claimed that edmodo posting for teaching reading could improve the students' reading competence in comprehending english text, especially with reading skill indicators. however, most of the aforementioned studies employed experimental designs that aim to examine the effect of edmodo as media in language teaching. regarding this, previous researchers stated that the frequency of edmodo posting could improve reading competence. the findings of the strength of edmodo could not be generalized for all courses and all types of students. rizka safriyani & siti uswatun khasanah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 109 3. method this survey research was conducted from july to august 2020. the research explored the strengths and the pitfalls of edmodo to indonesian efl learners by administering a questionnaire. data about the strengths and the pitfalls of edmodo to indonesian efl learners were collected by using a simple random sampling technique to get a smaller group as representative so that group generalization to a larger population is accurate (demarrais & lapan, 2004). fifteen english language education department students were chosen randomly from the sixth-semester students because they had more experience utilizing edmodo. moreover, these respondents represent a diverse region in indonesia. ten english language education department lecturers who have taught english utilizing edmodo for more than two semesters were involved. in order to determine validity and reliability, the questionnaire draft has been piloted in an online mode. the content validity was carried out by the one call senior lecturer of the department of english language education. the questionnaire was placed in a google form and circulated through the whatsapp community online. it contained eighteen questions considering indonesian efl learners' and teacher voices about the strengths and weaknesses of edmodo. the questionnaires were done anonymously to keep confidentiality. the questionnaires used a five-point likert scale with varying choices "strongly agree (sa)," "agree (a)," "disagree (d)," and "strongly disagree (ds)." moreover, there were four open-ended questions to provide students and teachers point of view on the strength and the weaknesses of edmodo. the questionnaire was developed by referring to the research of khoirunnisa, umamah and sumardi. (2018). there were eighteen items of questions in the questionnaire. the first part consists of ten questions collected information about a positive statement. the second part of the questionnaires consists of eight questions that collected the preliminary information about negative statements. the questions with the negative statement were used to keep the consistency of the answer about edmodo. the negative statement would be converted to support the last part of the questionnaires' findings. the data were analyzed qualitatively. according to mack, woodsong, macqueen, guest, and namey (2005), qualitative research is especially effective in obtaining culturally specific information about particular populations' values, behaviors, opinions, and social contexts. in this research, the incomplete answer to the questionnaires was eliminated. the researchers classified the answer based on the strength and the pitfalls of edmodo. the responses were coded deductively to determine thematic analysis. the process confirmed accuracy because of the information gathered from both student's and teachers' voices. finally, the data were presented in chart, and the conclusion was drawn. 4. findings and discussions edmodo is a learning management systems (lms) platform that can the strengths and pitfalls of edmodo to indonesian efl learners: student and teachers’ voices 110 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 accommodate an online teaching and learning process. both students and teachers may have different or similar voices about the strength and weaknesses of edmodo. the description of the students' voices about edmodo can be described below. 4.1. the strengths of edmodo to efl learners this section describes the result of the strengths of using edmodo based on the efl learners' voice. figure 1. the students voice about the practicality of edmodo. figure 1 shows that 73 % of the students state that they agree about the practicality of edmodo. moreover, 27% of the students state that they strongly agree about edmodo's practicality, and nobody states neutral, disagree, or strongly disagree. on the other hand, the teachers' voices about edmodo can be seen in the following figure: figure 2. the teacher voices about the practicality of edmodo. figure 2 shows that 40 % of the teacher states that they agree about the practicality of edmodo. moreover, 60% of the teacher states that they strongly agree about edmodo's practicality, and nobody states neutral, disagree, or strongly disagree. figure 1 and figure 2 indicate that edmodo is easy to use for both students and the teacher. it is an essential finding in the understanding of the practicality of edmodo. this is corroborated by the result of open-ended questionnaires shown in the following agree strongly agree rizka safriyani & siti uswatun khasanah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 111 excerpt with e referring to the excerpt and l to the lecturer. (e1) edmodo is an excellent tool for computer use and mobile learning. (l2) (e2) edmodo works with all browser types (l3) edmodo is also efficient in sharing information. the student's perspective about the efficiency of edmodo to share information is presented in the following figure. figure 3. the students voice about the efficiency of edmodo to share information. figure 3 shows that 73 % of the students state that they agree about the efficiency of edmodo to share information. moreover, 27% of the students state that they strongly agree about edmodo's efficiency and nobody states neutral, disagree, or strongly disagree. the following excerpt also supported these findings: (e5) we can upload homework activities, take quizzes, surveys, and collect teacher ratings and reviews, and recommendations with one app (s5). on the other hand, the teachers' voices about the efficiency of edmodo to share information can be seen in the following figure: figure 4. the students voice about the efficiency of edmodo to share information. figure 4 shows that 30 % of the teacher states that they strongly agree about the efficiency of edmodo to share information. moreover, 40% of the teacher states that they strongly agree about the efficiency of edmodo to share information, and 30 % of the teacher states neutral. however, nobody states disagree or strongly disagree. figure agree strongly agree the strengths and pitfalls of edmodo to indonesian efl learners: student and teachers’ voices 112 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 3 and figure 4 indicate that edmodo is efficient in sharing information for both students and the teacher even though some teachers choose neutral. the present study confirmed the findings of the efficiency of edmodo to share information because edmodo has many features, such as homework activities, take quizzes, surveys, and collect teacher ratings. furthermore, time management is critical in online learning. edmodo helps teachers and students to manage the time. the student's perspective about time management in edmodo is presented in the following figure. figure 5. the student's voices about how edmodo can save their time. figure 5 shows that 67 % of the students agree that edmodo can save their time. moreover, 33% of the students state that they strongly agree about how edmodo can save their time. on the other hand, the teachers' voices about the time management of edmodo can be seen in the following figure: figure 6. the teachers' voices about how edmodo can save their time. figure 6 shows that 30 % of the teacher agrees that edmodo can save their time. moreover, 40% of the teacher states that they strongly agree that edmodo can save their time, and 30 % of the teacher states neutral. however, nobody states disagree or strongly disagree. figure 5 and figure 6 confirm how edmodo can save time for both students and the teacher even though some teachers choose neutral. as online learning, edmodo can be used as a complement to face-to-face learning agree strongly agree rizka safriyani & siti uswatun khasanah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 113 activities. the students' opinion about how edmodo can complement face-to-face activity, the finding can be described in the following figures. figure 7. the student's voices about how edmodo can complement face-to-face activity. figure 7 shows that 30 % of the teacher strongly agree that edmodo can complement face-to-face activity. moreover, 40% of the teachers agree that edmodo can save their time, and 20 % of the teacher states are neutral. however, 10 % of teacher states disagree, but nobody states firmly disagree. the following excerpt also supported these findings: in teaching reading, i provided a reflective form and posted it on edmodo as a post-reading activity (e9). i could monitor the student's answer and grade it quickly (l5). figures 7 and 8 indicate that edmodo can complement face-to-face activity for both students and the teacher even though some teachers choose neutral and disagree. the following excerpt also supported these findings: (a12) some students got no notification from edmodo when we give the badge and quiz. therefore, we still need other media to inform the progress, such as a video conference (a12). the given feedback could not easily be understood. further explanation should be given in a virtual face to face session (l7). 4.2. the pitfall of edmodo to efl learners online learning needs a good internet connection. the student's voice about the internet connection shows one of the edmodo pitfalls. the description of the student's voices can be seen in the following figure: agree strongly agree the strengths and pitfalls of edmodo to indonesian efl learners: student and teachers’ voices 114 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 figure 8. the student's voices about how edmodo needs a good internet connection. figure 8 shows that 67% of the students agree that edmodo needs a good internet connection. moreover, 33% of the student state that they strongly agree when using edmodo need a good internet connection. the following excerpt supported these findings: i have to go to the internet café or coffee shop to get a good internet connection, especially when we have an online quiz with edmodo (a11). the internet connection is not good in my house (s11). on the other hand, the teachers' voices about how edmodo needs a good internet connection can be seen in the following figure: figure 9. the teacher voices about how edmodo needs a good internet connection figure 9 shows that 40 % of the teachers agree that edmodo needs a good internet connection. moreover, 50% of the teacher states are neutral, and only 10% strongly agree. figure 9 and figure 10 indicate that a good internet connection is the main issue for both students and the teacher, even though some teachers choose neutral. the other pitfalls come from the teachers' perspective, and it is described in the following figure. agree strongly agree rizka safriyani & siti uswatun khasanah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 115 figure 10. the teacher voices about how edmodo could not facilitate collaborative. figure 10 shows that 40 % of the teacher agree that edmodo could not facilitate collaborative learning. however, 40% of the teacher states disagree, and only 10% of the teachers' states strongly disagree and neutral. figure 10 indicates that one of the issues of online learning is collaborative learning. the following excerpt supported these findings: students can do collaborative learning by comments and discussion through group blogs and the edmodo community, but the collaboration was difficult to be done if they have limited internet access (a13). some students give a late response, so students become lazy to comment (l10). during the covid-19 outbreak, the students and the teachers have participated using edmodo in online learning activities. in the implementation of the online teaching and learning process, both students and teachers are actively engaged. many teachers use online learning as a way to complement face-to-face teaching activities. the development of technology has attracted some teachers and students to use a learning management system to explore and accommodate their teaching and learning process. the teacher could share assignments and grades, schedule appointments, conduct discussions, and post videos, creating and taking polls. edmodo is a learning management system operated by teachers or lecturers, students, and parents. the teacher might post various assignments, then students' learning performance could be graded quickly. moreover, actual discussion topics, videos, appointments, and students' polls can be utilized within the teaching-learning process. in exploring the teacher and students' voices about using edmodo for the online learning activity, edmodo has much strength because the percentage of responses is quite lively, with an average of 50%. the finding is in line with manowong's (2016) statement that edmodo can be an online learning tool that complemented face-to-face activity in the classroom provides several features assisting the students' learning process. however, this finding of current research is not in line with al-said's (2015) statement that the students have confused when using edmodo. besides, irawan (2020) stated that using edmodo is slow loading when it lacks an internet connection. the strengths and pitfalls of edmodo to indonesian efl learners: student and teachers’ voices 116 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 the strengths of edmodo are supported by the result of thongmak (2013) and majid (2011), who have found the usefulness of edmodo, creating these findings even more specific. nevertheless, it should be noted that the primary points behind this positive manner are instrumental in orientation (alfawzan, 2012; al-zubeiry, 2012). this point ensures that most efl students see english as a significant role in their academic life because their principal is the english education department. more interesting is the finding in terms of the efl learner towards the use of edmodo. the result of using edmodo in contexts of the efl learner is impressive. it shows the real suitability of the various advantages that edmodo can provide the teaching and learning process. these results support the appearing consensus that learners should develop their learning opportunities by taking advantage of new technologies (hanafiah, 2012). edmodo reveals a high acceptance sufficiently as social interaction tools (kongchan, 2013). edmodo's feature chat enables students to expand both the type and amount of their communication, on the other hand, extending them opportunities to increase their confidence and motivation (lukitasari et al., 2019). edmodo can also overcome students' shy problems by facilitating face-to-face meetings with other students or teachers. one of the exciting findings of this study is that even though edmodo has many features such as video, appointments, and student polls, both students and teachers agree that edmodo is easy to use. figure 1 and figure 2 indicate that all of the students and the teacher had no difficulties utilizing edmodo. some possible factors may contribute to this finding. the first factor is the students and the lecturers' digital literacy level. today, both teachers and students can easily be exposed to online tutorials. most people have owned their personal computers or cellular phone. they could get a video tutorial on youtube or other social media. therefore, an individual's ability to find, evaluate, and write on various digital platforms becomes critical. digital literacy can be evaluated by assessing students' and teachers' abilities in typing skills and producing text, images, audio, and designs using technology. chan et al. (2017) assign digital literacy competence to comprehend and use information in multiple formats, emphasizing critical thinking rather than information and communication technology skills. in line with this definition, the researcher believes that if students and teachers have an excellent digital literacy level, they would have no difficulty in utilizing and understanding the features of edmodo. this finding is in line with said's (2015) study, which found students' positive perspective towards edmodo at taibah university as a platform for the online learning environment. the second possible factor contributing to the first finding is the teachers' role in modelling the activity. a good teacher can usually perform all of the teachers' roles. makovec (2018) states that two factors influence the role of the teacher. internal factors cover the teacher's perspective of his or her role in teaching. on the other hand, external factors involve the teacher's expectations and sight, which appear within other stakeholders, such as students, colleagues, school leaders, parents, and the public. both rizka safriyani & siti uswatun khasanah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 117 factors are also an essential part of a teacher's professional identity. the teachers' internal factors that affect the teacher's role can be divided into two parts: the teacher's beliefs about which role is essential and the teacher's expectations for their role. using edmodo during the covid-19 pandemic can be a benchmark for educators preparing to continue learning technology development. developing collaborative learning could be one of the promising future of online learning in the indonesian efl context. edmodo's use will provide them with flexibility in learning and opportunities to explore their english skills. 5. conclusion the present study explored the strengths and weaknesses of edmodo in english language teaching in indonesia. this study found that students have a similar opinion with the teachers’ opinion about the strengths of edmodo. students and teachers in english language education department of uin sunan ampel surabaya claimed the strengths of edmodo in terms of the practicality and efficiency. however, a different opinion occurs on the use of edmodo to complement face to face activity. this study also indicates another different opinion about the weaknesses of edmodo. some lecturers agree that edmodo could not facilitate collaborative learning, but some lecturers said it was possible to do collaborative learning. furthermore, students and teachers believed that edmodo needs a good internet connection, especially for the quiz. how it looks similar to facebook makes it easier for learners to practice it. besides, using edmodo can involve parents in the learning process. the teachers can send out parent codes, and they can also join and keep an eye on their students’ progress because parental involvement is essential. however, the internet access is one of the major pitfalls when using edmodo as an online learning activity. the limitation observed in this study is related to the number of sample of the participants. therefore, possible areas for more research can address the impact of edmodo on the students' achievement, the readiness of students to utilize edmodo, and the possible methods to make it appropriate for the necessity of students from more areas in indonesia. references al-said, k. m. (2015). students’ perceptions of edmodo and mobile learning and their real barriers towards them. tojet: the turkish online journal of educational technology, 14(2), 167–180. carter, t. (2018). preparing generation z for the teaching profession. srate journal, 27(1), 1-8. chan, b. s., churchill, d., & chiu, t. k. (2017). digital literacy learning in higher education through digital storytelling approach. journal of international education research (jier), 13(1), 1–16. the strengths and pitfalls of edmodo to indonesian efl learners: student and teachers’ voices 118 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 demarrais, k. b., & lapan, s. d. (2004). foundations for research: methods of inquiry in education and the social sciences. mahwah, n.j: l. erlbaum associates. ekici, d. i. (2017). the use of edmodo in creating an online learning community of practice for learning to teach science. malaysian online journal of educational sciences, 5(2), 1–16. evenddy, s. s., & hamer, w. (2016). edmodo as a media to teach vocabulary. the journal of english language studies, 1(1), 26–34. gushiken, b. (2013). integrating edmodo into a high school service club: to promote interactive online communication. 18th annual tcc online conference, hawai, usa, 1-6 hanafiah. (2012). konsep strategi pembelajaran. bandung: refika aditama herliandry, l. d., nurhasanah, n., suban, m. e., & kuswanto, h. (2020). pembelajaran pada masa pandemi covid-19. jtp jurnal teknologi pendidikan, 22(1), 65–70. doi: 10.21009/jtp.v22i1.15286 khoirunnisa, h, umamah, n., & sumardi. (2018). edmodo as a media for history learning in the digital era. icege, 243. doi: 10.1088/1755-1315/243/1/012087 irawan, r. (2020). exploring the strengths and weaknesses of teaching speaking by using lms-edmodo. eltics: journal of english language teaching and english linguistics, 5(1), 1-14. jarc, j. (2010) edmodo – a free, web 2.0 classroom management tool. [on-line]. available: http://trendingeducation.com/?p=190 kongchan, c. (2013). how edmodo and google docs can change traditional classrooms. presented at the european conference on language learning, brighton, united kingdom. lukitasari, d. r., f, v. a., & gloria, e. (2019). the use of edmodo for teaching reading in a blended-learning classroom. indonesian journal of english language studies, 5(2), 69-77. mack, n., woodsong, c., macqueen, k., guest, g. and namey, e. (2005). qualitative research methods: a data collector’s field guide. family health international (fhi), usa. majid, n. (2011). the use of information technology in teaching english: an attempt to develop student-centered learning at telkom polytechnic. retrieved april 13, 2015, from http://openjurnal.politekniktelkom.ac.id makovec, d. (2018). the teacher's role and professional development. international journal of cognitive research in science, engineering and education, 6(2), 3345. manowong, s. (2016). undergraduate students' perceptions of edmodo as a supplementary learning tool in an efl classroom. humanities, arts and social sciences studies (former name silpakorn university journal of social sciences, humanities, and arts), 137–162. pardede, p. (2017). current studies on the use of edmodo in efl learning: a review. journal of english teaching, 3(3), 244-258. rizka safriyani & siti uswatun khasanah englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 119 santoso, s. i. (2014). improving students reading competence using edmodo posting (a classroom action research at grade ixd smp negeri 17 surakarta in 2012/2013 academic year) (phd thesis). uns (sebelas maret university). statcounter. (2016). mobile and tablet internet usage exceeds desktop for the first time worldwide.http://gs.statcounter.com/press/mobile-and-tabletinternet-usageexceedsdesktop-for-first-time-worldwide thongmak, m. (2013). social network system in classroom: antecedents of edmodo © adoption. journal of e-learning and higher education, 2013, 1-15, doi: 10.5171/2013.657749. warawudhi, r. (2017). the evaluation of edmodo in business reading class. international journal of information and education technology, 7. 153-158. doi:10.18178/ijiet.2017.7.2.858. englisia may 2016 vol. 3, no. 2, 65-82 english language teaching in islamic education in indonesia: challenges and opportunities tuti hidayati stain teungku dirundeng meulaboh tutihidayati07@gmail.com abstract the dominant use of english in every field covering politic, economic and sosial culture these days has manifested in its gaining a special position in many countries where it is not spoken. in indonesia, it is a foreign language officially constituted as part of national education curriculum and becomes a requirement in a number of higher education and workforce entry. yet, elt in indonesia faces various constraints including, but is not limited, the anxiousness to threat the purity of bahasa indonesia, the national language, and the worry about liberal western values embedded in english to corrupt the youngsters moral and attitudes. interestingly, islamic education that maintains a vital role among indonesians has included english alongside other secular sciences and technology as part of its curriculum in its current advancement. in this regard, the paper will show how critical islamic education role among indonesians is, how elt in indonesia has developed, what challenges it experiences, and what opportunities it posseses in the context of indonesian islamic education. the paper argues that islamic education remains the choice of the indonesian muslim communities as long as it is able to meet the demands of living in the globalization era while keeping the islamic values in all the learning process. it further suggests that elt in indonesia needs to incorporate islamic values and show that english learning put no threats and negative influences to indonesian culture in general and islamic religious values in particular. keywords: islamic education; elt; culture; islamic values introduction english language nowadays has been used in a way that no other language has ever experienced before. if viewed statistically, there are approximately 1.6 english language teaching in islamic education in indonesia: challenges and opportunities 66 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 billion people which is nearly one third of world population who are involved in different forms of using english. it is the dominant language in many of world institutions, financial agencies, and countless scientific publishing (graddol, 1997). it has served as a gate-keeping function determining access to different areas ranging from job qualification, educational admittance, to social improvement (pennycook, 2001) not necessarily at international level but also at national level. the dominance of english is also apparent in the field of popular culture and social media. it is obvious that hollywood, mtvs, microsoft and macintosh applications, and numerous other american products such as newspaper, advertisement and broadcasting utilizing english can easily be found in countries like indonesia, china, japan, or russia, the expanding circle countries which neither speak english as the first language nor constitute it as the official language of the countries. movies and english language songs outnumber other of their kinds ever being produced. it is also not excluding the language used in aviation, and information communication technology (ict). in other words, english has turned as the massive language as well as important alternative in the press publication, advertisement, broadcasting, movies, music, air transportation, and the net (crystal, 1997). the widespread of english has reached the macro acquisition where people learn english because they want to and they see the need to acquire it (mckay, 2002). the status of english that has become the global language or the world language does not only bring the benefit of providing a unified communication tool enabling interactions among people of different groups or origin. it is, indeed, also believed to present some possible risks. crystal (1998) listed at least three potentials threats of the global language: first, linguistic power and the emergence of linguistic elite group. those who have the ability of speaking the global language acquire more advantages in the expense of others who cannot have the access or opportunity for certain purposes due to the language barrier. hence, it creates the discrepancy between “the have” and “the don’t have”. second, linguistic complacency, the english language speakers, particularly, native english speaker have less intention to learn other languages assuming that english is present anywhere and it is other groups that have to learn english rather than they learn other languages in addition to english. third, linguistic death, general interest and generous incentive for acquirtuti hidayati englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 67 ing english lessen the motivation to speak in or learn minority languages that finally leads to language loss. for indonesia as the country with the biggest muslim population, another issue raises from learning english is the anxiety of losing muslim identity by the influence of western culture and life style brought by english language. there were some cases reported in the newspaper where the community forcedly closed down some english language courses and rejected ngo programs because they were considered to have a ‘hidden agenda’. this anxiousness is, in fact, considerably reasonable as to be able to speak fluently and accurately in the target language, language learners need to master linguistic competence as well as become culturally proficient in it. when learning another language, culture is also taught implicitly during the process (peterson & coltraine, 2003). the case is also not specific to indonesia. pennycook and makoni (2005) noted that the practice of elt in islamic context was often viewed as a massive weapon of the missionary agenda aiming to spread christian values and western practices opposing the islamic teachings. in this regard, the issue may be a serious concern for the communities trying to preserve its local and typical values and wisdoms. indonesia is unique in term of religious diversity and language richness. islam in indonesia has been acknowledged to be different from islam in the arabs and the middle east. it is considered to be more dynamic, more tolerance, and honors the multiculturalism and religious diversity of its community, on the contrary of arab and middle east islam that is considered more radical and fanatic by the western communities. meanwhile in term of the language, almost all indonesians are multilingual with at least one regional language in addition to bahasa indonesia, the national language. in terms of education, indonesia is known to have two separate governing systems with ministry of national education (mone) regulates general, not to call secular, education and ministry of religious affairs (mora) manages islamic education (madrasah, pesantren, and other islamic education institutions). although being regulated by two different ministries, both education institutions are part of indonesian national education system and have a lot in common. in fact, madrasah is equal to general school and is running the same curriculum, but it has additional contents of islamic subjects. in recent years, there has been a great development in english language teaching in islamic education in indonesia: challenges and opportunities 68 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 indonesian islamic education with the reconstruction of knowledge and integration of more sciences, technologies and foreign languages as its sell values. accordingly, the paper intends to review the current context of elt and islamic education in indonesia. it particularly focuses on addressing how critical islamic education position in indonesia is, how elt in indonesia has developed, what the challenges elt experiences are, and what opportunities it possesses in the context of indonesian islamic education are. islamic education in indonesia azyumardi azra, the former rector of islamic state university of syarif hidayatullah jakarta and an islamic education specialist, argued that islamic education in indonesia has a distinctive history compare to that of other muslim countries. its development can be dated back from the era before dutch colonialism to after indonesian independence. azra (2014) explained that the development of islamic education in indonesia progressed from traditional institutions consisting of a small group of people learning islamic specific matters utilizing musalla and langgar (small mosques) and local places (pondok, surau, dayah) led by an imam or kyai (islamic religious leader). later, during the 1860s, as the dutch were establishing schools for indonesian elites, new muslim scholars returning home after completing their study in makkah and medina felt the need to response to it. so, pesantren, a bigger islamic education institution was established and become an alternative for parents who did not like dutch schools. however, different from java where dutch schools were mostly rejected by muslim parents, in west sumatra the schools gained some respect from the people. consequently, in this region, the institutions produced new indonesian educated elites. the group eventually played critical role and maintained influential position in the community. at around this time, there were also increasing number of muslim students graduated from cairo and egypt where reformation and modernization in islamic context were growing. as these educated muslim groups came in contact among others, the network was established and the idea of having a reformed and modern islamic education was raised. as a result, madrasah emerged as the new form of islamic education institution that combined the modern system of dutch school with the islamic teaching contents of pesantren (azra, 1999, azra, 2008). tuti hidayati englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 69 the transformation in terms of the teaching system and the curriculum was the breakthrough in indonesian islamic education development. nevertheless, madrasah remained growing as the private institution separated from the government intervention. the support and the progress made were limited only from individual scholars and madrasah was mostly run in classical method (mochtar & kusmana, 2008). in the new regime as the government had a stronger stability, islamic education gradually gained more official recognition from the government. in this period, islamic education had been established from primary to tertiary level. one major reformation worth mentioning is the joint decree, surat kebutusan bersama (skb), of three ministers in 1975 regarding the integration of general education with religious education. the impact of this skb was the change in madrasah teaching content. the previous curriculum that was made of 100% islamic content was turned into 30% religious content and 70% non religious/general content. this policy had a positif impact since it allowed better acquisition of general sciences for madrasah students that enable them to have access to general public higher education institution while still having the islamic content (abdullah, 2008). furthermore, in 1989, with the enactment of law no 2 year 1989, madrasah was eventually constituted as part of the national education system. afterwards, madrasah ibtidaiyah was made equal to primary school, madrasah tsanawiyah to junior secondary school and madrasah aliyah to senior secondary school but they were characterized with islamic content. this official recognition became a stepping stone that brought madrasah to further development with the support from the government. in fact, some madrasah grew as excellence schools that were able to compete with public schools. in recent years, islamic education has gained a prestigious status with madrasah and more pesantren become modernized under the auspices of mora. being supported financially as well as regulated equally with the same system, madrasah and modern pesantren holding senior secondary high school also obtained recognition from mone allowing the graduate to have more opportunities and various options when continuing into higher education (azra, 2014). another important development concerning the islamic education in indonesia is the growth of integrated islamic schools (sekolah islam terpadu) under the english language teaching in islamic education in indonesia: challenges and opportunities 70 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 auspices of mone. these schools are different from pesantren and madrasah in that they do not run the system neither perform the curriculum of pesantren and madrasah from mora instead hold on the system and curriculum of mone general schools but stresses the practical implementation of religious values. at these schools, general subjects such as natural sciences, social sciences, and foreign languages are strongly emphasized meanwhile the islamic contents are practiced in daily interaction. the islamic contents are not simply taught as a subject-matter but are put into practice in daily life. “… religion is not considered only as part of cognitive knowledge as has been outlined in the curriculum, but rather manifested in the daily life of students” (azra, 2014, p. 19). the schools are also known to have great facilities comprising library, laboratory, computer room, internet access, and air conditioned classroom. this new trend of islamic education becomes an ideal model for muslim parents, particularly of the middle class living in urban area. according to azra (2014), these parents who obtained education from general public universities in indonesia or overseas were familiar with the advancement of technology and sciences but felt that they were not equipped with sufficient religious education. hence, they longed to provide the youngsters with better islamic education to be able to practice islamic teachings properly. this ghirah (sentiment) for islamic education, azra argued, make them insist for an education institution that is good with sciences and technology on the one hand and strong with religious traditions and practices on the other. as shown by the new trend of islamic education, indonesian muslim communities increasingly require a model of islamic education that is able to answer for the demands of living in the globalization era but also does not forget the islamic values as the guideline to be a good moral individual and to serve as an obedient self toward allah. these facts prove that islamic education remains the choice of muslim communities as long as it is administered professionally in term of the management, the teaching and learning process, and the curriculum design. elt development in indonesia english language has been taught as a foreign language in indonesian schools since the national education system was established. it was chosen for its tuti hidayati englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 71 international recognition and wide-world utilization replacing dutch, the language of the colonials which was lack of international use. although other foreign languages such as arabic, french, mandarin, spanish, and german are also taught at some schools these days, english remains as the only foreign language in the curriculum for general public schools and is examined in the national exam at the end of school year for junior and senior secondary schools. since it was included as part of the national education curriculum, elt in indonesia has undergone several adjustments along with the changes happened to the national education curriculum as well as the advancement of new theories of language learning. dardjowidjojo (2000) pointed that during its first years, having very limited resources, the prominent method used in elt was grammar translation method that had been used formerly by the dutch. it was in 1953 with the assistance from ford foundation, training for in-service english teacher was held and oral approach was introduced. the project was also funded to develop english language materials based on the oral approach. the targeted skills were focused in order of listening, speaking, reading and writing. table 1 national education curriculum changes and approaches in elt year curriculum’s name approaches in elt 1945 unknown grammar translation method 1968 oral approach audio lingual 1975 oral approach audio lingual 1984 communicative approach communicative 1994 meaning-based curriculum communicative 2004 competence-based curriculum communicative 2006 school-based curriculum communicative 2013 curriculum 2013 communicative as theories of language learning continued evolving, communicative approach (ca) came into indonesian elt. from 1984 onward it became the orientation for indonesian elt curriculum. however, its implementation experienced a number of issues. the first problem was the confusion in incorporating the pragmatic concepts of ca in the teaching process since the curriculum had no sufficient explaenglish language teaching in islamic education in indonesia: challenges and opportunities 72 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 nation for it. furthermore, the guideline and the material produced were still very structural. another issue was the misalliance between curriculum orientation and the order of skills focused. during this period, there was a consideration that for indonesian english is used more to access information or to read references. in other words, it is mostly used for non-oral needs, so the four skills focused was changed in the order of reading, listening, speaking and writing. hence, it contradicted the ca orientation of 1984 curriculum. later in 1994, the curriculum was replaced with the revised version officially named as the meaning-based curriculum. in this curriculum elt was oriented on ca, but it used the term kebermaknaan (meaningfulness) rather than komunikatif (communicative). one interesting note in the implementation of this curriculum is that it was not only national but also compulsory. the book writers and publishers needed to follow all the details regarding the materials (including the themes, the grammar, the functions and the vocabulary) stated in curriculum if they wanted the books to be used by the schools. however, this centralized curriculum also did not make a lot of improvement to quality teaching of english in particular and other subjects in general. a research by lie (2001) on senior high school textbooks based on the 1994 curriculum found the books were bias and lack of equal inclusion of gender representation, socioeconomic classes, ethnicity and geography. he argued that to expect students to find the learning process relevant and meaningful using this kind of textbooks is hardly possible. other revision was made and produced a competence-based curriculum (cbc). yet, for some reasons in a couple of years, it was changed into ktsp or school based curriculum but had no major revision. the main character of the curriculum is the competence standard and basic competence provided by the government to be adjusted into particular school contexts. here, english was viewed as a tool to communicate both orally or in written form (bnsp 2006). apparently, communicative functions of english were emphasized in this curriculum. communicative competence was defined as the ability to understand and/or produce oral or written texts realized in the four skills in the order of listening, speaking, reading and writing. there were three goals of elt across all level of schooling: (1) to develop communicative ability in the target language both in oral and written form, (2) to stimulate tuti hidayati englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 73 students’ awareness toward the importance role of english for the country to compete in the global community, (3) to develop students understanding toward the interconnectedness between language and culture. accordingly, the focus of elt has reflected the concept of communicative language teaching. however, despite the revision and the improvement made, there is a hard criticism concerning the evaluation system used to measure students’ progress and the teaching practice in the field (lie, 2007; putra, 2014). the national exam (un) for grade 9 and 12 for english language only tested listening and reading in multiple choice options. this form of evaluation did not take account on the intercultural communicative competence that was the objective of the curriculum. in other words there was a mismatch between the goal of the curriculum and the evaluation system. furthermore, because of this type of evaluation, during the teaching and learning process, instead of training students to master proficiency in communication, teachers were concerned on teaching students to face the national exam. the failure to design the appropriate evaluation system and to anticipate the diverse school condition, teacher readiness, access and resources of education across indonesia became the reason for another curriculum revision. curriculum 2013 was designed to be implemented gradually to avoid repeated mistakes of earlier curriculums where a lot of elements were considered not ready. in the first year it was planned to be applied in grade 1, 4, 7, and 10. in the second year, a higher grade was included (grade 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, and 11), and by 2015 it was to be implemented at all grades. the strategies of the implementation also comprised teacher and school administrator training, material development, management development, and assistance in term of monitoring and evaluation of the challenges experienced (kemendiknas, 2013). yet, the issue of concern in this curriculum regarding elt is the reduction of teaching hour. english is no longer part of the curriculum at elementary level. at junior high school, it is still taught for four hours a week, yet at senior high school it becomes two hours a week, except for the language major. those majoring in language will have 3 hours of english at grade 10 and 4 hours at grade 11 and 12 (kemendiknas, 2013). considering that english is a foreign language for indonesia, english language teaching in islamic education in indonesia: challenges and opportunities 74 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 this reduction will be a great challenge (putra, 2014). students will have less exposure to english as well as fewer opportunities to practice it. one interesting point worth mentioning from indonesian elt development and curriculum changes is that although it has major impact on schools and madrasah for their shared curriculum, it has different case on pesantren, particularly the modern pesantrens. as has been mentioned earlier, a number of pesantrens also run junior and senior secondary level education, but they have their own systems that adjust the national curriculum with their educational concept of boarding system. english language alongside arabic language is constituted as the compulsory language to be used alternately for daily interaction and communication among students, otherwise punishment is given. the implication of this regulation is that they are exposed to english more compared with regular school and madrasah students. the addition or reduction of hours or changes of approaches in the curriculum are rarely taken into account for english is already considered as the necessary means for communication. this language policy adopted by pesantren, however, has not also turned as an effective elt practice. students in pesantren were reported to acquire arabic better than english since more instructions are given in arabic than english. regulation to use english for daily interaction and communication only helps students with rich repertoire of vocabulary but does not significantly assist students with good english proficiency and academic purposes. english is merely used to avoid punishment and is often not uttered grammatically correctly. furthermore, english language teachers confessed to face dilemma in selecting teaching materials that has cultural western values not to contradict pesantren traditions that is typical with islamic values (fahrudin, 2012). indonesian elt challenges it is the fact that english has maintained a special position in most educational institutions in indonesia. however, according to lauder (2008), there is some ambivalence regarding this dominance of english. he contended that the policy makers showed a “love-hate” view toward it. on the one hand, it is needed for the incentives it offers to access information, to fulfill job requirement, to communituti hidayati englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 75 cate internationally, and to compete globally. on the other hand, it is feared for negative impacts it may cause. the fondness of using english terms is concerned to threaten the purity of bahasa indonesia, and being exposed to liberal western values in english is worried to corrupt the moral and attitude of the youngsters. he further pointed that the foreign language policy was purposefully set to encourage the use of english selectively in accessing information, knowledge, and technology to push economic growth, hence, achieves development for the country. the status of english as a foreign language has a direct implication in the rare opportunities for learners to become exposed to english and to have the opportunities to use it in daily interaction. although this constraint can be managed with the development of information and communication technologies, issues regarding access, resources, and facilities make the implementation is hardly possible. only few schools have sophisticated facilities of language laboratory, adequate library, and self-access learning center. most schools, particularly in municipalities, do not even provide tape recorder or other media for students to do listening activity (lie, 2007). the situation has a major impact toward the learning environment. with such limited choice of materials and lack of resources, even the motivated teachers hardly able to vary their teaching activities (yuwono, 2005). having no effective english instruction at school, only those students with an exceptionally high motivation to master english or the resourceful ones to afford for additional courses outside the schools will possibly be able to improve their english. as a result, there is a big gap between those with resources and ability to afford for private english courses outside the school and those without these privileges. the fortunate groups will benefit from the advantages of mastering english in the expense of other less fortunate groups. another serious concern is teacher qualification. english language teachers were found to hardly be able to perform good teaching due to their poor qualification in english. a number of studies from different years keep noting this weakness. dardjowidjojo, (2000) revealed that it is uncommon to find english language teachers in indonesia who have little proficiency in english, with some being very poor speakers. similarly, from his personal experienced, lie (2007) found that most english teachers were not active users of english and often felt unconfident with their english ability. when given choices to have discussion, do presentation, or write paenglish language teaching in islamic education in indonesia: challenges and opportunities 76 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 per either in english or bahasa indonesia, they preferred to do them in bahasa indonesia. with this low proficiency in english, expecting teachers to have interactive and communicative english class is obviously difficult. english language teaching and learning even become harder as the classes have 40 or 50 students. this large class size influences teacher-students contact resulting in teachers cannot manage to interact with everyone nor able to control them. consequently, students do not speak in english when asked to work in group or perform a particular task (nurkamto, 2003). interaction in the class, in fact, can serve as a very good opportunity for students to learn english. through the activities teacher can provide comprehensible input that is essential for acquiring the target language (harmer, 2007). interestingly, despite the anxiousness for the negative effects and all of the challenges, english language has not lost its important role in education and as workforce requirement application in numerous fields in indonesia. it is true that there is a strong hold to the cultural and religious values among indonesians, especially the muslim communities. however, apparently, the dominant use of english internationally makes people aware that rejecting english and all forms of secular sciences or the western liberal values will create a difficult condition to be able to take part and compete in global communities who are highly mobile and interconnected to one another. hence, within the existed limitations and the dilemma faced, each educational institution makes their own effort to perform elt as best as they can in an attempt to advance the quality of their graduates. elt opportunities in indonesia educating muslim generation with islamic values is the responsibility of every muslim community. all the learning process need to be able to instil islamic teachings to muslim students. in this regard, integrating islamic values in indonesian elt, especially that in islamic education is highly necessary. in recent years, the status of english which has manifested in a number of terms, english as international language, english as a global language, english as a lingua franca, and world englishes, has caused the shift in elt in some ways. the fact that the big number of english speaker is made by non-native speakers who use it to communicate not only tuti hidayati englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 77 with the native english but also to communicate among themselves raised the need for the reconceptualization of teaching and learning english (sowden, 2007; seidhofer, 2004). the issue of culture and nativity become highly sensitive. although different opinions are given regarding the issues, jenkins (2006) pointed that there is a growing consensus regarding the importance of language awareness for language teachers and learners. researchers and linguists are suggesting that english language teaching and learning process these days need to take account on the multifaceted nature of the use of english in multilingual communities, the varieties of english, issues of intelligibility, and the strong link between language and identity. in other words, there is a need for a pluricentric rather than monocentric approach to the teaching and use of english (seidhofer, 2004). mckay (2002) argued that when english is viewed as international language, the exclusive link to the native english-speaking cultures will no longer be rational. the content of teaching materials, methodology choice, and ideal teacher does not necessarily need to be based on the native-speaker model. selecting and adapting the content and the methodology is referred to the appropriateness of the local context and is the right of each country where it is taught. within this concept, learning english does not mean to practice the culture of english but the aim is to train the learners to understand pragmatic differences useful for international communication (kramsch, 1993). this current concept of elt is promising to establish english language instructions that suit the characteristics of the local context where it is learnt. as the goals and approaches of learning should be oriented to promoting cross cultural understanding, indorsing strategies for building friendly relation with other english speakers, and respecting the local culture during all the teaching and learning process (mckay, 2002), it is probably potential to ease the tension of linguistic imperialism brought by english dominance. in the case of indonesia, it might clear the anxiety of english usage toward the purity of bahasa indonesia, and perhaps calm muslim students concern of the negative liberal western values influences. rohmah (2012) pointed that integrating islamic messages in elt can lead students to have better english language teaching in islamic education in indonesia: challenges and opportunities 78 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 attitude toward english as they will be able to see that english is just a language that can be used for numerous purposes. there are a number of ways of how to incorporate islamic teaching while the main goals of training students the language skills are still achieved. textbook is obviously vital for classroom instruction. according to rohmah (2012) an effort to produce islamic english textbook has been initiated by iselp (islamic schools english language project). the draft called english in context (eic) designed for junior secondary school or madrasah tsanawiyah students has been completed. it depicted the lives of young muslim people with attractive pictures of learners in pesantren environment providing plenty opportunities for speaking and listening activities. the assessment by eltis (english language training for islamic schools) team gave eic the best scores among other most commonly used books in east java, west nusa tenggara, and south sulawesi. hopefully the book can be officially produced immediately as there is hardly any english textbook incorporating islamic values in indonesian market. another alternative to integrate islamic content in teaching english is by using eltis resource packs that can be accessed from www.lapis-eltis.org. these supplementary materials were also designed for junior secondary level students. the packs are provided in four categories, listening resource pack, game and picture resource pack, assessment pack, and islamic life resource pack. the website also comes with ready-to-use worksheets and teacher’s guide. accordingly, this will be useful for teachers willing to teach english while instilling islamic messages. although it was specifically oriented for teaching english at junior secondary level, the materials also applicable for teaching at higher level with some adjustment. as the english material with islamic content is still very limited, it is important for teachers to be creative. although materials for other levels of education have not been suggested here, teachers can improvise their instruction based on the available resources. in recent days, there have been numerous islamic english songs that can be accessed as a video or mp3 to be used as a teaching material. considering that the singers are talented young muslims (harris j., maher zein, raef, etc.) living in english speaking countries, their live stories can also be used to motivate students to http://www.lapis-eltis.org/ tuti hidayati englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 79 have positive attitude in learning english and not be afraid of losing their muslim identity. in addition, the usual themes and language expressions that have been used commonly can also be introduced in an alternate form of islamic way. one example given by md yusof, et, al., (2008) is that instead of saying the usual greeting of “good morning/afternoon/evening. how are you?”, alternatively, it can be accustomed to saying “assalamu’alaikum, good morning/afternoon/evening. how are you?” furthermore, the common phrases of asking direction can be adjusted as, “assalamu’alaikum. excuse me. is there a grocery store around here?”, “assalamu’alaikum. can you tell me how to get to mesjid agung?” beside teaching materials, the methodology in delivering the subject also matters. class instruction needed to be based on good teacher-student rapport and always emphasises the attribute of ethics and integrity in an islamic way. opening and closing the class can be performed by reciting du’a or simply saying basmallah and hamdallah. the students are also made accustomed to islamic traits by emphasizing honesty in doing tasks, and being helpful and considerate when working with group and sharing knowledge to others (md yusof, et, al., 2008). in this way, muslim students will understand that learning english is also part of seeking knowledge urged by islam and it does not hinder them from being a good muslim. conclusion apparently, indonesian elt is very complex and requires a lot of improvement. its complexity is reasonable since indonesia is a large country with huge geographical, cultural, economic, and resource differences from one region to another. lie (2007) contended that a one-size-fits-all model of curriculum is surely not the answer for indonesia. autonomy to develop elt that suits the context of their needs should be given to each region. nevertheless, assistance for schools with lack of resources and training for quality development need to be provided as well. the government as the policy maker and english academicians and professionals as the performers need to cooperate to come with solutions that take account of all typical educational characters in each region of indonesia. english language teaching in islamic education in indonesia: challenges and opportunities 80 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 in developing curriculum for indonesian elt, cultural and religious values need to be reflected in the material used for teaching. for islamic education in particular, elt needs to be integrated with islamic values that are the life guidance of muslim communities. in this case, negative issues related to elt such as “westernization” or “missionarism” can be avoided. as there have been limited materials characterized with islamic values, english language teachers need to be supported to creatively develop and improvise the available resources. english language is obviously necessary to take part in international involvements that potentially leads to more development in indonesia. if it is agreed to be a necessity, hence, as suggested by nunan (2003), steps should be taken to ensure that teachers have sufficient training in language teaching methodology for different range of learners, that they are prepared with advanced language skills, that classroom implementation meets with curriculum goals, and that students provided with enough exposure to english during the learning process. references abdullah, m.a. (2008). pendidikan dan upaya mencerdaskan bangsa: kebijakan pendidikan islam di indonesia dari dakwah ke akademik (eds.). in kusmana & jm.muslimin. paradigma baru pendidikan; retropeksi dan proyeksi modernisasi pendidikan islam di indonesia. jakarta. pic uin. azra, a. (1999) pendidikan islam; tradisi dan modernisasi menuju milenium baru. jakarta. logos wacana ilmu. azra, a. (2008). praktek pendidikan islam: akselerasi perkembangan dan tantangan perubahan (eds.). in kusmana & jm. muslimin. paradigma baru pendidikan; retropeksi dan proyeksi modernisasi pendidikan islam di indonesia. jakarta. pic uin. azra, a. (2014) geneology of indonesian islamic education: the roles in modernization of muslim society. paper presented at seminar on islamic teachings: dialogue, peace studies and conflict resolution. banda aceh, 16 – 19 october 2014. bnsp (2006). panduan penyusunan kurikulum tingkat satuan pendidikan jenjang dasar dan menengah. bnsp. jakarta. crystal, d. (1997). english as a global language. cambridge: cambridge university press. tuti hidayati englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 81 crystal, d. (1998). english as a global language (canto ed). cambridge: cambridge university press. dardjowidjojo, s. (2000). english teaching in indonesia. ea journal, 18(1), 22 – 30. fahrudin, d. (2012). english language teaching in pesantren institution in indonesia: from colonial to global perspectives. prosiding the 4th international conference on indonesian studies: “unity, diversity and future from https://icssis.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/09102012-22.pdf graddol, d. (1997). the future of english? (2nd ed.). london. the british council. harmer, j. (2007). the practice of english language teaching 4th ed. harlow essex. pearson education limited. jenkins, j. (2006). current perspectives on teaching world englishes and english as a lingua franca. tesol quarterly, 40(1), 157 – 181. kemendiknas. (2013). kompetensi dasar. jakarta. kementerian pendidikan nasional republik indonesia. kramsch, c. (1993). contex and culture in language teaching. oxford: oxford university press. lauder, a. (2008). the status and function of english in indonesia: a review of key factors. makara, social humaniora, 12(1),9-20. lie, a. (2001). multicultural issues in the 1994 english curriculum in indonesian senior high schools. in w. renandya & n. sunga (eds.), language curriculum and instruction in multicultural societies. singapore: seameo relc, anthology, 42. lie, a. (2007). education policy and efl curriculum in indonesia: between the commitment to competence and the quest for higher test scores. teflin journal, 18(1), 1 – 14. mckay, s. (2002). teaching english as international language: rethinking goals and approaches. oxford: oxford university press. md yusof et, al., 2008; integrating islamic themes and values in english classes (eds.). in english language teaching; a way forward. accessed from eprint,utm.my/22048/ mochtar, a. & kusmana. (2008). model baru pendidikan; melanjutkan modernisasi pendidikan islam di indonesia (eds.). in kusmana & jm. muslimin. paradigma baru pendidikan; retropeksi dan proyeksi modernisasi pendidikan islam di indonesia. jakarta. pic uin. nunan, d. (2003). the impact of english as a global language on educational policies and practices in the asia-pacific region. tesol quarterly, 37(4), 589 – 613. https://icssis.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/09102012-22.pdf english language teaching in islamic education in indonesia: challenges and opportunities 82 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 nurkamto, j. (2003). problema pengajaran bahasa inggris di indonesia. electronic journal of linguistik indonesia, 287-308. pennycook, a & makoni, s. (2005). the modern mission: the language effect of christianity. journal of language, identity, and education, 4(2), 137 – 155. pennycook, a. (2001). critical applied linguistics: a critical introduction. mahwah, nj: erlbaum. peterson, e & coltraine, b. (2003). culture in second language teaching. from https://eclass.upatras.gr/modules/document/file.php/pde1439/culture%20in %20second%20language%20teaching.pdf putra, k.a. (2014). the implication of curriculum renewal on elt in indonesia. parole, 4(1), 63 – 75. rohmah, z. (2012). incorporating islamic messages in the english teaching in indonesian context. international j. soc. sci & education, 2(2), 157 – 165. seidlhofer, b. (2004). research perspective on teaching english as a lingua franca. annual review of applied linguistics, 24, 209 – 239. sowden, c. (2007). culture and the ‘good teacher’ in the english language classroom. elt journal, 61(4), 304 – 310. yuwono, g. (2005). english language teaching in decentralized indonesia: voices from the less privileged schools. paper presented at aare 2005 international education research conference https://eclass.upatras.gr/modules/document/file.php/pde1439/culture%20in%20second%20language%20teaching.pdf https://eclass.upatras.gr/modules/document/file.php/pde1439/culture%20in%20second%20language%20teaching.pdf englisia november 2015 vol. 3, no. 1, 38-53 the application of fars in native  speaker of english and efl texts  imam munandar stain gajah putih takengon, indonesia imameducator@yahoo.com abstract the research shows that in term of frequency of segment relation, the ns’s text shows the dominant use elaborative relation. on the other hand, efl text predominantly employs list relation which is slightly higher from causal relation which comes in the second place. the ns text also reveals lower degree of explicitness which is indicated by low occurrence of conjunction realized in unmarked way. hypotaxis in the ns’s text is almost equal in number as parataxis, and by comparison it has higher number of hypotactic relation compared with the efl text. on the other hand, efl text shows higher degree of explicitness, which is identified by higher number of conjunctions employment which is mostly realized in unmarked way. all of these features of text can be linked to the types of texts and linguistic and cultural background of the writers. the ns’s text which predominantly uses elaborative relation can be linked to the writer-responsible theory. this is where the writers have responsibility to make their text become as comprehensible as possible. elaborative relation is purposed to advance the flow of understanding of the text by readers by providing clarification and other relevant information. higher number of hypotactic relations can be influenced by aristotelian argumentation which encourages writers to argue their point of view. low explicitness in ns’s text reflects the higher english proficiency of the writers in making the text become coherent without heavily relying on conjunction. on the other hand, efl text uses larger number of list and causal relations which is expectedly found in an argumentative text. its higher number of unmarked conjunction indicates the writer’s heavy reliance on conjunction in making the text coherent. the lower degree of hypotactic relation is linked to politeness strategy and keeping harmony following the confucianism tradition of writing. consequently, paratactic relation is tended to be used to avoid aggressiveness in presenting a point of view. keywords: fars rhetoric; anglo-non anglo; writing convention; teaching writing; efl imam munandar englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 39 introduction it is widely believed that a writer employs different text relations in achieving various communicative purposes. in attempting to identify these relations, there have been two models that have been purposed, which are known as framework for the analysis of the relational structure (fars) and rhetorical structure theory (rst). however, these models are not exclusively different. rst is the model on which fars is based. it tries to define all relations between parts of the text. it recognizes thirteen relations (mann et al., 1992). rst distinguishes two categories of relations: nucleussatellite and multinuclear. except for sequence, contrast and joint relations, rst maintains that there always exist nucleus and satellite between two propositions. this is the central characteristics of rst model. rst’s claim on nucleus and satellite is challenged by fars. although it does not completely reject the pervasiveness of nucleus and satellite in the text, fars suggests that nucleus and satellite cannot always present in the text. the model believes that there are 29 types of relation the writer use to make their text coherent and achieve the intended communicative goal. in text analysis, it considers taxis relation and the hierarchical structure of the text. furthermore, as the form of a text is shaped by writers’ communicative purpose, fars is proposed to analyze and figure out what relations are used to achieve those goals. these relations are found from the general to specific level of the text. moreover, since a text has one goal which is built smaller goals, fars also necessarily analyzes how a writer constructs simple communication purposes for an ultimate goal of building a mega complex communicative goal. these two models also have been applied to analyze cross-culturally produced writing, with an aim at identifying how the linguistic and cultural background of the writer influences a piece of writing he/she produces. in this paper, i attempt to analyze two different textsa text which is produced in anglo academic community which i label as native speaker (ns) text, and an english foreign language (efl) learner text on the basis of fars analysis. the analysis will involve (1) the frequency of relationto see what relation appear in different levels and what relation is dominant in each text, (2) the relational hierarchy, which is the identification of relations appearing at text levels, (3) the identification of the application of fars in native speaker of english and efl texts 40 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 paratactic and hypotactic relations and their occurrence in each text, and (4) the explicitness of each relation, which considers linguistics signals in joining two propositions. in the discussion, furthermore, i will demonstrate how might the features of two analyzed texts are different by considering the linguistic and cultural background of the authors. besides, a comparison between cars and fars analysis also will be presented, and finally in the conclusion i will draw the main point of the discussion and discuss the applicability of fars and cars models for pedagogical practices. methodology and analysis what follow are the ns’s and esl texts which are subjected to fars analysis in this journal. there are twelve units in the ns’s text and seventeen units in efl text. it is worth pointing out that each unit in these texts is segmented on the basis of a single independent clause which is joined by other clauses by a relational schema. the segmentation also considers the elliptical clause as a single independent unit and thus is eligible for the segmentation. moreover, the analysis treats the restrictive clause as a dependent unit which is not eligible for segmentation. conversely, nonrestrictive clause is segmented as an independent unit. a. native speaker text [1] all writers use the language of their discourse communities, [2] and communicate in ways deemed appropriate to and by their discourse communities. [3] the rhetorical choices made by writers are influenced by cultural norms, values and belief systems prevailing in discourse communities which constitute social contexts of texts. [4] studies in academic rhetoric (berkenkotter & huckin, 1995; berkenkotter, 1990) clearly show that epistemologies and ideological assumptions of academic cultures are firmly embedded in the conventions of academic genres, [5] which reveal and signal the academic discourse community’s norms, values and social ontology. [6] research into the development of rhetorical conventions of scientific writing reveals a close connection between the formation of a scientific discourse community and the development of discursive strategies for making scientific claims and the appearance of genre textual features (bazerman, 1988). [7] at the same time, the cross-cultural studies of academic text organization (e. g ahmad, 1997; clyne, 1981, 1991, 1994; čmejrkovà, 1994; duszak, 1994; golebiowski, 1998, 1999; gunnarsson, 1993; mauranen, 1992, 1997; markkanen & schröder, 1992; safnil, 2000) have shown that the rhetorical structure of reimam munandar englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 41 search prose produced by a non-native english writer, similarly to rhetorical styles of other discoursal domains, cannot escape being conditioned by cultural norms, traditions and conventions which underlie the discourse community into which the author has been socialised. [8] neither can it totally disentangle itself from rules and systemic limitations of the author’s mother tongue. [9] in this paper, we will therefore argue that the writers of specialist academic texts are not influenced entirely by their culture or by their speech community in their writing, [10] but rather that each writer is located at an intersection between culture and discourse community. [11] this particular intersection of culture and discourse community has the potential to be resolved differently in different cultures and in different disciplines. [12] this study will review research in contrastive rhetoric to investigate the impact of cultural and disciplinary factors on text construction at a range of levels in a range of disciplines and across a range of languages. 1-8 f 9-12 1-3 e 4-8 9 -11 ls 12 1-2 ee 3 4-6 an 7-8 9 -10 e 11 1 l 2 4-5 ed 6 7 e 8 9 ac 10 4 ed 5 fig. 1. segment relations of the ns’s text (the highlighted codes show prominent segments) b. english second language learner’s text [1] if a national id card were to be introduced in australia, [2] not only will it invade our privacy [3] and endanger our liberty [4] but it will also make australians more vulnerable to identity theft. [5] id cards can easily be lost [6] and be found by people who will abuse it and violate other people privacy. [7] up to five per cent of cards are lost, stolen or damaged each year, [8] and the result can be denial of service and benefits, and loss of identity. [9] the replacement of a high security, high integrity card involves significant administrative involvement. [10] documents must be presented in person to an official. [11] cards must be processed centrally. [12] this process can take some weeks. [13] the existence of a person’s life story in a hundred unrelated databases is one important condition that protects privacy. [14] the bringing together of these separate information centres creates a major privacy vulnerability. [15] any multi-purpose national id card has this effect. [16] the concentration of such data on all australian in a single location could prove disastrous [17] if it was attacked by hackers. the application of fars in native speaker of english and efl texts 42 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 1-4 ce 5-17 1 cd 2-4 5-12 l 13-17 2-3 l 4 5-8 ci 9-12 13 a 14-17 2 l 3 5-6 e 7-8 9 ei 10-12 14-15 e 16-17 5 ls 6 7 c 8 10-11 ls 12 14 e 15 16 cd 17 10 l 11 fig. 2. segment relations of the efl text (the highlighted code show prominent segments) frequency of the segment relations as can be seen, the ns’s text is marked with the significant number of elaborative relation, which is realized in sub-categories of addition, extension, and explanation. out of eleven occasions of different relations occurrence, five of them are realized in the elaborative relation. it means that there is 54 % of total elaborative relation occurrence. more specifically within elaboration relation, relations of extension and addition are dominantly employed, each of which are realized in two times. in comparison, efl text predominantly utilizes list relation which is realized in six occasions within sixteen times of various relations in the text. it constitutes 37 % of the total relation occurrence. the list relation is realized in sub-types relations of collection and sequence. of these relations, the former is the most dominant which occurs in four times in the text. types of relation ns text efl text facilitationframing 1 0 list collection 1 4 sequence 1 2 causal cause 0 1 evidence 0 1 condition 0 2 circumstance 0 1 elaboration addition 2 0 extension 3 3 explanation 1 0 instantiation 0 1 adversative collateral 1 0 concession 1 0 contrast 0 1 total relations 11 16 imam munandar englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 43 fig. 3. the distribution of schematic relations (the bolds show the most dominant relations) taxis relation in taxis relation, both texts are found to have employed larger number of paratactic relation. there are seven paratactic relations in the ns’s text which constitutes 54 % of the total taxis employed. meanwhile, efl text has a considerably higher number of paratactic relations than the ns’s text. it employs thirteen paratactic relations, which makes up 88 % of the total taxis relations. however, in terms of hypotactic relation realization, the two texts have a significant gap. the hypotaxis and parataxis in the ns’s text are almost equal in number. within eleven segment relations, the ns’s text uses five hypotactic relations, which means that it has 45 % from the total taxis relation employment. on the other hand, efl text only uses two hypotactic relations which constitute 12 % of total use of the taxis relation. besides, in terms of hierarchical structure, the realization of hypotactic relation in the ns’s text occurs in the highest hierarchical level of the text and in three occasions in the micro level. meanwhile, the only hypotactic relation is realized in the micro level of the efl’s text. taxis relations ns text efl text paratactic 6 14 hypotactic 5 2 total 11 16 fig. 4. the distribution of paratactic and hypotactic relation hierarchical level ns’s text efl text macro-level 1 1h 1p meso-level 2 3 2p 1h 1p 1h 2p 3p 4 micro-level 5 6 2h 2p 4p 1h 1h 4p 1p total 5h 6p 2h 14p fig. 5. the distribution of taxis across all levels (h: hypotactic, p: paratactic) the application of fars in native speaker of english and efl texts 44 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 hierarchical structure in macro level, the ns’s text employs hypotactic facilitation-framing relation. this relation is considered the main communicative goal of the writer in writing the text. this is based on the assumption that while the lower level of relational structure indicates more specific purpose, the highest level of texts reflects the main purposes of the writer (golebiowski, 2006). conversely, efl text indicates paratactic causalevidence relation as the main relation. this shows that the main purpose of the writer in writing the text is to provide some evidence to support his argumentation. in meso level, ns’s text is noted by higher concentration of elaboration relation, with one adversative and list relations, while in efl text, causal and list are more concentrated with one adversative relation. furthermore, in micro level, the ns’s text is marked by higher employment of elaboration relation, with only one list and one collateral relation. meanwhile, efl text shows the dominant use of elaboration and list relations in micro level of the text, which is accompanied by two causal relations. level ns text efl text macro-level 1 1f 1ce meso-level 2 3 1e 1ls 1cd 1l 1ee 1an 1e 1l 1ci 1a 4 micro-level 5 6 1l 1ed 1e 1ac 1l 1ei 2e 1ed 1c 1e 1cd 2ls 1l total 1f 1ac 1ls 1ee 1an 3e 1l 2ed 1c 1ce 1ci 1a 4l 1ei 2cd 2ls 3e fig. 5. hierarchical distribution of relations across macro, meso and micro-levels. explicitness (recursiveness and signaling) one way of identifying the degree of explicitness in the texts relations is through the identification of conjunctions used to depict the relation between two propositions. it is believed that a relation has a higher degree of explicitness when there are higher number of conjunctions employed and when a proposition is joined by a conjunction in an unmarked way. conversely, the relation is considered to be less-explicit when there are fewer conjunctions employed and when the two propositions are markedly joined by a conjunction. it is observed that the efl text uses highimam munandar englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 45 er frequency of conjunction in joining two segments. of seventeen segmented units, five of them are joined by conjunctions. those conjunctions involve if, and, but. within these conjunctions, there are two marked relations and three unmarked relation. meanwhile the ns’s text shows only two relations which are joined by conjunctions of but, and. both of them have unmarked relations. the following are examples of marked and unmarked relation taken from the texts. in esl text, these units are related in an unmarked way: [1] if a national id card were to be introduced in australia, [2] not only will it invade our privacy… [16] the concentration of such data on all australian in a single location could prove disastrous [17] if it was attacked by hackers. in the text, these two conjunctions of “if” are found to have causal-condition relation. the following units also are unmarkedly linked: [2] not only will it invade our privacy [3] and endanger our liberty [5] id cards can easily be lost [6] and be found by people who will abuse it and violate other people privacy in the text, these two conjunctions of “and” realize list-collection/sequence relations. meanwhile, these units are related in a marked way: [7] up to five per cent of cards are lost, stolen or damaged each year, [8] and the result can be denial of service and benefits, and loss of identity. while “and” normally creates list relation, in the text, the conjunction of “and” is found to have causal-cause relation. also, these units are markedly linked: [3] endanger our liberty [4] but it will also make australians more vulnerable to identity theft while “but” normally creates adversative relation, in the text the conjunction realizes list relation. furthermore, in the ns’s text, these units are related in unmarked way: the application of fars in native speaker of english and efl texts 46 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 [9] in this paper, we will therefore argue that the writers of specialist academic texts are not influenced entirely by their culture or by their speech community in their writing, [10] but rather that each writer is located at an intersection between culture and discourse community. in the text, the conjunction “but” is found to have adversative-collateral relation. also, these units are unmarkedly related: [1] all writers use the language of their discourse communities, [2] and communicate in ways deemed appropriate to and by their discourse communities the conjunction of “and” is found in the text to serve list-collection relation. discussion the first discussion will be concerned with the frequency of relation found in the ns and efl texts. since elaboration and list relations are consecutively the most dominant relation in both texts, it is useful to look at their definitions and use. elaborative relation is purposed to advance the flow of understanding of the text by readers by providing clarification and other relevant information (golebiowski (2004). furthermore, list relation occurs when two or more parts of a text that convey proposition which the same topic or aspects of the same topic. it is aimed at providing readers with important points in the text. as the efl text is an argumentative essay, list is purposed to give readers proponents that support the argumentation of the writer so that the persuasive purpose can be achieved. the fact that ns’s text employs a larger number of elaborative relations can be linked to two situations. first, in the introductory session of an academic text, writers are normally required to provide readers with extra information before processing to the main discussion. this extra information can be the background of the research, aims and the structure of the academic text in presenting findings of the research. this kind of information is realized in additive and extensive as well as explanatory propositions employed in the text. by providing elaborative information, a writer is presenting a more comprehensible text that brings about the audience’s understanding of the information in the text. imam munandar englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 47 the second situation can be related to the linguistics and academic communities of the writer. as known, the authors of the text come from the english language academic community. i will argue that the theory of writer-responsible of english academic culture may explain this situation. writer-responsible is introduced by hind (1987, as cited in kaplan, 1988, p. 291) in distinguishing text produced in anglo from non-anglo academic communities. he defines the term as a text in which its writer is responsible to make their texts to be clear to the readers. in his study, he points out that anglo academic text is writer responsible where writers are found to be involved in making their texts as comprehensible as possible for their audiences. relating to the ns text analyzed here, it can be assumed that the dominant use of elaborative relations reflects the writers’ attempt to make the text become clear for readers so that the purpose of communication can be achieved. for the efl text, besides being noted with high occurrence of list relation, efl text has considerable number of clausal relations. it is employed in five times and thus comes to second place below list relation which is used in six times. the causal relation is illustrated as the relation that conveys the main argumentation in a text (kamyab, 1997, as cited in golebiowski, 2004). high occurrence of causal relation can be linked to the nature of an argumentative essay. this type of essays demands a larger persuasive ability of the writer and thus causal relation here help the writer achieve this persuasive goal. the writer may use the evidence, causeeffect, condition and circumstance relations in achieving this purpose. the causalevidence relation realized in the highest level of the text tells us that the text attributes its general purpose as providing the evidence of negative impact if the new id card is introduced. within lower level of the text, it uses sub-categories of causal relation along with other relations (see fig 5). furthermore, the discussion about taxis will be specified in hypotactic relation in the texts since this relation is what makes the two texts are contrast. by definition, hypotactic relation is described as the relation that links a more prominent proposition with a peripheral proposition in a text. it implies that within two segments, one of them contains key information that a writer wants to convey to audience. unlike paratactic relation that brings subject-matter relation, hypotactic relation is seen as a rhetorical relation that indicates that writers stand at a certain point in the text. they the application of fars in native speaker of english and efl texts 48 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 are not neutral. by employing hypotactic relation, the writer attempt to make a particular proposition become salient. additionally, the writer makes one proposition more prominent and suppresses another to be less prominent. this is especially found in concession and collateral relations employed in the ns’s text. the information in the salient segment is the information that the writer emphasizes to the readers. by contrast, paratactic relation is viewed as “where all part of textual schema are equally prominent in terms of their discoursal functions” (golebiowski, 2006, p.260). in this relation, a writer assumes that information in both segments is at the same importance, which indicates his neutrality for each proposition. in relating to higher occurrence of hypotaxis in ns’s text, and to find out what make it so, it is helpful to consider hinkel’s (2007) argument. he points out that anglo discourse convention require rational aristotelian argumentation, objectivity in the writer’s position and views, and factuality in justification and proof (p. 107). this reveals that the linguistics and academic culture of english community encourage writers to argue certain points in their texts. it is true that in an academic text which is a formal form of writing that reports research findings, the writer is required to have a strong argumentative ability in order for their findings to be accepted by readers. in doing this, the writer can make certain information become salient, and in making this information stand out, the less prominent information is needed to function, for example as additional information, organizer and introduction. the ns’s text under analysis shows that its main goal is to facilitate (framing) understanding as this relation is found in the highest hierarchical level of the text. it is expected that before arriving at the prominent information, the authors provide peripheral background information which aims at making the text more comprehensible for audiences so that the communicative purpose is attained. an argumentative essay is supposed to employ significant amount of hypotactic relation. one of hypotactic relation functions in a persuasive text is to emphasize one proposition over another. nevertheless, the lower number of hypotactic relation in the efl suggests that even though writing a persuasive text requires rhetorical relation to convey an argument , the writer tends to put himself in a neutral position by using more parataxis that shows subject-matter relation. in this relation, the writer is seen to be neutral between two propositions and seem to be unwilling to imam munandar englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 49 impose readers to believe in one certain proposition of what he conveys. it is up to the audience to capture what is stand out in the text and let whatever they believe. therefore, it can be expected that this text shows that native linguistics culture of the efl learner overrides the academic requirement of argumentative essays. socioculturally, this also can be related to reader-responsible theory and politeness strategy. as golebiowski (2006) points out, non-anglo writers tend to assume that readers themselves will be able to identify what is perceived as important information and what is not. they leave audience to select the information based on their resources. historically, this indirectness in writing tradition can be traced to confucian tradition. this tradition has huge influence in non-anglo communities. malcom and pan (1989, as cited in liao & chen, 2009) point out that in order to avoid aggressiveness, chinese writing convention requires writers not to give their view straightforwardly. it adopts social harmony in communication strategies (decapua & wintergerst, 2004). similarly, shokouhi and baghsiahi (2009) and clyne (1987, as cited in golebiowski, 1998) report that politeness is the reason why indirectness is encouraged in persian and german writing conventions. for these traditions, it is not polite to treat readers as those who need to be deliberately guided in following the text as they are assumed as intelligent beings. furthermore, in terms of the explicitness of the texts, the higher degree of unmarked relation employed in the efl text implies that the writer tends to heavily relies on cohesive devices (conjunctions) in making his text to be coherent. also, in using these conjunctions, the writer relies on unmarkedness of its employment. on the other hand, the ns’s text is able to make the text to be coherent without necessarily rely on cohesive devices. this can be related to the language competencies of the two different texts’ authors. the efl text, which is written by a language learner, is expectedly to have less knowledge on writing coherent text. he has no many options to make the text becomes coherent other than using linguistics cohesive devices. it is assumed that without using cohesive devices, the writer will have difficulty in making his text coherent. meanwhile, the ns’s, which is authored by experts in academic studies, shows strong rhetorical knowledge in composing the text. they are able to produce a coherent text without being solely attached to the employment of cohesive devices. the application of fars in native speaker of english and efl texts 50 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 lastly, by looking at hierarchical structure, the ns’s and efl text are found to have different communicative purposes. as has been indicated, the ns’s text is formed by hypotactic-framing relation that reflects its general communicative purpose. this text is built by facilitating readers to whom background information is provided before going into the main part of the text. this pattern is frequently found in an introduction of research article produced in anglo discourse community. meanwhile, the esl text is organized around paratactic causal-evidence communicative goal. this organization is usually found in persuasive text. evidence which is presented by the writer is a decisive factor for his text to have a strong influence. on fars and cars analysis procedures fars and cars are two models in discourse analysis which deal with the analysis of structure of the academic texts. they have a similar purpose, which is to capture defining characteristics of various genres of texts, and identify the communicative purpose of writers. cars is intended to identify the regularities of moves in the introduction of research articles. it looks closely at how a realization of a particular move is found in a chunk of sentences. furthermore, the analysis is carried to identify if those moves are explicitly or implicitly indicated by writers. fars, in one hand also deals with the identification of the explicitness and implicitness of writers in presenting the rhetorical relations in their text. additionally, it deals with hierarchical structure and taxis. unlike cars which analyzes introductory section, fars is applicable for all part of the sections in text. the two models are also purposed to analyze text produced in non-anglo communities to see if those texts follow the moves outlined in cars schema and functional relations in fars. the ultimate goal of analysis in these models is to find out how cultural values are embedded in the convention of writing. conclusion the analysis has shown that in term of frequency of segment relation, the ns’s text shows the dominant use elaborative relation. on the other hand, efl text predominantly employs list relation which is slightly higher from causal relation which comes in the second place. the ns text also reveals lower degree of explicitness which is indicated by low occurrence of conjunction realized in unmarked way. imam munandar englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 51 hypotaxis in the ns’s text is almost equal in number as parataxis, and by comparison it has higher number of hypotactic relation compared with the efl text. on the other hand, efl text shows higher degree of explicitness, which is identified by higher number of conjunctions employment which is mostly realized in unmarked way. all of these features of text can be linked to the types of texts and linguistic and cultural background of the writers. the ns’s text which predominantly uses elaborative relation can be linked to the writer-responsible theory. this is where the writers have responsibility to make their text become as comprehensible as possible. elaborative relation is purposed to advance the flow of understanding of the text by readers by providing clarification and other relevant information. higher number of hypotactic relations can be influenced by aristotelian argumentation which encourages writers to argue their point of view. low explicitness in ns’s text reflects the higher english proficiency of the writers in making the text become coherent without heavily relying on conjunction. on the other hand, efl text uses larger number of list and causal relations which is expectedly found in an argumentative text. its higher number of unmarked conjunction indicates the writer’s heavy reliance on conjunction in making the text coherent. the lower degree of hypotactic relation is linked to politeness strategy and keeping harmony following the confucianism tradition of writing. consequently, paratactic relation is tended to be used to avoid aggressiveness in presenting a point of view. fars and cars are believed to have pedagogical applicability. the models have captured the different characteristic in different types of texts in terms of moves and rhetorical structure. cars has provided a basis to the establishment of genrebased approach in schools, and fars can be part of it. genre-based approach enables learners to learn various types of texts in english which are characterized by different features. it introduces the central features of different texts and how they can use that features to achieve different communicative purposes. as parts of text analysis, the two models will develop students’ awareness in terms of types of genres and their characteristic features so that they are aware of purpose that different genres serve in society and culture, and can learn to gain control of these genres (gee, 1997, as cited in paltridge, 2006). fars allows esl students to understand that a the application of fars in native speaker of english and efl texts 52 | englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 text can be coherent without necessarily being cohesive. they will recognize the different coherent relations which can be used for different communicative purposes. additionally, cars enables learners to recognize various academic genres especially in teaching english for academic purpose (eap). students will be informed how texts from different discipline in english employ different moves. also, two models allow language teachers to understand that esl students can be influenced by writing tradition of their native culture and thus they can develop their awareness in crossculturally different convention of writing. references adams, t. (2003). becoming cultured: your exploration of intercultural communication can help you realize dramatic influence of culture on patient communication, rdh, 23(8), august, 40-48. retrieved from http://www.rdhmag.com/ display_article/184780/56/none/none/feat/becoming-cultured. dahl, t. (2004). textual metadiscourse in research article: a marker of national culture or of academic discipline? journal of pragmatics, 36(10), 1807-1825. decapua, a., & wintergerst, a. c. (2004), crossing cultures in the language classroom. ann arbor: the university of michigan press. golebiowsky, z. (1998). rhetorical approaches to scientific writing: an englishpolish contrastive study. text, 18(1), 67-102. golebiowski, z. (2004). description of fars relational clusters and definitions of relations. deakin university. golebiowski, z. (2006). the distribution of discoursal salience in research papers: relational hypotaxis and parataxis. discourse studies, 8(2), 259-78, retrieved 12 june 2016, sage premiere database. golebiowski, z., & liddicoat, a. j. (2002). the interaction of discipline and culture in academic writing. australian review of applied linguistic, 25(2), 59-71. hinkel, e. (ed.) (2009). culture in second language teaching and learning. new york: cambridge university press. kaplan, r. b. (1988). contrastive rhetoric and second language learning: notes towards theory of contrastive rhetoric. in a. c. purves (ed.), writing across language and cultures: issue in contrastive rhetoric, (pp. 275-304). newbury park, ca: sage publications. liao, m. t. & chen, c. h. (2009). rhetorical strategies in chinese and english: a comparison of l1 composition textbooks. foreign language annals, 42(4), 695-720. imam munandar englisia vol. 3 no. 1, november 2015 | 53 mann, w. c., matthiessen, c. m. i. m., & thompson, s. a. (1992). rethorical structure theory and text analysis. in w. c. mann & s. a. thompson (eds.), discourse description: diverse linguistic analyses of a fund-raising text (pp. ixixx, 39-78). amsterdam: john benjamins. paltridge, b. (2006). discourse analysis. london: continuum shokouhi, h. & baghsiahi, a. t. (2009). metadiscourse function in english and persian sociology article: a study in contrastive rhetoric. poznań studies in contemporary linguistics, 45(4), 549-568. swales, j. (1990). genre analysis: english in academic and research settings. cambridge: cambridge university press. englisia may 2016 vol. 3, no. 2, 105-118 using prezi presentation as instructional material in english grammar classroom rahmat yusny & desi nanda kumita universitas islam negeri ar-raniry banda aceh, indonesia ryusny@gmail.com desidesember12.dnk@gmail.com abstract utilizing digital technology as a medium for educational instruction has now become one of the 21 century pedagogy trends. numerous studies suggested that using digital technology provides positive impacts as it gives more access to resources for the learning. in foreign language pedagogy, using digital technology fosters learners’ autonomy by self-managing the amount of learning inputs outside the classroom. however, many studies emphasize more on the communicative and the vast resources accessible for the learners. very limited attention is given to the impact of the visual aid that focuses on aesthetic values of instructional design. english grammar is one of many subjects that often receive complaints by learners and is claimed as a “boring” subject. many english teachers especially in developing countries still utilize traditional method in teaching grammar. they introduce sentence structure using grammar formulas. although this method is still very popular, it is often considered monotonous by many learners. this paper discusses about the study of using prezi.com presentation to deliver grammar instruction materials in an english language classroom. from the study, it was found that the majority of the students involved in the study are fond of the materials and the post-test results showed grammar mastery improvement after receiving a grammar lesson that shows instructional materials using prezi. on the other hand, the control class that uses only writing boards and worksheets showed less improvement. the pitfall is that students often felt this method very monotonous. this research provides a new technique in developing grammar instruction design using a web tool called prezi in enhancing the display of the instruction material. the result of the study shows students’ positive perception toward the use of prezi in english grammar instructional material. keywords: multimedia technology; web 2.0 tools; prezi presentation; teaching grammar; aesthetic; instructional design using prezi presentation as instructional material in english grammar classroom 106 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 introduction the use of technology in our daily life has significantly increased today. it can be seen from the rocketing number of the users and the rapid development of electronic devices. yet unfortunately the presence of technology has not been fully utilized by most educators due to their negative attitude on the impact of technology as well as lack of confidence in integrating technology into the classroom. some teachers have little interest in using instructional technology, while others resist integrating it in their teaching and learning (gilakjani & leong, 2012, p. 633). in particular, this issue also happens in some language subjects, especially in grammar course in department of english language education. based on the researcher’s observation, it seems that the use of technology as instructional media in grammar course still lacks of teachers’ attention. it cannot be disowned that the use of technological instruction in teaching and learning seems hard for some teachers to implement. this phenomenon is caused by some factors; “teachers lack of time, access to hardware and software, and support necessary to do so” (guhlin, 1996, p. 213, as cited in shamoail, 2005, p. 4). in addition, the lack of confidence toward their computer competency also can be one of the causes of teacher’s unwillingness to use technology in the classroom (ota, 1995; willis, thompson, & sadera, 1999 as cited in chang, k.-e., sung, y.-t., & hou, h.-t., 2006, p.139). even though the use of technology is hindered by those aforementioned reasons, however, the teachers or lecturers are required to consider the effectiveness of technology in instructional activities. especially for efl (english foreign language) learners, technology is considered as a media to improve their target language ability. according to altun (2015, p. 23), language proficiency of students can be improved through watching the target language elements on technological tools. shyamlee & phil (2012, p. 150) add that one of method of teaching english language involves multimedia in elt in order to create english contexts that helps students become engaged and learn the language according to their interests. in addition to that, internet technology today has become very user friendly. developing instructional materials can be done instantly. all the teachers need to rahmat yusny & desi nanda kumita englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 107 prepare is the idea and the content. many web applications provide easy and quick tools to create learning materials. one of the web tools is prezi presentation. prezi presentation allows user to create an interactive presentation that can be accessible both online and offline. often many people regard prezi presentation as a new way to create presentation materials. unlike the popular slideshow, prezi uses zooming in and zooming out effect of the object in the presentation, which will only display the focused objects on the screen one by one. the objects in the presentation also can be displayed in an animation effect. although the objects are many, viewers can only see the zoomed objects and reduce the amount of distractors of other objects. aesthetic in instructional design is also considered important as it could offer a potent dimension through which to expand learning impacts (parrish, 2007). it will enhance the learning experience as well as foster deep and lasting impacts for the learners. one of many advantages of using prezi in developing instructional materials is that the interface of this application allows unlimited creativity of the designer and also reduces time in crafting them. thus, this paper will render discussions based on the experiment in developing and using prezi instructional material for grammar lesson for students in department of english language education uin arraniry. the major highlights of the study were to see whether the use of prezi increase the students’ attention to comprehend the grammar lesson and the perception of the students after the lesson being carried out. the teaching experiment the study is aimed to investigate the use of prezi presentation in helping students in improving their grammar mastery and to find out the students’ responses on the use of prezi presentation in teaching grammar. to address this purpose, the researcher examined the benefit of prezi as instructional media in teaching grammar by giving a treatment to experimental group and having a control group as a comparison when the results are evaluated and analyzed. after analyzing the result, the researcher provided insightful findings for the next researchers or english language teachers about using prezi presentation as one of the web. 2.0 digital tools that using prezi presentation as instructional material in english grammar classroom 108 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 could help students to understand grammar better due to its features that provide interactive and aesthetical effect. the study was an experimental research with quantitative approach. in conducting the true experimental research, researcher used pre-test-post-test control group design. using true experimental design is regarded to the most accurate form of experimental research due to its ability in proving or disproving the hypotheses with statistical analysis (shuttleworth, 2008). the objective was to obtain the statistical difference between two groups: control and experimental group. in the control group, grammar materials was given with the help of conventional media of teaching, and in the experimental group, the grammar materials were taught by using prezi presentation. both of groups were given the similar items of pre-test and post-test in the hope that the improvement and the difference within two groups can be analyzed objectively. the population of this study is the students in second semester of department of english education batch 2014. the second semester students, with a total of 298 members, were chosen as a population due to the need of research investigation on grammar subject level ii. this subject contains one of considered advanced grammar materials; conditional sentences, which is only available on credit in semester two in departement of english language education. the sample of this research was chosen by using random sampling technique which the decision to select the samples are based on the grouping of the class or unit. second year students from batch 2014 are divided into 10 units. the researcher randomly selected unit 10 and unit 2 as research samples. both respectively were assigned as a control group and an experimental group. there were two instruments used in this study; test and questionnaire. to obtain the statistical data, the test which came into two sessions, pre-test and posttest, were conducted. meanwhile the questionnaire was used to find out about the students’ responses toward the given treatment. the procedures of data collection of this research come into three sections. the first section is conducting true-experimental teaching. this activity involved two rahmat yusny & desi nanda kumita englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 109 groups; experimental group and control group. in experimental group the researcher taught grammar by using prezi presentation as a treatment, while in control group, there was no treatment that used in teaching grammar. it means that this group received lesson simply through teacher’s hand writing on the board and text based materials. the next section is administering pre-test and post-test. the pre-test was distributed to both of groups before beginning the teaching or giving treatment and the post-test was given at the end of treatment. both of test were facilitated with the same questions. the last section is distributing questionnaire. in this study, the questionnaire was addressed only to the experimental group in order to find out their confirmations and perceptions toward their experience of using prezi presentation in learning grammar. after gathering the data from participants, reseacher analyzed the result of experimental process including tests and questionnaire. the pre-test and post-test were formerly analysed then the questionnaire followed afterwards. the pre-test and post-test were analyzed starting with the calculation the average of pre-test and posttest scores. it can be seen in the following table; table 4.1: the result of control group no initial name sid pre-test post-test correct answers score (ca x 5) correct answers score (ca x 5) 1 by 140203285 8 40 13 75 2 d 140203272 10 50 8 40 3 ga 140203289 12 60 10 50 4 h 140203274 7 35 6 30 5 i i 140203271 4 20 9 45 6 nz 140203129 8 40 5 25 7 mc 140203287 9 45 10 50 8 sr 140203291 3 15 8 40 9 tm 140203276 14 70 14 70 10 uh 140203278 3 15 8 40 11 z 140203283 6 30 15 85 using prezi presentation as instructional material in english grammar classroom 110 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 12 zs 140203290 2 10 4 20 total sore 86 430 110 570 average score 35,8 47,5 the result of the test shows that the average score of pre-test of control group is 35,8 and post-test is 47,5. therefore it can be generally inferred that teaching grammar by using conventional media in control group increased by 12 points of score. table 4.2: the result of experimental group no initial name sid pre-test post-test correct answers score (ca x 5) correct answers score (ca x 5) 1 ar 140203031 12 60 18 90 *2 ce 140203056 9 45 8 40 3 du 140203036 11 55 13 65 4 fd 140203047 17 85 18 90 5 ia 140203051 16 80 20 100 6 ja 140203034 8 40 16 80 7 la 140203035 7 35 11 55 8 mh 140203041 18 90 20 100 9 mj 140203053 10 50 16 80 10 nf 140203032 13 65 17 85 11 nm 140203040 16 80 18 90 12 nz 140203043 11 55 17 85 13 rr 140203058 9 45 16 80 14 ra 140203044 12 60 10 50 15 sz 140203055 10 50 12 60 16 tm 140203049 12 60 16 80 17 ym 140203030 12 60 15 75 total score 203 1015 261 1305 average score 59,7 76,7 *outlier rahmat yusny & desi nanda kumita englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 111 note: the datum number 2 is identified as an outlier the table above shows that the average score of pre-test experimental group is 59,7 and post-test is 76,7. therefore it can be generally inferred that teaching grammar by using prezi presentation in experimental group increases 17 points of score. after counting the average of each data, then the researcher followed the stages of testing data in spss; normality test, homogenity test, and independent ttest. the normality test is used to find out the normality of data distribution. this test applies one sample kolmogorov smirnov test in processing the data. the result is showed in the table below; table 4.3: the result of one-sample kolmogorovsmirnov test 1 pre_test1 post_test1 pre_test2 post_test2 n 12 12 17 17 normal parametersa,b mean 35,8333 47,5000 59,7059 76,7647 std. deviation 18,80925 20,05674 15,95605 17,22473 most extreme differences absolute ,133 ,200 ,199 ,222 positive ,133 ,200 ,199 ,103 negative -,088 -,119 -,134 -,222 test statistic ,133 .200 ,199 ,222 asymp. sig. (2-tailed) ,200c,d ,198c ,074c ,026c a. test distribution is normal. b. calculated from data. c. lilliefors significance correction. d. this is a lower bound of the true significance. based on the result of normality test, it was found that the value of asymp. sig. (2-tailed) pre-test of control class is 0,200, the experimental class is 0,074, and post-test of control class is 0,198. it shows that their values are higher than 0,05, by means, the value of the pre-test of control class, pre-test of experiment class test and post-test control class are distributed normally. however, the value of asymp. sig. (2tailed) post-test of experimental class is 0,026, which is less than 0,05. therefore, the value of the post-test experimental class is not distributed normally. the abnormal data distribution might happen due to the existence of outlier. according to greasley (2008, p. 133), outliers mean the data that lies outside the majority of using prezi presentation as instructional material in english grammar classroom 112 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 scores. in this case, it refers to a datum which deviates too far from the other data in post-test of experimental group. garson (2012, p. 30) suggests that to drop the outliers in order to avoid the alteration of the outcome of analysis and the violations of normality data. therefore, the outlier should be removed before repeating the normality test. table 4.4: the result of one-sample kolmogorov-smirnov test 2 pre_test1 post_test1 pre_test2 post_test2 n 12 12 17 16 normal parametersa,b mean 35,8333 47,5000 59,7059 79,0625 std. deviation 18,80925 20,05674 15,95605 14,85696 most extreme differences absolute ,133 ,200 ,199 ,213 positive ,133 ,200 ,199 ,106 negative -,088 -,119 -,134 -,213 test statistic ,133 ,200 ,199 ,213 asymp. sig. (2-tailed) ,200c,d ,198c ,074c ,051c a. test distribution is normal. b. calculated from data. c. lilliefors significance correction. d. this is a lower bound of the true significance. based on the result of second normality test through one-sample kolmogorovsmirnov test, it shows that the value of asymp. sig. (2-tailed) for all data is higher than 0,05. thus, this can be concluded that the four data; two pre-tests and two post-tests, were now distributed normally. then the analysis could be continued to the homogeneity test. the homogeneity test was examined by using levene test. the result of levene test on pre-tests and post-tests was found as showed in the following table: table 4.5 : the result of homogeneity test levene statistic df1 df2 sig. ,583 1 27 ,452 1,068 1 26 ,311 from the output of statistical analysis tool, it can be identified that the significant value of pre-test (0,452) and post-test (0,311) in control and experimental group is rahmat yusny & desi nanda kumita englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 113 significantly higher than 0,05. thus it can be concluded that the variance values of pre-test and post-test of both groups are equal or homogenous. the independent t-test is conducted to test the difference of average value of post-test between control class and experimental class. the point of this test is hypothesized that; 1. ho: there is no significant difference between the average value of the post-test of control class and the post-test of experimental class. 2. ha: there is a significant difference between the average value of the post-test of control class and the post-test of experimental class. based on the results independent t-test which was obtained from spss, the value of post-test both of classes are displayed in the following table. table 4.6: the result of independent sample t-test levene's test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t df sig. (2tailed) mean difference std. error difference 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper 1,068 ,311 -4,792 26 ,000 -31,56250 6,58716 -45,10260 -18,02240 -4,588 19,495 ,000 -31,56250 6,87883 -45,93534 -17,18966 the result of hypothesis test is shown in probability value sig. (2-tailed). the rules for rejection and acceptance of hypothesis as follows; if sig. (2-tailed) > 0,05, then ho is accepted and ha is rejected if sig. (2-tailed) < 0,05, then ho is rejected and ha is accepted from the statistic analysis output, it is seen that the column sig. (2-tailed) for equal variances assumed was 0,000, or probability under 0,05 (0,000 < 0,05), then ho is rejected and ha accepted. thus, we can conclude that there is a significant difference between the average value of the post-test of control class and the post-test of experimental class. from the calculation of average value, it is also found that the average value of experimental class (79,06) is significantly higher than the average value of control class (47,5). using prezi presentation as instructional material in english grammar classroom 114 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 table 4.7: the mean score of post-test group n mean std. deviation std. error mean post-test control 12 47,5000 20,05674 5,78988 experiment 16 79,0625 14,85696 3,71424 due to the average of post-test of experimental group is higher than control groups’, then it be drawn to a conclusion that the grammar lesson that utilizes prezi presentation does suggest higher impact to the learning assuming that it helps students in understanding the grammar material. analysis of questionnaire the questionnaire is simply addressed to the members of experimental class. the anlysis of questionnaire is displayed in the following table: table 4.8: the percentage data of the result of students’ questionnaire no statements st ro ng ly a gr ee a gr ee d is ag re e st ro ng ly d is ag re e 1 the experimental teaching program meets my need of learning conditional sentence. 65% 35% 2 conditional sentence is a difficult topic to learn in grammar ii course. 6% 41% 53% 3 to have a good attention in learning, grammar should be taught by using multimedia tool such as prezi presentation. 41% 41% 18% 4 learning grammar through prezi presentation helps me understand the material easily. 35% 65% 5 learning grammar through prezi presentation stimulates my interest in the subject. 18% 82% 6 prezi presentation contributes to improve my learning. 18% 70% 12% 7 i found that material presented more clearly on prezi rather than on board. 18% 70% 12% 8 the contents of conditional sentence on prezi presentation were presented in organize. 35% 65% rahmat yusny & desi nanda kumita englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 115 9 the tests (pre-test and post-test) accurately assess what i have learned about conditional sentence. 47% 53% the analysis of open ended questions in response to the required feedback on what the experimental group can comment about the lesson they experienced, most of them suggested that the grammar material taught by using prezi presentation was indeed interesting and effective. some elaborated that the use of interactive media such as what they had using prezi has helped them in understanding materials more easily and keeping them focused on the material presentation. conclusion based on the data analysis, it seems that the result largely supports the hypothesis of this study. however, there are still some points that need to be discussed with respect to the research questions of this study. the first research question asked whether prezi presentation helps students in improving their grammar mastery has led to results which shows that the students who received grammar material presented by using prezi presentation scored higher in the post-test (mean score=79,06) than the students who received grammar with the help of traditional teaching media (mean score= 47,50). concerning to the result of experimental group where grammar was taught by using prezi presentation, however, the researcher was aware that some people might claim that the improvement was influenced by a so called placebo effect (prichard, 2009). on the other hand, the underlining assumption was that most of repetitive and (seemed) monotonous learning materials need to be addressed in a more intuitive display. however, this does not mean that using prezi is the ultimate upgrade in developing grammar lesson materials. overusing of the features of zooming multiple objects in prezi might also pose threat to the learners as it can promote nausea and distractions (myers, 2012). regarding to this thought, the researcher was not sure that the treatment given in the experimental group was accepted as the scientific process by students. in spite of their score established an using prezi presentation as instructional material in english grammar classroom 116 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 improvement, there was no specific clue whether it was precisely determined by their mental concentration on the grammar material within prezi or simply it was their interest in visual aspect of prezi that is accounted. the next points are drawn from the second research question which investigates the students’ responses toward the use of prezi presentation in teaching grammar. based on the data from the questionnaire analysis, the overall students showed positive responses toward the use of prezi presentation in grammar lesson. it was found that there were 8 to 9 feedbacks indicating student’s agreement that supports the use of prezi in grammar courses. as what suggested by a number of grammar teachers at the department of english education uin ar-raniry, the lesson on english conditional expressions is considered as an advanced grammar topic that could be chosen as a representative of grammar material. in line with this thought, jimaima (2014, p. 6) argues that conditional sentences are considered as a weighty topic due to the problem with the complex system of compatibility between the two parts of a conditional sentence. owing to the complexity of conditional sentences, the study chose this topic to be taught by using prezi presentation in order to find out the improvement of student’s grammar mastery. nevertheless, the series of data shows the students responses toward difficulties of conditional sentences were approximately 50:50. by means, about half of the students agreed that conditional sentence is a difficult topic to learn, whereas the rest of them responded that conditional sentence was not that hard. another statement that needs to be highlighted is about having good attention in learning grammar. there are more than 80% of students agreed and strongly agreed that to have a good attention in learning, grammar should be taught by using interactive and intuitive multimedia tool such as prezi presentation. this result meets the advantage of using audio-visual in the classroom. according to al mamun (2014, p. 13-14), by using audio-visual aids in classroom, teachers are able to present a topic both verbally and visually which attracts learners attention and helps them in making a correlation between the verbal and non-verbal as well as abstract and concrete issues. rahmat yusny & desi nanda kumita englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 | 117 based on the aforementioned research finding, series of data generally suggested that teaching grammar utilizing prezi presentation helps students improving their grammar mastery. additionally, it also shows that the students have positive responses toward utilizing prezi presentation in grammar lessons. however, the development of prezi presentation in all education material should carefully adhere to the principles of instruction design and must not overuse the features as it could also lead to negative effect to the learners. references al mamun, md. abdullah. (2014). effectiveness of audio-visual aids in language teaching in tertiary level. dhaka: brac university. altun, m. (2015). the integration of technology into foreign language teaching. international journal on new trends in education and their implications, 6(1), 22-27. chang, k.-e., sung, y.-t., & hou, h.-t. (2006). web-based tools for designing and developing teaching materials for integration of information technology into instruction. educational technology & society, 9(4), 139-149. retrieved from http://ifets.info/journals/9_4/12.pdf. gilakjani, a. p. & leong, l. (2012). efl teachers’ attitudes toward using computer technology in english language teaching. academy publisher. 2(3), 630-636. doi:10.4304/tpls.2.3.630-636. jimaima, h. (2014). the syntax, semantics and pragmatics of conditional clauses in tonga and english: a comparative analysis. lusaka: university of zambia. meyers, k. (2012). prezi: a dynamic presentation or nauseating experience?. retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com /blogs/gradhacker /prezidynamic-presentation-or-nauseating-experience. parrish, p. e. (2007). aesthetic principles for instructional design. educational technology research and development, 57(4), 511-528. doi:10.1007/s11423007-9060-7 prichard, t. (2009, september 11). placebo effects in educational technology effectiveness? retrieved february 01, 2014, from https://www.clarityinnovations.com/blog/tprichard/placebo-effects-educational-technologyeffectiveness shamoail, e. (2005). teachers’ perceptions and experiences in adopting “blackboard” computer program in a victorian secondary school: a case study. (unpublished doctoral dissertation). victoria university, melbourne, victoria, australia. http://ifets.info/journals/9_4/12.pdf using prezi presentation as instructional material in english grammar classroom 118 | englisia vol. 3 no. 2, may 2016 shyamlee s.d. & phil, m.(2012). the use of technology in english language teaching and learning”: an analysis. international conference on language, medias and culture ipedr, iacsit press, 33, 150-156. retrieved from http://www.ipedr.com/vol33/030-iclmc2012-l10042 .pdf. http://www.ipedr.com/vol33/030-iclmc2012-l10042 englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2021. vol. 8, no. 2, 72-83 english medium instruction (emi) practice: higher education internationalization in indonesia nurmala elmin simbolon politeknik negeri pontianak, pontianak, indonesia simbolon73@gmail.com manuscript received f e b r u a r y 1 4 , 2021, revised april 5, 2021, first published may 3, 2021, and available online may 17, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v8i2.8961 recommended apa citation simbolon, n. e. (2021). english medium instruction (emi) practice: higher education internationalization in indonesia. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 8(2), 72-83. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.8961 abstract indonesian universities are striving to obtain international recognition in this global competition of higher education. in doing so, many offer english medium instruction (emi) courses. however, there is no documentation of the arrangement of emi practice in indonesian universities. this article presents a picture of the current implementation of emi in some universities as one strategy to obtain international recognition. survey research is selected to gather some key issues surrounding the implementation of emi. a questionnaire is administered to 30 universities, and half of them returned the responses. data analysis uses a descriptive approach. findings show that the main reason for emi practice in most indonesian universities is to address current competition among global universities. higher education internationalization is indicated in using the english language in two main types of emi classes: 'bilingual class' and 'international class'. this study also highlights the limited understanding of emi practice implications in indonesian universities, especially regarding relevant support given to both emi students and lecturers. some key suggestions from the research include incorporating english for specific purposes (esp) in emi programs and the importance of stimulating collaboration between both content and english lecturers. keywords: english medium instruction (emi); esp; internationalization; higher education https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.8961 nurmala elmin simbolon englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 73 1. introduction currently, higher education (he) internationalization has become a priority in global contexts. many universities strive to attract global citizens to enrol in their programs, and the english language is used as the medium of instruction for this purpose. this competition has resulted in a growing number of english medium instruction (emi) programs in non-english speaking countries. in europe, the number of emi programs increased exponentially within less than a decade from 2007 to 2014 (wachter & maiworm, 2014). in asia, japan and china are leading in practicing emi because they have many international students enrolled in their emi programs (galloway, numajiri, & rees, 2020). in many contexts, emi practice was initiated by the country leaders (hu, 2019). in europe, this trend was triggered through bologna process (wachter & maiworm, 2014) by expecting well preparation for their students and graduates. emi practice is perceived to make their mobilization and employability smooth. in china, the ministry of education leader started to popularise it by requiring emi programs to be one of the aspects of university quality control assessment (hu, 2019). in indonesia no specific arrangement of the government to practice emi at a higher education level. the authority once said a clear mention, the minister of research and technology and higher education (menristekdikti and now kemdikbud), using the term 'bilingual class' as a reference to emi (nasir, 2015). this class is perceived to be one way of addressing this global competition. this appeal seems to be the driver of the growing number of emi programs in universities. the programs offered in either alreadyavailable or incidental courses are intended to accommodate student and faculty member exchange programs and international students enrolling in the universities. however, research on documenting emi practice in indonesia is in a stage of infancy because he institutions' internationalization process commenced only about a decade ago (simbolon, 2018). in global contexts, studies on emi issues show a somewhat broad gap between the expectation of the benefits of emi and its actual-ideal implementation (dearden, 2015; galloway & ruegg, 2020; simbolon, 2018; simbolon, oliver, & mercieca, 2020). the study reported in this article was done to shed light on the current practice of emi in indonesian universities by examining their strategies in obtaining international recognition. 2. literature review 2.1. english medium instruction (emi) english medium instruction (emi) is commonly defined as using the english language to teach academic or content subjects in contexts where the language is not commonly spoken in society (macaro, curle, pun, an, & dearden, 2018). there are two main types of emi practice in the context where this reported study was conducted. first is english language courses taught by english language teachers using content knowledge as language teaching guidelines. this particular course is known as english english medium instruction (emi) practice: higher education internationalization in indonesia 74 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 for specific purposes (esp) (hutchinson & waters, 1987). a broader approach for esp was further proposed by dudley-evans and st. john (1998) by adopting english for academic purposes (eap) and english for occupational purposes (eop). the other type, currently in-trend being practised in many universities globally, is content or discipline lecturers using the english language as the medium of teaching their subjects. this course, the focus of this study, is known as emi (doiz, lasagabaster, & sierra, 2013; macaro et al., 2018). in many contexts, emi courses are commonly delivered by content lecturers, who are either with or without pedagogical training of emi. the global practice of emi is believed to have the potential to give economic growth. this belief is supported by the fact that emi courses are commonly more expensive than regular courses. 2.2. previous studies on emi research on several aspects surroundings emi practice has been conducted in various contexts of non-english speaking countries. some perceived benefits of emi evidenced in some studies include english proficiency improvement of students and teachers (aguilar, 2015; galloway et al., 2020; islam, 2013). galloway et al. (2020) conducted their study by including students and teachers in china and japan. one of the study findings showed that most students perceived english proficiency improvement through emi practice. however, their study also suggested a need for a review on full english application in the classrooms. aguilar (2015) took on her research by investigating lecturers' perspectives on em practice in a university in spain. the lecturers in her study perceived that emi would benefit students' english proficiency improvement. the lecturers also perceived that they do not need to support emi student language learning (aguilar, 2015). i think this perception is reasonable for some points. first, it is worth considering that there is a minimum requirement for english proficiency for english-taught courses. also, the exposure of the english language to people in europe is higher than those in indonesia. so, both students and lecturers have more potential to access language support for learning and teaching in the emi environment. another study on emi was conducted by islam (2013) in pakistan. despite problematic english use in the country, the research findings showed that both students and teachers had a positive attitude towards emi. they specifically perceived emi practice as a responsive action to their future career (islam, 2013). some other studies focused on investigating problems in emi implementation (briggs, dearden & macaro, 2018; chen, han, & wright, 2020; vu & burns, 2014). vu and burns (2014) conducted a study in a public university in vietnam. the research findings highlighted three main aspects that lecturers need in professional development. they are linguistics, content knowledge, and emi pedagogy. a similar concern was also evidenced in the findings of a global online survey conducted by briggs et al. (2018). one of the key issues found in their study was teachers’ challenges in preparing emi lessons. another study was conducted in a university in china by chen et al. nurmala elmin simbolon englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 75 (2020). data from 20 emi teachers in the university was analyzed basing on the theories of multilingualism and instructional design. one of the main suggestions from the study's findings is the inclusion of problem-based teaching in emi lecturers' professional development curriculum. the issues encountered by emi lecturers were also evidenced in simbolon's (2017) study. the challenges mentioned above are suggested to link with the fact that there is no consensus between the understandings of stakeholders and emi implementation (galloway & ruegg, 2020; aizawa & rose, 2018; simbolon, 2018). this inconsistency seems to cause institutions’ limited support to both teachers and students and teachers to their students in emi classrooms. despite problems in the emi implementation in many contexts, emi practice trends are ongoing (macaro, 2015). several studies on strategies of emi practice to address the issues have also been documented. overall relevant support appears to indicate a need for collaboration between language and content specialists. for example, galloway and ruegg (2020) focused their study on examining emi students' support in universities in japan and china. questionnaires, completed by 702 students and 28 teachers in 15 universities. one of the findings shows that support in english for academic purposes (eap), resulting from the collaboration between instructors with content professors, is helpful for students. also, not in a significant number of students, the english for specific purposes (esp) course is useful. this particular finding suggests the potential of esp be used as one type of support to both students and content lecturers of emi programs. next, a study was done by weinberg and symon (2017) in a university in the middle east. their study focused on developing an emi course resulting from collaboration between content and english lecturers from four countries. the findings suggest a need to give both lecturers access to discuss and work together to cope with students' and lecturers' problems in the emi classrooms. while this action requires a large amount of funding, the benefit can pay such costly effort. a similar study's focus was also done in a study by macaro, akincioglu, and dearden (2016) in four universities in turkey. their study examined the experience of content and english lecturers while preparing the lessons collaboratively. the results from interviews showed a positive change in the content lecturers' perspectives on the role they can play in supporting students learning. in a different context and aspect, huang (2015) conducted a study in a university in taiwan. this study's findings highlighted some strategies that can be used to support students having lower english proficiency by improving student confidence and motivation. this finding indicates lecturers' need for professional development to support student learning in emi classrooms. in indonesia, most research on emi practice was done in a single university (floris, 2014, simbolon, 2017; simbolon, 2018). a study was done by floris (2014) in a private university and found a positive attitude toward the benefit of emi in the lecturers' english proficiency. nevertheless, her study findings also showed lecturer challenges in practising emi due to insufficient training before the commencement of emi programs. simbolon (2017) examined emi lecturers' practice in a public english medium instruction (emi) practice: higher education internationalization in indonesia 76 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 university. her study found a tension among the lecturers' understanding of practicing emi in their classrooms. some of them used a full-english medium, and others used code-switching between english and indonesian languages without planning each language's use in their teaching sessions. further, simbolon (2018) focused her research on examining stakeholders'' perspectives on the implementation of emi. her study's findings show consensus between both teachers' and university leaders' perspectives on the positive benefits of emi. nevertheless, the study's findings found a mismatch between their understanding and their arrangement in implementing emi at the university. one study that has been conducted by including several universities was done by dewi (2017). she examined some public and private universities and sought to investigate lecturers' perceptions of emi in indonesian higher education. her study found that most teachers perceived the use of emi positively despite the complexities of their understanding of emi. the teachers saw an important function of english language skills in accessing knowledge. there has been no study documenting the arrangement of emi practice by including several universities in indonesia. the study reported in this article was intended to fill this gap by surveying both provide and public universities and investigating strategies to implement emi to obtain international recognition. so, this study was designed to answer the following questions: 1. how are emi programs implemented? 2. what specific supports are available for emi students and lecturers? 3. method the research utilized a questionnaire to gather the information 30 invitations were sent to both government and private universities via emails in early 2017, and 15 universities returned their responses and are reported in this article. 3.1. instrument questionnaire design derived from the literature review on emi practice. the issues include terms used to refer to emi and ways to implement it. most questions are closed-ended. one open-ended question asks the types of collaborations the universities have with higher education overseas. the responses to this question are in appendices 1 and 2. the questions of the survey are in the indonesian language. 3.2. procedures the first step was to obtain the letter of approval of research from the university. and then, the email addresses of the international officer of universities were collected. purposive sampling was used for this study by choosing universities that have international affairs departments. next, questionnaires and a consent form, and an information letter were sent to 30 universities via emails. after 30 days, a reminder email was sent to those that have not sent the responses. the return of completed nurmala elmin simbolon englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 77 questionnaires and signed consent forms was considered to be their agreement to participate in this research. half of the universities returned their responses and were reported in this article. 3.3. data analysis seven private and eight government universities returned their responses. a descriptive analysis approach (loeb et al., 2017) was used for this research. the findings are presented based on the key issues surrounding emi practice. 4. findings 4.1. rq1: how are emi programs implemented? the findings showed somewhat a variety of terminology was used to refer to emi. two main terms that are 'bilingual class' and 'international class', were the most commonly used terms by the universities. figure 1 presents the responses to this question. figure 1. the terms used by universities as a reference to emi figure 1 shows that some universities used more than one term to refer to emi. this finding suggests that emi practice was relatively new in this context and that universities need to offer an emi course separately from their regular courses. in this way, they seem to give a specific label to indicate such a program. figure 1 also suggests some points from the use of several labels to refer to emi. first, few institutions have no emi courses yet. by all means, emi course here refers to courses 53.3% 40% 6.7% 6.7% 6.7% 20% terms of the program of using english as the medium of instruction english medium instruction (emi) practice: higher education internationalization in indonesia 78 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 where some overseas students are enrolled in an emi program or discipline courses that are presented using the english language. it is worth interpreting the response 'none' to the question. it should be understood that to facilitate students from overseas is unnecessary to have an english-taught program. incidental emi classes like indonesian language classes occasionally are made to accommodate overseas students visiting a university in indonesia. in this study context, such classes could exist in the universities stating have no emi courses. another important point that can be grasped from the university's use of some labels as a reference to emi is that this finding may suggest tension of university understandings of emi among the stakeholders. firstly, a university perceived emi to be presented in english for specific purposes (esp). next, their understanding of emi can be co-constructed with university partners overseas. for example, to refer to emi, a university utilized the term 'summer program,' which is uncommon in indonesia. additionally, one university used the term 'emi' itself. when elaborated with the responses in the questionnaire’s open-ended question (type of and institution partners they have), it appeared that their institution partner introduced this term through emi pedagogy training provided to the lecturers before they started the program. 4.2. rq 2: what specific supports are available for emi students and lecturers? the participants’ responses to this question suggest limited understandings of the universities about the implementation of emi and its relevant implications. the results are presented in figure 2. figure 2. the number of universities providing support for lecturers and students (percentage) figure 2 indicates that the types of support given to lecturers teaching emi courses are in the forms of emi pedagogy training and some incentives for teaching emi courses. it is also worth noting that the provision of scholarship is the only support given to emi students. the support seems to be in line with the feature of emi programs, commonly incurring more expensive tuition fees than the regular classes are. the findings also showed that support of student content and language learning through the emi environment seems absent. the application of a minimum requirement of 66% 34% supports available for emi lecturers (percentage) teaching insentive emi teaching training 40% 60% the provision of scholarship for emi students yes no nurmala elmin simbolon englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 79 english proficiency for the enrolment in emi courses is sufficient for students to study in english medium classes. figure 3 indicates the types of english proficiency certificates used as one of the requirements for enrolling in the emi programs. figure 3. the number of universities using each type of english proficiency for emi courses as indicated in figure 3, most universities used toefl as proof of students’ english proficiency. commonly toefl is used as english proficiency evidence in many educational institutions in indonesia. 5. discussion 5.1. some implications of emi practice implementing emi courses in a context where english is not commonly used in society can differ from one context to another. university understanding about emi and their perceived arrangement to implement emi influence this variety. one of the implications of emi practice is initiating collaboration with institutional partners. this perception allows for various types of emi courses they would design or offer. for example, the term 'summer program' used in one university in this reported study appears to accommodate the model in its university partners because indonesia has no term 'summer' in terms of seasons, but has two types only, rainy and hot seasons. no further examination was done towards the use of the 'summer program' in the institution. however, the types of collaboration they currently have (appendix 2) suggest that using the term indicates that the university may offer 'dual degree' or 'jointdegree' programs where some credits or units of the course are to be done in university collaborator. moreover, using the term 'bilingual class' suggests using both students’ first language and english. the rationale for adopting a bilingual approach in emi courses can be minimizing linguistic problems (galloway et al., 2020; simbolon, 2017) toefl ielts institutional english test no requirement 53.3% 6.7% 6.7% 33.3% the requirement of english proficiecy for emi students english medium instruction (emi) practice: higher education internationalization in indonesia 80 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 encountered by both teachers and students when teaching and learning in the emi environment. another reason is to accommodate citizens’ sense of national identity (dewi, 2017; islam, 2013). apart from terms used as a reference to emi, the research's finding suggests a potential to design a new course to facilitate collaboration between the university's content and english lecturers and between the university and its university partners. for example, a separate program from a regular course can be set to accommodate content and english lecturers' collaboration to prepare students for emi classes (macaro et al., 2016). nevertheless, designing a new emi course as the outcome of the collaboration with partners overseas has the potential to elaborate, as evidenced in weinberg and symon's (2017) study. hence implementing emi may give more contextualized models of emi in the global scope. 5.2. must-have support for emi students and lecturers the perception of emi and its implications also have an association with relevant support provided to both students and lecturers. in terms of relevant support for emi implementation, limited support of professional development that needs to be provided to the lecturers can lead to problems encountered by most lecturers in previous studies on emi implementation in higher education (briggs et al., 2018; chen et al., 2020; vu & burns, 2014). thus, emi teaching training is must-have support to provide before implementing emi. meanwhile, funding support for emi students can be understood because emi programs are generally more expensive than regular courses. implementing emi programs needs higher operational costs like giving incentives to the lecturers. nevertheless, it needs further consideration to support students in the emi classroom learning. some strategic ways in other aspects like curriculum are necessary. one of the strategies is the adoption of the esp approach. this action has some implications. first, english lecturers can be one of the sources of support to emi students. incorporating discipline knowledge into the english courses (hutchinson & waters, 1987) would support students’ language learning. in this way, students would be prepared for learning in emi courses presented by the content lecturers. english lecturers may contribute to this role because they commonly have english language teaching pedagogy training before their job appointment. hence, they have some understandings of foreign language learning. additional language teaching skills would enable english lecturers to increase student learning motivation, as proposed in huang’s (2015) study. english teachers can also collaborate in presenting emi in a way suitable to their situation. for example, english specialists’ role could be used as the key support to both students and content lecturers through collaboration in a preparation year of emi programs (macaro et al., 2016). even though it is uncommon in most universities in indonesia, this preparation program is worth adopting the esp approach. this finding is worth investigating in future studies in this context. another implication that can be grasped from adopting the esp approach is that collaboration between lecturers in the nurmala elmin simbolon englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 81 institution and other partners becomes compulsory to allow for successful emi implementation. while the challenges are evidenced (galloway & ruegg, 2020; weinberg & symon, 2017), ways to enable this collaboration are worth examining. 6. conclusion the research aims to provide some insights from the current implementation of emi in indonesian higher education. in doing so, a survey is administered to university international officers to gather information, and their responses are analyzed descriptively. the findings show that there is tension in the understandings of universities of emi and its implications. this research's findings especially highlight limited support given to both key stakeholders of emi that are students and content lecturers. this situation leaves many questions in terms of the quality of the implementation. based on the study results, systematic arrangement in providing relevant support is essential to make so that the goal of international recognition can be obtained. it is admitted that using a single instrument for gathering information is one of this study's limitations. classroom observations and studies on emi teachers' and students' voices of their emi classrooms’ experience are recommended for future research, so more-in-depth insights of current trends of emi in indonesian higher education can be highlighted. in this way, guidelines for the provision of relevant support to the stakeholders can also be 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(eds.), integrating content and language in higher education: perspectives on professional practice (pp. 135-150). frankfurt: peter lang. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2021. vol. 8, no. 2, 94-105 a critical discourse analysis of bintang emon’s humor discourse entitled ‘ga sengaja’ riska rahman universitas islam negeri (uin) syarif hidayatullah jakarta, indonesia riska_rahman19@mhs.uinjkt.ac.id didin nuruddin hidayat * universitas islam negeri (uin) syarif hidayatullah jakarta, indonesia didin.nuruddin@uinjkt.ac.id alek alek universitas islam negeri (uin) syarif hidayatullah jakarta, indonesia alek@uinjkt.ac.id manuscript received d e cem b er 2 4 , 2020, revised january 19, 2021, first published may 3, 2021, and available online may 17, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v8i2.8461 recommended apa citation rahman, r., hidayat, d. n., & alek, a. (2021). a critical discourse analysis of bintang emon‘s humor discourse entitled ‗ga sengaja‘. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 8(2), 94-105. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.8461 abstract this study aims to investigate the text, the discourse practice, and the sociocultural practice of bintang emon‘s discourse humor video entitled ―accidentally (ga sengaja),‖ posted on his instagram platform. to analyze the data, the qualitative descriptive method was used in this study. the data were obtained from the video transcript of bintang emon accessed from instagram. the data were then analyzed by using norman fairclough‘s discourse analysis model. moreover, the techniques used were observing, interpreting the data by analyzing the text, which was seen from three elements such as representation, relation, and identity; analyzing the discourse practice which focused on production, consumption, reproduction of the text; and analyzing the sociocultural practice of the discourse humor, and the last is concluding. the result of this study showed that bintang emon used more rhetorical figures in his discourse in the analysis of text level. he delivered his criticism with good word choices and conveyed some analogies to make the audiences agree with what he said. the intention of his complaint regarding novel baswedan‘s acid attack case was expressed implicitly so that the audiences cannot predict his intention if they only look at it from his caption. in the level of discourse practice, he successfully represented most of the * corresponding author https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.8461 riska rahman, didin nuruddin hidayat, & alek alek englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 95 citizens‘ criticism against the case. furthermore, he took his right to freedom of speech to deliver his thought in a humorous style. keywords: critical discourse analysis; humor discourse; discourse practice; sociocultural practice 1. introduction humor is a media that is most readily accepted by the community. humor can be found in our daily life because it can effectively entertain people. in addition, humor can distract a person from stressful situations (yue, leung, & hiranadani, 2016). stress hormones can be decreased by humor which stimulates the multiple physiological systems in the human body (savage, lujan, thipparthi, & dicarlo, 2017). humor can form in the written and spoken and even gesture or body language. a group or single person can perform humor. it can be displayed in the comic, novel, tv show, newspaper, radio, and movies. besides, the language used in humor can be served in formal and informal language. humor is subjective because every person has their own perspective in catching the jokes (wortley & dotson, 2016). it can be funny for one group or community, or person, but sometimes it does not work in some others. furthermore, humor often brings offense to an ethnic, cultural, and religious group to create conflicts between the comedian and the group. in creating humor, the comedians have to focus on the language element used and the jokes that will be delivered to avoid the possibility of conflicts and the message reach the audience. many words can possibly have a dangerous meaning (nilsen & nilsen, 2019). the performing humor often reveals the social critic as an expression of a longdepressed condition (kholidah, widodo, & saddhono, 2020). in other words, the purpose of performing humor sometimes not only gives a joke but also gives criticism, satire, and even is aimed to persuade the audience. one example of criticism packed in humorous style is what a stand-up comedian, bintang emon, is doing on his instagram platform. he uses his instagram to create a segment, namely the scolding representative council (dewan perwakilan omel-omel/dpo). this segment provides his humor performance to criticize social issues logically but in a funny way. one of the exciting videos for the researcher to research his humor discourse is the video with the caption "accidentally". the language used in humor discourse is intentional ambiguity to direct the audiences dramatically and even surprisingly (nilsen & nilsen, 2019). this study is interesting since many previous studies used critical discourse analysis based on the norman fairclough model to analyze a speech, a song, and a humor discourse performed in stand-up comedy performance. however, most of them focused on the speech text (e.g., mohammadi, 2017; risdianto, sumarlam, & noor, 2018; zhu & wang, 2020) and humor discourse performed on the stage (e.g., romansyah, hidayat, alek, & setiono, 2020). the differences between this research and the previous research a critical discourse analysis of bintang emon’s humor discourse entitled ‘ga sengaja’ 96 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 are that the researchers attempt to focus on the verbal humor provided in the video. it is because the performance did not meet the audience directly. moreover, this study tries to contribute another overview of critical discourse analysis research by focusing on how the humor discourse constructed, what discourse practice and sociocultural practice provided by his video can be seen in critical discourse analysis based on norman fairclough‘s model (2010). this research is interesting since humor is a medium used to make social criticism, express the opinion, and persuade the audiences. furthermore, bintang emon, as a stand-up comedian, deliberately provides a segment in his instagram platform that contains criticism and expressing his opinion toward the current issues in this country which are packed in comedy. the video with the caption ―accidentally‖ was posted after the court‘s decision on novel baswedan‘s acid attacked case. novel baswedan was a former indonesian investigator for the corruption eradication commission. he was attacked acid at his face in 2017 by strangers. this case caught the indonesian public‘s attention because the police took a long time to expose the perpetrators. also, many people thought that the court's decision on that case was odd. above all, the vital step in this study is addressing a research question: how can the forms of resistance and social criticism discussed in bintang emon‘s discourse humor on ―accidentally‖ be seen from the analysis of text, the discourse practice, and sociocultural practice? 2. literature review critical discourse analysis is a complement to the previous linguistics approach, discourse analysis. using the critical discourse analysis, a discourse can be seen more comprehensively from its structure. as a reason, it focuses on seeing the relationship between language form and its function (rogers, 2004). critical discourse analysis is aimed to solve a social problem in human life, whether critical social science or resources (fairclough, 2001). the critical discourse analysis based on the fairclough model defined the main figure in language use, the relation between class societies, ethnicity, and culture, and ideology (mohammadi, 2017). the critical discourse analysis is not separated in social life. it is because the social conditions and discourse influence each other (risdianto et al., 2018). in developing the critical discourse analysis approach, norman fairclough contributes to supporting this approach based on his own perspectives. an overview of its peculiar social-oriented discourse is regarding the norman fairclough model (zhu & wang, 2020). furthermore, this model can uncover the ideology of the discourse writer and the power behind language use through language (fairclough, 1989). ideology is the main issue since various things exist in the living society (sabir & kanwal, 2018). also, the ideology internalized in discourse and text can be altered by critical discourse analysis (fairclough, 1985). thus, this analysis model must be referred to the power dimensions based on the critical views (latupeirissa, laksana, artawa, & sosiowati, 2019). riska rahman, didin nuruddin hidayat, & alek alek englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 97 the critical discourse analysis fairclough model can reveal meaning in a discourse profoundly and thoroughly by using the power dimensions or three levels analysis. the three levels of analysis contain the analysis of text, discourse practice, and sociocultural practice (fairclough, 2010). 1) the analysis of text-level analyses how the sentence was constructed so that both coherent and cohesion can appear. 2) the discourse practice tends to analyze and interpretative the production, consumption, and reproduction of the discourse. 3) the sociocultural practice is an analysis of the sociocultural context that underlies the emergence of a discourse (fairclough, 1995). three-level analysis of the fairclough model has widely occurred in critical discourse analysis on a speech. however, the fairclough model can be applied in humor discourse since humor involves in the linguistics discipline. critical discourse analysis that may be used to analyze any claims can be categorized according to two distinct analytical aspects, such as the significance of text versus context and power relations versus the processes that constitute social reality (romansyah et al., 2020). in addition, critical discourse analysis is a method of analytical discourse study that mainly examines forms in which disparities of violence, domination, and social influence are imposed, replicated, and opposed in social and political contexts through texts and expression (romansyah et al., 2020). furthermore, knowledge of critical language awareness is needed in order to detect any potential social issues expressed (usman, 2017). it can be easier to determine the meaning of word based on the context (rizki & golubović, 2020). in humor, several common jokes are primed. however, then the ―punchline‖ unexpectedly forces the reader or audiences to rethink and come up with a dramatic explanation that comes as a joke (nilsen & nilsen, 2019). furthermore, many comedians, especially stand-up comedians, convey their criticism through humor because people are willing to listen to humor without feeling patronized. their opinion will be easily accepted by the listener (leonardo & junaidi, 2020). therefore, critical discourse analysis is the right method used to analyze the hidden expression, invisible value, assumption, and perspective behind a humor discourse from a comedian. 3. method the subject of this study is indonesian stand-up comedian bintang emon. meanwhile, the object of this study is his humor discourse video entitled "accidentally". the video was posted on his instagram platform with duration of one minute, forty-three seconds. bintang emon's discourse humor entitled "accidentally" was analyzed in qualitative descriptive by applying a critical discourse analysis approach. the qualitative research is a research that is used to explore meaning in social phenomena or problems (creswell, 2012). the main foundation theory used in the study was from norman fairclough's model (2010). any debate appearing in text or speech cannot be seen as natural, logical, and neutral because it can be interpreted as a power battle (fairclough, 2005). the data of this study is the transcription of bintang emon‘s humor discourse. to a critical discourse analysis of bintang emon’s humor discourse entitled ‘ga sengaja’ 98 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 make the researcher easier in analyzing the data, the transcription was carried out so the data was valid and could be accounted for. after transcribing the data, it was important to check thoroughly so that the data was simple to categorize. then, the data was translated into english. the next step of this study is data interpretation by using the selective coding technique from three elements such as representation, relation, and identity; analyzing the discourse practice that focused on production, consumption, reproduction of the text; and analyzing the sociocultural practice of the discourse humor (fairclough, 2010). by analyzing all the elements, this study was intended to explore the background of this discourse humor and its intentions. then, the last step is giving a conclusion based on the findings and the discussion. 4. findings according to fairclough (2003), critical discourse analysis involves analyzing text, the discourse practice, and sociocultural practice. here is the critical discourse analysis in the humor discourse of bintang emon. 4.1. the analysis of text in the analysis of text, three elements should be seen: representation, relation, and identity (fairclough, 2003). 4.1.1. representation in the term representation, fairclough (2003) identified that the use of language could be seen from the word choice and its grammar. in a text, there are three parts of the text structure: opening, main body, and closing. in this case, a text is said by bintang emon about the legal proceedings surrounding novel baswedan‘s acid attack case. furthermore, bintang emon posted that video with the caption ga sengaja (accidentally) to make the audience curious about what he would talk about in his video. (1) they said that it was an accident but how come it hit face, hah? (2) well, we live on earth. gravity must be downward. flushing the body is impossible slipping to the face unless mr. novel baswedan walked handstand. (3) you can protest, "judge, i intended to flush his body only but because he acted actively so flushed his face." (4) it can be. it makes sense. (5) now let us check which one is not normal between pak novel baswedan's way of walking or the punishment for the case. the paragraph above is the opening part. the use of the words ―they said‖ opens the discourse in order to emphasize his satire. in sentence (1), there are some words to emphasize his criticism, such as "how come" and "hah?" furthermore, sentence (1) uses tag questions using the indonesian interjection "hah" as an affirmation. then, sentence (2) supports sentence (1) to analogize the situation referring to the force of gravity. sentence (2) is opened by stressing the word "pan" or "well". in sentence (3), the direct riska rahman, didin nuruddin hidayat, & alek alek englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 99 quotation is mentioned as exhibiting the utterance that the perpetrators should have uttered to the judge. the word "can" is chosen to support the supposition of the direct quotation in the sentence (4) for the second time. last, the opening part is closed by mentioning the word "let's". in sentence (5), an imperative sentence aims to persuade the listener to check where the irregularity lay down. (6) they said that it was aimed to give warning only. (7) boss, if you want to give a warning, novel baswedan walks, you walk closer, you whisper, "you know what, we have a group without you." like this (8) "what is wrong with me?" mr. novel introspects; it can be called a warning. (9) well, acid from its name is also hard, violence, it is impossible being flooded. bintang emon also chooses the words ―they said‖ and also mentioned the perpetrators‘ motives in the sentence (6) as the second paragraph as the main body. then, sentence (7) demonstrates an act that the perpetrators should refer to as their reason ―it was aimed to give warning only‖. the sentence (7) is an objection between the reason and the attacking novel baswedan. then, sentence (8) shows the presupposition of what novel baswedan would do if the perpetrators made his suggestion. the words ―it can be called as a warning‖ are stressed as a criticism. sentence (9) as the last sentence in the main body, he mentioned the word ―hard water,‖ which means ―acid,‖ which is then connected to the word ―violence‖. after that, he says, ―it is impossible being flooded‖ to show that the thing that the perpetrators used to attack novel baswedan bringing violence. (10) they said that it was an accident, but the intention was to get up at dawn. (11) eh, as long as you know, subuh prayer time is a prayer time that is the strongest temptation of the devil. (12) many people often don't wake up at dawn; me, my friends, many are missing. (13) however, some people woke up at dawn, not for subuh prayer, pour acid on someone who had just returned from subuh prayer. (14) is it wicked? wicked. (15) who is got the benefits? devil. (16) so there is justification. "the right, i said, it's better to sleep. once you are literate, don't you hurt someone else, hah?" (17) satan feels correct because of you. (18) satan respects you, ish great! (19) how come there is a meatball seller. in the opening of the closing part, bintang emon used the same words before by mentioning ―they said that it was an accident,‖ and then he ignored by saying ―but‖. his denial in sentence (10) is supported by his reason in sentences (11) and (12). the words ―the strongest temptation of the devil‖ and ―many people often don‘t wake up‖ strengthen his reason to ignore the perpetrators‘ motive. moreover, the word ―but there is someone who woke up at down‖ sentence (13) is a satire towards their irrational motive. in addition, sentences (14) and (15) are rhetorical because he uses interrogative sentences followed by the answer. furthermore, sentence (16) is a direct quotation a critical discourse analysis of bintang emon’s humor discourse entitled ‘ga sengaja’ 100 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 demonstrating the evil‘s feedback of perpetrators‘ action. he also stresses his utterance in ―so there is a justification‖. last, sentences (17) and (18) are satire. the act is more cruel than evil. the words ―respect‖ and ―great‖ in sentence (18) are stressed to close his satire. finally, the sentence (19) as a plot twist to close his discourse is out of the topic. 4.1.2. relation the relational element relates to bintang emon as a representation of indonesian society on an issue that is occurred in indonesia. he showed his criticism of the irregularities in the case's decision and the perpetrators' reasons for committing the crime. the highlighting of the words "they said" three times is a satire against the perpetrators' reason committed a crime to novel baswedan. he tried to represent the indonesian public's criticism about novel baswedan‘s acid attack case‘s decision. 4.1.3. identity bintang emon‘s statement represents his identity as a comedian and an indonesian citizen. he chose his words carefully even though his statement was a criticism. as a comedian, he used informal language by using some words: gak (not), nyiram (flushing), kagak (not), tau (know), nyelakain (hurt), ngerasa (feel), and bener (correct). in addition, the word katanya (they said) in every opening parts of his speech is as a rhyme that was useful to support his criticism but still in funny way. moreover, slang language was also chosen such as lu (you), gegara (because), betingkah (acted actively), pepet (walk closer), and gua (i), in his statement represented his identity as a young person. 4.2. the discourse practice the discourse practice focuses on some aspects such as production, consumption, and reproduction text. therefore, the focusing is seen, including bintang emon's criticism statement of novel case as a text in this research. the rhetoric then is checked from two sides: the production text by seeing from bintang emon directly and the consumption text by seeing the public response toward bintang emon's humor statement. in the production text level, the background of producing the text can be seen. this humorous discourse is as bintang emon‘s criticism towards the irregularity of novel baswedan‘s acid attack case decision and reason. this case is the current issue that was being concerned by an indonesian citizen. the court is claimed failed in delivering justice to the case. furthermore, there is an allegation that attempts to eliminate evidence and witnesses to reveal the truth. meanwhile, at the consumption text level, the researcher tried to observe the citizen's feedback toward bintang emon's statement. this posting has 697000 comments. most of them agreed and considered bintang emon as representing their riska rahman, didin nuruddin hidayat, & alek alek englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 101 criticism of the case and the justice in this country. furthermore, it is also amusing. however, there might be a group that presumed disliked his statement by posting a tweet that claimed bintang emon is using drugs. 4.3. sociocultural practice sociocultural practice can be revealed through a historical study and applying the concepts of hermeneutics (latupeirissa et al., 2019). this part clarifies the relationship between social contact and the social context as a whole. the sociocultural practice focuses on dimensions relevant to contexts outside the text, not directly related to text production, but may decide how the text is produced and understood. to explain the sociocultural practice, three stages should be done: situational analysis, institutional, and social (fairclough, 1995). 4.3.1. the situational stage bintang emon‘s statement emerged out of concern for the irregularity of novel baswedan‘s acid attack case decision and reason. this type of humor discourse is not the first time done by bintang emon. he already has a segment named dpo. this segment is displayed in a video with duration of 1-3 minutes and wrapped in comedy. the theme is discussed in the content are complaints, warnings, and criticism toward an issue from the community. 4.3.2. the institutional stage bintang emon is an indonesian citizen using his right to speak up. indonesian citizen has a right to freedom of speech following indonesian system, democracy. bintang emon uses the right to freedom of speech to criticize and complain about novel baswedan‘s acid attack case decision. 4.3.3. the social stage the social stage refers to the track record of novel baswedan‘s acid attack case. this case happened on jl. deposito rt 03/10, kelapa gading, north jakarta near masjid al ikhsan on tuesday, april 11 th , 2017 in the morning. the perpetrators attacked novel baswedan after he had prayed subuh. the legal process took a long time to reveal the perpetrators and their motives. in 2020, the case was in the judicature stage, and finally, the prosecutor sentenced the defendant. unfortunately, the decision made indonesian citizens criticize the case. they claimed that the law enforcement agencies are not firm in handling the case, so the law seems weak against the case. furthermore, the motives of the crime are claimed irrational. therefore, there is a belief that the decision of the case infringed human rights. 5. discussion based on the findings above, bintang emon's discourse humor provided some a critical discourse analysis of bintang emon’s humor discourse entitled ‘ga sengaja’ 102 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 intentions related to novel baswedan‘s acid attack case. using norman fairclough's critical discourse theory, bintang emon's humor discourse intentions and means can be revealed. the critical discourse analysis is a social practice network that provides meaning, understanding, exposing, and even refusing (dijk, 2005; fairclough, 2012). besides, bintang emon's discourse humor related to novel baswedan‘s acid attack case successfully attracts the citizens. it can be seen from the views and the comments. most of them gave a positive response. in line with launay (2006), the joke can be successful if the joke is appropriate with the audience. in his discourse humor, bintang emon gave his logical situation to deliver his punchlines. based on the general theory of verbal humor (attardo & raskin, 1991), rational thinking must be involved in delivering humor. it is aimed to make the audience understand what he had raised. besides, it means he did research thoroughly and deeply before showing his humor discourse. moreover, his discourse humor also tries to persuade the audience. according to aarons and mierowsky (2017), some of the comedians' intention in performing a comedy is to convince their audiences. by using the logical situation, he indirectly influenced the audience to think and agree about his thought. moreover, it can influence their curiosity about the case for the audience who do not know the case before. bintang emon also displays ambiguous sentences. most comedians, especially in stand-up comedy, use verbal humor to put the ambiguous sentence, lexical, or even syntactic (attardo, attardo, baltes, & petray, 1994) . these ambiguities can appear with more than one meaning in a context (bucaria, 2004; oaks, 1994). moreover, the ambiguity can save the comedian from outright accusations. it can also create humor for the audience (attardo, 1994). the other intention of bintang emon's humor is to criticize novel baswedan‘s acid attack case. in delivering a joke, the comedian sometimes is to entertain and give a satire that has dangerous meaning (nilsen & nilsen, 2019). he strongly criticizes the perpetrators' reasons which were considered unreasonable. the sentence handed down, in this case, was also deemed incompatible with the crime committed by the suspects. however, he seems to try not to judge the judges regarding the cases. he provided many jokes that contained advice to the perpetrators, which precisely means satires. the criticism about novel baswedan‘s acid attack case was a hot issue in indonesia. most citizens criticize the irregularities that occurred in this case. many speculations appear because they assume that the perpetrators‘ reasons for the crime and the punishments are deemed absurd. for this reason, bintang emon raised the issue to criticize, but he covered it with his comedy. aligned with this background, a stand-up comedian deliberately create the material based on their insecurities about something that felt wrong or strange in society, lifestyle, and even government (leonardo & junaidi, 2020). based on the research, entertaining is not the primary goal in this context, but it is a criticism conveyed indirectly and covered by comedy. although bintang emon's riska rahman, didin nuruddin hidayat, & alek alek englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 103 discourse humor successfully attracted the audience, and most of the audiences gave positive feedback, some people disagree with bintang emon. pros and cons are natural because the material is based on the comedian's opinion (leonardo & junaidi, 2020). as a result, a community group that was contra did a slander on social media and claimed that bintang emon was a provocateur. above all, bintang emon's humor discourse proved that it has entertaining purposes and has strong intentions to criticize or even persuade. based on the variety of audience feedback, bintang emon's discourse humor seems to have the power to influence the audience and even change social life. 6. conclusion humor is a medium for providing subjective entertainment to the audience. as a medium that is easily accepted by the audience, humor is also a tool to give social criticism or even persuading. critical discourse analysis helps to reveal what is behind the humor discourse. in this research, bintang emon's mission by uttering his humor discourse is to entertain the audience and think about the social critic toward the current issues in this country. his discourse humor 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(2020). a critical discourse analysis of the us and china political speeches—based on the two speeches respectively by trump and wang yi in the general debate of the 72nd session of un assembly. journal of language teaching and research, 11(3), 435–445. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities may 2021. vol. 8, no. 2, 1-15 examining personification in songs as one of the english teaching materials ika apriani fata * universitas syiah kuala, indonesia ika.apriani@unsyiah.ac.id annisa aprilya universitas syiah kuala, indonesia annisaaprilya04@gmail.com manuscript received ju n e 2 3 , 2020, revised april 30, 2021, first published may 3, 2021, and available online may 17, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v8i2.7186 recommended apa citation fata, i. k., & aprilya, a. (2021). examining personification in songs as one of the english teaching materials. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 8(2), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.7186 abstract this research aims to figure out the types of personification used in one of the famous albums namely michael jackson's thriller and invincible. the sources of data were 19 songs taken from thriller and invincible albums by michael jackson and the lyrics of the songs. the research design used was descriptive qualitative research with documentation analysis as the technique of data collection. the result showed that there were 65 personification expressions found in the albums. those 65 personifications were categorized into four types of personification as proposed by dorst et al. (2011) namely: conventionalized personification (33 expressions), novel personification (20 expressions), default personification (12 expressions), and personification-withmetonymy (0 expressions). the idea of conventionalized personification presents in the lyrics is to dig out the beauty and tranquility of nature to life. it also might address giving an object or animal-human characteristics to create interesting imagery to the elt students. also, these songs are assumed as one of the various english materials in language teaching in the future since it has no sarcasm and motivating contexts throughout the lyrics themselves. keywords: personification; types of personification; song lyrics; teaching materials * corresponding author https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v8i2.71 examining personification in songs as one of the english teaching materials 2 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 1. introduction talking about literature in english contexts has been discussed in research in novels, movies, poems, or songs (marlisa & hidayat, 2020; palupiningtyas, 2013; fata et al., 2018; rabbani, 2016; kesia et al., 2020; yuliana et al., 2018; astuti et al., 2019). also, there were studies on literature e.g., figure of speech in teaching materials (sayakhan, 2018; chi ko, 2018). nowadays, english teachers might choose a rationale material in teaching english and songs are assumed to be good english language teaching materials. so, the slot of an analysis figure of speech of literature in english songs is a matter of the significant way in teaching english. literature in the simplest version can be defined as the expression of human culture and appears at different times and places. according to carter (2006), literature in certain societies at certain times is a matter of convention that allows the theory to consider further how such a convention was made and possible alternative conventions. while bennet and royle (2004) said that literature could be defined as the discourse of the uncanny: literature is the kind of writing which most persistently and most provocatively engages with the uncanny aspects of experience, thought, and feeling. literature deals with the study of various literary forms including novels, prose, poetry, drama, films, and songs which most often refer to the work of creative imagination. the most well-known and commonly distributed type of literature is a song. yusuf and pillai (2016) figured that songs and sounds have contribution in english studies and it develops quickly between worldwide societies. figurative language is a language used to convey something different from the literal dictionary definition of the word. using figurative expression is making new imaginative descriptions (arvius, 2003). it needs a lot of imagination and focuses the readers or listeners on attending the connotation rather than denotation because the phrase has hidden significance behind the lexical significance. according to verdonk (2003), stylistic is a kind of figurative language. figurative language is generally used to say or write something to create many meanings. the creativity of the author and the beauty of the language itself is often shown in literary works. it is defined by peter (2002) stating that when we describe another person's manner of writing, speaking, or performing, we may say she writes vigorous style or she started in a fine style. there are a lot of figurative language types used in the songs; one of the types is personification. lakoff and johnsen (2003, p. 35) defined personification as “one of the basic ontological metaphors”. the ontological metaphor is giving an image to the audience as things can act just like a certain object and even act like a human. personification is when someone gives human characteristics to something that is not human. it can also be used to represent abstract qualities in human form. personification gives human nature and quality, like emotions, desires, sensations, movements, and words, often with metaphors. personification is a kind of figurative language that describes un-living matter or inanimate object as if having humanism attitudes. for example, “the wind howling in ika apriani fata & annisa aprilya englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 3 the dark midnight added to our fear” by keraf (2006, p. 140). the actual meaning of the wind howling is the wind started to blow loud and harsh. this study focused on personifications that are used mainly in michael jackson’s thriller and invincible albums. these albums have 19 songs that conduct the personification. also, the songs are very popular for their interesting and fun lyrics and rhythms. words taken by items or lexical lyrics are general words that can be found in everyday conversation and michael jackson has succeeded in combining them in very interesting and fresh expressions without leaving the ideas and thoughts he wanted to convey. besides, songs can make the english learning activity varies. this research was done because the song lyrics sometimes are difficult to understand because it not only consists of literal language but also uses figurative language. even though there are a number of studies of personification on songs, however the gap of this study is to apply categories of personification by employing the latest framework 2011, besides the framework has not been applied in the previous studies and so that later it is assumed to be a various learning materials. 2. literature review 2.1. personification personification is a technique by which any non-human object or entity is assigned to a human character. personification is often used to explain or enrich the description of something or to highlight a particular characteristic of a non-human creature or object. as wolosky (2001, p. 93) said personification is part of “figurative language, personification is a figure of speech in which things are endowed with human qualities or are represented as possessing human form”. by using human characteristics to describe objects, animals, or even places, personification can make our descriptions more unique and help the readers and the listeners better relate to songs, writings, novels, and more (arta, 2017). in literature and everyday speech, personification is very prevalent. for example, science-fiction novels were his constant companions. only a person or animal can be a 'companion'. books are just objects but this personification informs us that the books, like close friends, meant a lot to him and likely brought him joy, like friends. personification typically reflects the emotions of characters and provides a scene more life (kesi et al., 2020). personalization energizes both prose and poetry, for example, peace had deserted devon. although they did not look like the campus and the town, many of their summer dreams remained peaceful. fall had barely touched the full splendor of the trees, and during the height of the day, the sun briefly regained its summertime power (harun et al., 2020). there was only an edge of coolness in the air to suggest the coming winter, but everything had been caught up, like the first fallen leaves, by a new one and energetic wind. peace, an abstract idea, may desert a location in this instance. the campus and village also dream and the fall touches the trees (astuti et al., 2019). examining personification in songs as one of the english teaching materials 4 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 2.2. types of personification yuliana et al. (2018) figured that there are four types of personification, namely: conventionalized personification, novel personification, default personification, and personification-with-metonymy. 2.2.1. conventionalized personification utami (2012) identified that conventionalized personification is based on the mapping of basic human meanings and distinct non-human contextual meanings both of which can be found in a dictionary. the conventionalized personification appears when the basic sense of human meanings and non-human contextual meanings are acquired in the dictionary; if we do not consider the non-human relational definition in the dictionary, we are talking about an un-conventionalized or novel personification. the main point of this form is that the personification can be identified if the word is familiar in the dictionary without considering the context of the sentence. for example: “maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when i first knew it” – to kill a mockingbird, a word by scout in the novel. the human basic sense in the example is tired. the definition of tired is the feeling that you need rest or sleep; needing rest by bull (2008, p. 466). the meaning implied from the sentence gives the town a human sense which is tired by saying it was a tired old town but that does not mean the city is tired. the real intention is that this city has a traditional feel but to know more about this type we have to know the story from the novel well. the non-human contextual meaning is bored with somebody or something, which is applied to the old town. 2.2.2. novel personification novel personification is classified based on a mapping of the basic human meaning and a novel contextual non-human interpretation (armstrong & ferguson, 2010). novel personification means that the basic human sense of creation can be taken up but literal words cannot acquire contextual significance in the dictionary. this is because the non-human relational meaning has a context that cannot be easily understood by the dictionary. it is important to know that novel personification is connected to the conventionalization in the dictionary, not to use, therefore, it may sometimes be seen, even if it does not have a separate entry in the dictionary, that nonhuman contextual significance is familiar to people. for example: “the sun in his jealous sky” – sting “fields of gold” the word found in the example is jealous. the definition of jealous is feeling angry or unhappy because somebody you like or love is showing interest in somebody else by bull (2008, p. 238), and the word jealous is related to human emotions. based on the sentence how the sun and sky have jealous feelings like humans, the ika apriani fata & annisa aprilya englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 5 personification here seems awkward but this type of personification is simple to be understood because in the dictionary there are fundamental human meanings and contextual meanings (justin & laukka, 2013). 2.2.3. default personification default personification is based on the default interpretation of the basic human meaning when it can theoretically be interpreted as human or animated or general but preferred by default human interpretation (utama, 2015). the default personification operates if the vehicle can be implemented for animals or other living things and not only for humans. in some cases, the dictionary will describe a human meaning while general knowledge tells us that the term really should refer to animals as well. for example: “then the line would not come in anymore and held it until he saw the drops jumping from it” – the old man and the sea novel. the word found in this example is jumping. jump definition is to move quickly off the ground by pushing yourself with your legs and feet; up in the air (qomariah, 2015). the word jump is not only used to describe humans, but animals can also use the word jump, but the word jump has included an expression of personification that makes the word come alive. it is thought to be animated, muscular, or body-like, so it can move. the examples from chi ko (2018) are the definitions of the verb to drink and the verb to climb. for to drink, rabbani (2016) said to take liquid into your body through your mouth and for to climb to use your hands and feet to move up, over, down, or across something. from the definition, it can be concluded that the words drink and climb are not only applied to humans but generally can also be applied to animals. 2.2.4. personification-with-metonymy dorst, mulder, and steen (2011) say that personification-with-metonymy is created in violation of the basic meaning selection restrictions triggered by the substitution of a human agent or patient with a metonymically associated non-human or patient. based on chi ko (2018) metonymy is a figurative language that used a word to declare other things, as it has a close relation. therefore, the existence of metonymy will be personified with the basic human sense of personification. this kind of personification is when a human definition expressed with the noun needed for the argumentation structure, in particular verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, but the noun was metonymically substituted by a non-human noun which infringes selection restrictions. for example: “samsung kills the market in 2013 due to its various products” there are two words of metonymy namely samsung and the market. but the device in the example is killing. the definition of kill is to make somebody or examining personification in songs as one of the english teaching materials 6 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 something die by bull (2008, p. 243). kill is caused by the death of (an individual, animal, or other living objects), so killing applies to living things. therefore, samsung is conceived as an individual capable of killing or removing one's life. because many items released by samsung can compete in the trading market and many other goods companies issue products like samsung because they think that if they do not release another product, their products will be inferior to samsung. 2.2. song and lyrics salcedo (2002) says that song is a good combination of music and poetry that reflects people's ideas, feelings, and life experiences. there is a strong and complicated relationship between lyrics and melodies in songs. according to russo and thompson (2004, p. 51), melodies and lyrics are often coordinated for general emotional significances, stress points, groupings, expectations, and closures. in some cases, prosodic patterns related to speech affect the composition decisions taken in developing melodic and rhythmic elements of a song. written words that are made specifically for music or whose music is made specifically, are called lyrics. lyrics are words that make up songs that usually consist of verses and choirs. words for expanded musical compositions such as opera, however, are usually known as "libretto" and the author as "librettist". the meaning of the lyrics can be explicit or implicit (yusuf et al., 2021). the lyrics are abstract almost incomprehensible, and, in such cases, the explanation emphasizes form, articulation, meters, and symmetry of expression. most of the time, they carry a message (whatever that might be) to motivate the listeners, at least, to think about it. such a purpose and form of interaction are embedded in the cultural context of these people, according to their musical preferences, time, etc. 2.3. teaching english through songs in curriculum 2013 indonesia, senior high school students level 10, 11, and 12 are required to study songs as one of english materials of standard competence 3.9 and 4.9. “… menafsirkan fungsi sosial dan unsur kebahasaan lirik lagu terkait kehidupan remaja sma/ma/smk dan 4.9 “… menangkap makna terkait fungsi sosial dan unsur kebahasaan lirik lagu terkait kehidupan remaja sma/ma/smk. “…to interpret the social function and language features of song’s lyrics in topic of youths for level senior high school. and 4.9 “… to grab meaning of the social function and language features of song’s lyrics on topic of youths for level senior high school (translated). it is clearly stated that senior high school students are requested to learn song’s lyrics material for english subjects. therefore, elt teachers are obliged to select and choose inspirational songs to suit the standard competences. ika apriani fata & annisa aprilya englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 7 3. method this research used descriptive qualitative research. research methods can be interpreted as a device or procedure used to collect, process, analyze and present data or solve problems, or to develop science. the research method is a way that someone can use to achieve the goals (ary et al., 2006). the descriptive method is a kind of problemsolving method, clarifying data, analyzing data, and interpreting the data analyzed. the subjects in this research are thriller and invincible albums by michael jackson: 1) human nature, 2) thriller, 3) wanna be startin’ somethin’, 4) baby be mine, 5) p.y.t (pretty young thing), 6) the lady in my life, 7) heartbreaker, 8) invincible, 9) break of dawn, 10) heaven can wait, 11) you rock my world, 12) speechless, 13) 2000 watts, 14) you are my life, 15) privacy, 16) don’t walk away, 17) cry, 18) the lost children, 19) threatened. the characteristic of these songs is about human, struggle, love, pain and so on that faced by michael jackson along with his career and his dreams (vincent, 2019). the object of this research is the types of personification found in michael jackson’s thriller and invincible albums based on dorst et al. (2011). the descriptive method is primarily used as an approach to qualitative analysis in qualitative research. in this case, the researchers chose to use the song lyrics as the document. after collecting the data, the researcher would analyze the data. according to flick (2013), data analysis is the central step in qualitative research. whatever the data are, their analysis forms the outcomes of the research. therefore, the researcher analyzed the data by using a method proposed by miles and johnny (2014) containing three steps which are called data reduction, data display, and conclusion. in data reduction, the researcher focused on the song lyrics that consist the personification as the data in this research. song lyrics were obtained from the internet and printed as analyzed data, and the researcher conducted an analysis based on the types of personification by dorst et al. (2011). for data display, the researcher put the data into the tables in appendix ii. data obtained from objects were classified based on the types of personification and songs to achieve the objectives of this study. after that, the researcher re-checked the data to make sure those are valid data needed in this research. the data were calculated using the following percentage formula when making an explanation: to calculate the data, the researcher used this formula to show the percentage of the data occurrence. examining personification in songs as one of the english teaching materials 8 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 4. findings the researcher found some types of personification used in these albums. all the types of personification based on the framework of dorst et al. (2011) were included in michael jackson’s thriller and invincible albums. the personification types that researchers found in michael jackson's thriller and invincible albums are demonstrated in table 1. table 1 types of personification. no types of personification occurrences percentage 1 conventionalized personification 33 50.77% 2 novel personification 20 30.77% 3 default personification 12 18.46% 4 personification-with-metonymy 0 0.00% total 65 100% based on the table above, the most used personification in the albums is conventionalized personification while the least used is default personification. the type of personification that is not found in the analysis is personification-with-metonymy. 4.1. conventionalized personification there are 33 data (50.77%) classified into conventionalized personification. the examples of this personification type from the data are shown as below (l refers to lyrics): (l1) across the night time, the city winks a sleepless eye (l2) four walls won’t hold me tonight (l3) heaven can wait (l4) let’s not wait, the sun is out in the sentence (l1), the main point that should be analyzed is the word "winks" which becomes the vehicle of personification expression. the basic meaning of the word "winks" by bull (2008, p. 510) is to close one eye and open it again quickly and related to something that a human can do. also, the sentence close one eye is seen refers to a person because a human can close one eye for the signal to someone. ika apriani fata & annisa aprilya englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 9 besides having a basic meaning commonly used, the word "wink" also has another contextual meaning which is suitable with the context of the sentence (wink, 2009). another meaning of the word "wink" shines with an unsteady light; flash on and off by astuti et al. (2019). this definition applies to personification expression. it implies that the night time in the lyrics because it is described at night time that the light at the city is unsteady because people there have a party together at a club or maybe in their home. thus, it generates the person's sense that can close one eye and open it quickly for the signal to something or someone. the existence of the basic and contextual meaning in the dictionary signals this is a conventionalized personification. the sentence (l1) is found in human nature song lyrics, this song explains how young people want to get experiences about their lives, their love, and freedom in this city at night; the city in this song refers to new york. so, this song is about curious or inventive human nature. in the sentence (l2), the main point that should be analyzed is the word "hold" which becomes the vehicle of the personification expression. the basic meaning of the word "hold" by bull (2008, p. 211) is to carry something or somebody in your hands and it is related to humans. the word "hold" has various meanings. the meaning depends on what the phrase context is. from the context of the sentence (l2), "hold" can mean to keep somebody or something in a particular position (sayakhan, 2018; chi ko, 2018). those analyses classify the sentence into conventionalized personification in which the human basic sense implies carrying something and the non-human basic sense implies that the walls cannot hold something because the walls have no hands. the sentence of the lyrics can be found in the human nature song. this song explains how young people want to get experiences about their lives, their love, and freedom in this city at night, the city this song refers to in new york. so this song is about curious or inventive human nature. the word “wait” in the sentence (l3) becomes the vehicle of conventionalized personification. the basic meaning of “wait” by bull (2008, p. 497) is to stay where you are or delay doing something until somebody or something comes or something happens. from the definition, it signals for the human being because sometimes people will wait for something or somebody related to them. based on the meaning, the word wait is usually leading for human characters. the contextual meaning of “wait” that is suitable with the context is hope or watch for something to happen, especially for a long time by bull (2008, p. 497) it is implied that heaven can wait for us humans for anything to enter it until god wants it. this sentence is found in heaven can wait where it tells the story of michael jackson's daughter. in this song, he tells that he loves his daughter and he does not want to die because he does not want to leave his child and he says heaven can wait because he feels his child is better than heaven. he cannot imagine his child would not be sad without michael and he hoped to be with her forever. examining personification in songs as one of the english teaching materials 10 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 the word "out" in a sentence (l4) is analyzed as a personification expression. the basic meaning of the word out by bull (2008, p. 309) is away from the inside of a place or thing; go for some fresh air; walk of the room. it is referred to as a human because the human can go out from place or thing if they feel comfortable or unlike. and the contextual meaning that suitable with the sentence is a long or particular distance away from a place or land as explained by marlisa and hidayat (2020). this definition implies someone moves out from one place to another place. the sentence (l4) is found in break of dawn song lyrics. 4.2. novel personification there are 20 data (30.77%) classified into novel personification. the examples of this personification type from the data are shown as below (l refers to lyrics): (l1) the time might come around (l2) two hearts in the beat of ecstasy (l3) share my feelings in the heat of love’s embrace (l4) cause the pain gets stronger every day in the sentence (l1), the word “come around” becomes the vehicle of personification expression. the basic meaning based on (sayakhan, 2018; chi ko, 2018) is to become conscious again. there is no contextual meaning which is suitable with the sentence, the expression of personification is the time might come around which is implies things get better when you can move from something that makes you feel pain to something new and it makes you happy. as there is no suitable contextual meaning in the dictionary, this personification is classified into novel personification. this sentence is found in heaven can wait for song lyrics. in the sentence (l2), the word "ecstasy" is the vehicle of the sentence that commonly refers to a person. the basic meaning of “ecstasy” by nasaru (2013) is a feeling of great happiness. based on the sentence, it is implied two people who are happy in their relationship, ecstasy in the sentence describes the happiness of the couple. as there is no contextual meaning, this sentence is classified into novel personification, the sentence can be found in the lady in my lifesong lyrics. this song tells about a man who has a woman he cares about. he wants her to stay with him forever and he will love her more every day. in the sentence (l3), the word "embrace" is a personification expression. the basic meaning of "embrace" is to take somebody into your arms as a sign of affection. from the definition, it is referred to a person because it is something that person. since there is no contextual meaning that matches the context, this means it can be classified as novel personification. the sentence (l3) can be found in baby be my song lyrics, the songwriter wants to tell a story about a girl and he wants the girl to be his no matter what. ika apriani fata & annisa aprilya englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 11 the word "stronger" in the sentence (l4) can be analyzed as a personification expression. bull (2008, p. 441) said the basic meaning "stronger" is having great power, it is clear refers to humans because it is implied to person's character. the contextual meaning does not exist because there is no definition that suitable for the sentence. and this sentence (l4) found in the don't walk away song lyrics, this song is about breaking up, heartbreak, and broken dreams. in the song the man is disappointed and almost begging the woman not to end their relationship and walk away from him, their relationship is beautiful but sad at the same time. 4.3. default personification there are 12 data (18.46%) classified into default personification. the examples of this personification type from the data are shown as below (l refers to lyrics): (l1) wherever she goes i know my eyes follow (l2) stop maliciously attacking my integrity (l3) you start to freeze as horror looks you right between your eyes (l4) there’s no sun up in the sky sentence (l1), the word "follow" is the human basic sense that consists of personification expression. the basic meaning by picken (2007) is to come or go after somebody or something. this word can be applied not only for humans but also for an animal, this shown by giving examples of animals as tenors in this definition. the implication of the word "follow" which can be used by both the animal and the human signals this personification classified into default personification. the author imagines the purpose of following in the context of sentences is that the man's eyes follow wherever the woman goes because he knows how she is. the sentence can be found in heartbreaker song lyrics. this song is about michael jackson, a girl seducing him and tricking him into falling in love with her. she is playing him and stringing him along, and michael jackson falling in love with her. but it turns out she is not interested in love and romance, she just wants to mess around with him and that made michael feel hurt. in sentence (l2), the word "attacking or attack" is a human basic sense that consists of personification expression. the basic meaning by astuti et al. (2019) is an attempt to hurt or defeat somebody or something using force. this word can be applied not only for human but also for the animal, from the definition, the word using force can make context that human and animal in general. in the sentence (l2) create an image about attack something inside him, and the meaning from the word "attack" signals default personification. the basic meaning of attack is attempted to hurt or defeat by using power while the contextual meaning has a harmful effect. the sentence can be found in the lyrics of the song privacy, this song is about michael jackson. offensively, this song is about him feeling persecuted by the press and he wants to stop being threatened or followed by tabloids, paparazzi, and those who examining personification in songs as one of the english teaching materials 12 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 lie about money. this song shows his depression and anger and wants his life in privacy. in sentence (l3), the word “looks” is a personification expression. the basic meaning of looks by bull (2008, p. 260) is to turn your eyes in a particular direction, this word can be applied both of human and animals. the contextual meaning implies the horror makes you freeze because horror looks you right between your eyes, but the researcher imagines horror looks are only emotion and cannot look at you, and in the song, the setting is very horrific. this sentence found in thriller's song lyric and tells about the genre of thriller and things that happen in the supernatural world. the addressee is someone who is going through a terrifying experience. the word "up" in the sentence (l4) is a personification expression. the basic meaning of heaven is towards or in a higher position, since it is commonly used for humans and animals it is a signal for default personification (yusuf & yusuf, 2014). based on the context of the sentence, the contextual meaning of up does not mean the sun up, it implies the sun rises in the sky. this sentence is found in break of dawn song lyrics. 5. discussion the researcher discussed the type of personification used in michael jackson’s thriller and invincible albums by using the framework based on dorst et al. (2011) that conclude the types of personification into four types. the first type is conventionalized personification, the second is novel personification, the third is default personification and the last one is personification with metonymy. as a result, there are four types of personification, however, in the albums, the researcher only found 3 from 4 types of personification. the researcher found conventionalized personification based on dorst et al. (2011) explanation. it is informed that the word or sentence that contains conventionalized appears if the meaning of human basic sense and distinct non-human contextual sense can be found in the dictionary. novel personification based on astuti et al.’s (2019) explanation can be found in the meaning from the word or sentence were in the dictionary but the nonhuman contextual sense rarely occurs. the rationale reason is that non-human relational meaning cannot be easily understood by the dictionary. the researcher comprehends the situation of the word or sentence to analyzed novel personification. fata et al. (2018) explained that default personification merely be found in the basic sense of humanity can be interpreted as human or animate or general things. the meaning of humans must be defined in the dictionary, while general information tells us that the word can also refer to animals. and the last type is personification-withmetonymy it is can be found in a word or sentence that has not only personification but also metonymy in it. this finding is in line with (palupiningtyas, 2013; fata et al., 2018; rabbani, 2016; muliawati et al., 2019) revealing that personification and metonymy do not occur at the same time. ika apriani fata & annisa aprilya englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.8, no.2, may 2021 | 13 from the analysis, conventionalized personification is the most used in michael jackson’s thriller and invincible albums because people can easily understand this type since this type is commonly used in everyday life, and the least used personification is novel personification and default personification. the highest percentage belongs to conventionalized personification (50.77%) followed by novel personification (30.77%), default personification (18.46%) and the last with zero data is personification-withmetonymy (0%). the types of personification that are not found in the analysis are personification-with-metonymy, this type is rarely found because there are not many sentences that contain personification but there is also metonymy in it, and in this album, the researcher did not find this type of personification. it is shown from the results of the analysis that not every type of personification has been found in thriller and invincible albums by michael jackson. 6. conclusion the purpose of this research was to find out the types of personification found in michael jackson’s thriller and invincible albums. according to the result, there is 65 personification found in the albums, in this research only one type was not found in the albums. there are three types of personification that most commonly found in the albums that are conventionalized personification, novel personification, and default personification. meanwhile, personification-with-metonymy was not found. it is merely concluded that personification occurred mostly used conventionalized personification in the album and it is shown in the lyrics. concerning personification and english teaching materials, these lyrics are a rationale to have it for teaching literature at schools. in regards to english song and figurative language, these songs are assumed to be one of alternative in teaching english to motivate and encourage students to listen some figurative languages in context of lyrics. it is hoped can boost students’ enthusiasm in the future while studying english. these lyrics have no sarcasm context so that it is believed a good source in literature. besides, the results of this study have several weaknesses and obstacles in analyzing data. the first obstacle is determining the personification contained in these two albums. the second obstacle is the difficulty of distinguishing between one type and the others. and the suggestion for a future researcher is to consider the language of the subject being studied so that forms of personification can be identified more easily. therefore, the difference between all existing forms of personification must be understood. references armstrong, e., & ferguson, a. 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(2018). transitivity of personification clauses in the novel and the mountain echoed by khalled hosseini. advances in social science, education and humanities research, 166, 262-266. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2021. vol. 9, no. 1, 19-32 an analysis of new english words created during covid-19 ersyalia nabila universitas islam as-syafi'iyah, indonesia ersyalianabila@gmail.com tryanti r. abdulrahman * universitas islam as-syafi'iyah, indonesia tryanti.ar@gmail.com manuscript received f e b r u a r y 2 5 , 2021, revised july 11, 2021, first published november 1, 2021, and available online november 7, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i1.9035 recommended apa citation nabila, e., & abdulrahman, t. r. (2021). an analysis of new english words created during covid-19. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(1), 19-32. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i1.9035 abstract the covid-19 pandemic affects almost all aspects of life, including social and language aspects. one of the phenomena of language change is the emerging of new words during covid-19. taken from a linguistic perspective, this research aims to analyze the new words created during covid-19, to analyze their meaning of the new words, and how they affect human social life. the method used in this research is discourse analysis using a descriptive qualitative research design. the researchers collected these new english words from social media, books, articles, and news. findings reveal that there are nineteen new english words created during covid-19. these new words are now very popular on social media and are used in general conversation. in addition, it suggests that these new words have profoundly affected our social life and also the teaching and learning process of english. keywords: covid-19; english; linguistics; new words. 1. introduction as language has a close relationship with human society, it can change over time in its development. language can change and develop because the meaning of certain phrases changes in the context of language use (strongman, 2017). therefore, * corresponding author an analysis of new english words created during covid-19 20 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 language is not dead, but it changes and develops itself over time and everywhere. in any case, there are many possible causes for a language to change. it can happen because of the adaptation of developments and changes in the social life system, such as education level, culture, social, and technology mastery (harya, 2016). for example, the word „television‟. the word „television‟ had been coined circa 1900. prior to that, no one used it because the television itself had not been invented. only after it had been invented, people start using the word „television‟ (briggs & burke, 2009). also, „selfie‟ means somebody is taking a picture of himself. this word was accepted by the people and spread very quickly in 2013 (shin, kim, im, & chong, 2017). those are some of the language changes due to technological development, and many other new words are also invented to describe things that did not exist before. moreover, one of the phenomena of language change from a linguistic perspective is also mentioned in research entitled „neologism as a linguistic phenomenon in mass media textbook with reference to translation‟ by yasin, mustafa, and faysal (2010). there are 10 coined new words explained in this research. they are „podcasting‟, „blogging‟, „advertorial‟, „narrowcasting‟, „webcasting‟, „airchain‟, „filmstock‟, „newswire‟, „webcams‟, and „skype‟. the process of coining these words begins with the creation of a website related to the words as well. after being coined, neologisms were always examined by the public and linguists to ensure their compatibility with the language. likewise, language can also change because of social phenomena happening lately. since 2019, there has been a pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019, commonly known as covid-19. the transmission of this disease is very fast from one country to another and it‟s causing an outbreak in the world. on january 30, 2020, the world health organization (who) announced that this outbreak had constituted a public health emergency of international concern (mahase, 2020). in indonesia, the first case occurred in march 2020. at that time, the government immediately took action by requiring the public to comply with the covid-19 protocol. even the indonesian ministry of health also stated the april 3 rd, 2020 decree concerning guidelines for the implementation of social distancing on large scale for the acceleration of handling covid-19 (indonesian ministry of health, 2020, as cited in abdulrahman, 2020). furthermore, this disease disrupts activities around the world. until now, this pandemic has still not been over. it has not been over for months and it makes people frustrated. everyone must stay at home to stop the transmission of this disease. everyone works from home. students also learn from home because their classes are conducted online. all amusement parks and shopping centers are closed (nash & geng, 2020). everyone wears a mask when they are outside. however, everything has changed since covid-19, including the linguistic area. this pandemic makes people innovate to make new words and terms. it raises several new words in english, such as covidiots, morona, quaranteam, and other words created because of this phenomenon. the language change during the pandemic has also attracted enough attention in ersyalia nabila & tryanti r. abdulrahman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 21 indonesia. with each passing day, more and more new english terms are used in this pandemic. this is a good step to enrich indonesian because several foreign languages are also absorbed into indonesian. however, related to the importance of english in indonesia, particularly in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, it is necessary to learn the english language related to the coronavirus since english is a foreign language and not a national language or a second language in indonesia. the problem is that most indonesian people do not speak english well and sometimes they misunderstand the new terms. on the other hand, the information about the world crisis caused by a pandemic is mostly written in english. this research is intended to provide information related to language change in order to prevent the misunderstanding of new words by indonesians who are not familiar with the words. as khan (2013) claims, neologism or coining new words is an important tool for learning the variety of changes in the language. this research has the purpose of analyzing new words and their meanings relating to the covid-19 pandemic. 2. literature review 2.1. language change all-natural language changes and will influence all sectors of language use. language change can be called a phenomenon in which permanent changes are made in the features and usage of the language over time (nordquist, 2019). it proves that language does not die because it develops all the time. language change is also unavoidable. it changes naturally, time by time. also, from the old generation to the younger generation, pronunciations develop, new vocabularies are coined or borrowed, morphology evolves, and the old meaning of a word is substituted. the difference between older speakers and younger speakers signifies the changes. older speakers‟ terms portray the language they used when they were young, so the difference between that language and the way young generations speak now signifies the change of language (wardhaugh & fuller, 2015). furthermore, youth speech patterns sound strange to adults because they are not used to hear them. sometimes new words or terms that are created are informal and not formal like a written language, so it might not yet be suitable for business letters. but that does not mean they are wrong or bad, and they are just newer (birner, 2020). moreover, language change and development can occur internally and externally. the internal changes initially occur in the behavior of the speakers in their daily lives in adapting to each other. then, along with a tendency to innovate or develop in familiar groups, followed by other changes in sequence, eventually making the language different from each other. furthermore, the external changes are caused by the contact between one language and another language, because humans, as social beings, are interconnected or cultivated across nationalities in a country or the world (harya, 2016). an analysis of new english words created during covid-19 22 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 2.2. reason for language change language change and development of national, international, or ethnic languages are unavoidable. they are caused by cultural acculturation. it can happen when a speaker shifts to another place and gets an effect from a new society. later on, there will be new dialects, newly coined words, and even the syntactic structure of the language also changed (harya, 2016). it occurs naturally at a fast or slow time. moreover, the speakers themselves may not even notice it. moreover, the language change process may be affected by many factors, including immigration, the value and status of the language in a particular community, and also language change may be determined by the educational opportunities of the next generation. language change can also be influenced by opportunities to speak the same language, the influence of media on the language, and the opportunities to learn languages (strongman, 2017). language change is also caused by the changing requirements of the people who use the language. new technology, experiences, and products need new words to refer to them efficiently and clearly. consequently, the language will never stop changing and will always respond to the needs of the people who use it (birner, 2020). 2.3. new english words created during covid-19 new english words can be called neologisms. neologism is a morphological process through which new words are formed in a language. its purpose is to generate new words or word forms in a language. new words help identify any new phenomena, innovations, and how old ideas may occupy a whole new cultural context. the new words reflect the social and cultural conditions in the texts selected in the current research (qaisar, 2015). furthermore, wang and wu (2017) state that neologism is the creation of new words or expressions in a language and the new meaning of an existing word or expression. meanwhile, according to crystal (2014), neologism or coinage is the creation of new words caused by conditions in the world that have changed into the conversation with people. as we experience today, we are in the pandemic of covid19. recently, new english words and terms related to covid-19 have appeared in several social media, articles, news, books, and others. these new words are a part of the elements that make a language live and not die, and they help show the productive morphology of the language. they are describing the language of change (janssen, 2011). 3. method this research used the descriptive qualitative method. qualitative evidence enables researchers to analyze the human experience and provide useful exploratory insights about exploratory questions and implications (williams, boylan, & nunan, ersyalia nabila & tryanti r. abdulrahman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 23 2020). it focuses on a deep understanding of the interaction between the analyzed concepts. furthermore, the researchers focused on finding the meaning behind the word and understanding it to get the results. moreover, several approaches can be used to obtain the data in qualitative research. in this research, the researchers used a discourse analysis approach by van dijk (1988) that analyzed the language in written and spoken form related to its social context to get a clearer and systematic description of the content delivered. specifically, the researchers used a descriptive discourse analysis. descriptive discourse analysis is used to diagnose linguistic impairments and identify targets for intervention, using any knowledge that can be gained through observing elements of discourse that affect the client‟s ability to communicate (bryant, spencer, & ferguson, 2016). besides, discourse analysis itself can help us know how societies are united and sustained through our daily activities of speaking, writing, and using other modes of communication. it can also help understand why people interact with each other in the way they do and how people perceive reality differently and why they see it the way they do (jones, 2012). this research utilized internet sources, the national library of the republic of indonesia, the central library of as-syafi'iyah islamic university, and other libraries in jakarta to gather literature. this research was conducted from may to december 2020. the data were collected by finding new english words and terms created during covid-19 from social media, such as twitter, from the book “english teaching practices in indonesia during covid-19 crisis” by hasbi et al. (2020), and also from several websites and newspapers, including the new york times, vox, pressherald.com, news 18, the northwest florida daily news, shethepeople, labor notes, thegrio, kbzk bozeman news, kcra sacramento, wgn-tv, fox 4, the guardian, edexlive, valuewalk, phys.org, globalnews.ca, the atlantic, washington post, toledo blade, the philadelphia inquirer, ourcommunitynow.com, healthline, elemental, the bmj, the tribune, deccan chronicle, the sydney morning herald, the independent, stv edinburgh, trinidad news, greenwich free press, the tide, fordham ram, berkeleyside, techround, the columbian, goss.ie, and inside science news service. the researchers used the documentation technique for this research. the data collection process began with searching for new words, phrases, and sentences created during covid-19 in social media, books, articles, and news. after the data were obtained, the data were collected and saved in the form of a capture/screenshot. the next phase was data classification. in this phase, each piece of data was classified into the data table based on the source, with the aim that it will later be easier to analyze. in this research, the data were analyzed using content analysis techniques by bengtsson (2016), which described and concluded the content of the words or terms obtained in detail. furthermore, the data which had been classified into tables were analyzed for their form and meaning. in the next phase, the researchers analyzed the content for an analysis of new english words created during covid-19 24 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 themes and patterns. in the last phase, the researchers reviewed the results and made conclusions. 4. findings this research explored new english words that had been coinage during the covid-19 pandemic. the classification of the new words was based on the wordformation processes. the researchers used the model of neologism presented by wei liu and wenyu liu in 2014. they classified the words into compounding, blending, affixation, acronym, conversion, and clipping (liu & liu, 2014). moreover, compounding is the process of forming words by combining two or more word classes into one new form, blending is a process of forming words by combining two or more words by eliminating certain parts of the old word before being combined into a new word, affixation is the process of word-formation by adding word elements before or after the root or stem to produce a new word, acronym is the process of forming words by taking from the initial letter in each syllable which is arranged into an abbreviation of a term and the result can be pronounced as a word, conversion is the process of changing a word-class without changing the form of the word, and clipping is the process of forming a word by cutting off parts of the word itself. these are new english words created during covid-19 collected from a book, social media, news, and articles by the researchers: table 1 new words created during covid-19. source new words created during covid-19 book “english teaching practices in indonesia during covid-19 crisis” covid-19, instaclass, wfh, new normal, selfquarantine, coronials, zooming, zoom-bombing, covideo party, coronacation, rona, and doomscrolling. twitter covid-19, covidiot, covidient, rona/the rona, self-quarantine, wfh, blursday, quaranteam, covexit, new normal, morona, instaclass, coronials, zooming, zoom-bombing, covideo party, doomscrolling, and coronacation. articles and news covid-19, covidiot, rona/the rona, selfquarantine, iso, wfh, blursday, quaranteam, covexit, new normal, morona, coronials, zoombombing, covideo party, doom-scrolling, and coronacation. as shown in table 1, there were nineteen new english words created during covid-19 collected by the researchers from a book, social media, news, and articles. ersyalia nabila & tryanti r. abdulrahman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 25 some of these words are formal, and some are not formal. each of these words was created to refer to a person, something, or even the name of the virus itself. these words were created because no term referred to the object before. these are the meanings or uses of new english words created during covid-19: 1. covid-19 covid-19 stands for coronavirus disease 2019. it is a term for an infectious disease caused by a type of coronavirus that was recently discovered and is currently a pandemic occurring worldwide. 2. covidiot covidiot is a combination of covid-19 and idiot. it is used to refer to people who have ignored health and safety warnings or guidelines about this coronavirus. it is usually used also to insult people who do not comply with regulations given by the government, such as not wearing a mask when they were in public places, not keeping their distance from others, and so on. 3. covidient covidient is a combination of coronavirus and obedient. it is the opposite of covidiot. it is used to call an individual who follows the government's security measures against the coronavirus and follows laws and regulations that attach great importance to government guidelines. 4. rona/the rona rona is the informal short for corona. people use the word „rona‟ instead of „coronavirus‟ to make it simpler and sometimes just for jokes. 5. self-quarantine self-quarantine is a public health practice used to protect the public by preventing contact with people who have or may have infectious diseases. this is one way to slow the spread of corona and by staying at home and away from other people 6. wfh wfh stands for work from home or working from home. during the pandemic, some jobs that can be done from home were given the policy of working from home only to reduce crowd levels. so people do not need to go to their office or workplace and do all their work from home only. 7. blursday blursday is an unspecified day. during the pandemic schools and work are done from home. when being stuck at home for too long, people have no idea what day it is because they become blurred together so they call that day a blursday. 8. quaranteam quaranteam is a combination of quarantine and team. it means the people you choose to live with during coronavirus quarantine. a circle of friends together complies with health protocols and regulations related to the coronavirus. they usually do activities together, such as video calling together or other activities without breaking the rules. an analysis of new english words created during covid-19 26 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 9. covexit covexit is a combination of covid-19 and exit. it means the strategy for exiting the lockdown. this refers to the exit strategy undertaken by the government in response to the coronavirus crisis. 10. new normal new normal is a scenario to accelerate the handling of covid-19 in the health and socio-economic aspects. it is a new order to adapt to the covid-19 pandemic. 11. morona morona is a combination of moron and coronavirus. it is used to insult someone as a moron who ignores or does not understand the safety guidelines to prevent the spread of corona. it is like another term for a covidiot. 12. coronacation coronacation is a combination of coronavirus and vacation. classes and works were closed during the covid-19 pandemic, but they still carry out their activities from home online. holidays during the coronavirus pandemic are called a coronacation by millennials. 13. instaclass instaclass is a combination of instagram and class. it refers to the classes on instagram. in this covid-19 crisis, some teachers used several methods to teach their students online. some of them are using instagram in the learning process. 14. coronials coronials is a combination of coronavirus and millennials. this term is used for babies who were conceived during the covid-19 pandemic. people assume that this pandemic can lead to an increase in birth rates because married couples spend more time at home. so the new generation that will be born will be crowned as coronials. 15. zooming zooming refers to making video calls on a zoom platform. zoom is the most widely used video and audio conferencing platform for making video calls for online meetings and classes during pandemic covid-19. 16. zoom-bombing zoom-bombing refers to hijacking a zoom video call. when conducting online meetings or classes on the zoom platform, sometimes there are uninvited guests join the meeting and disturb or disrupt the meeting by displaying images or words that are obscene, harsh, or offensive. 17. covideo party covideo party is an online party via video call. people want to hold a party to relieve their stress in this gloomy pandemic covid-19. they hold a party with a video call with their friends and family. so they can still have a party together at their own home. ersyalia nabila & tryanti r. abdulrahman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 27 18. doom-scrolling doom-scrolling is searching, reading frustrating news related to the pandemic. people keep scrolling down their smartphones for the unpleasant news regarding the covid-19 pandemic on social media, news, and more. 19. iso iso is a shortened word for self-isolation. this is the same term as selfquarantine which means a public health practice used to protect the public by preventing contact with people who have or may have infectious diseases. in addition, when the word was formed, it also involved the word-formation processes. the followings are word-formation processes of new words created during covid-19. table 2 word-formation processes of new words created during covid-19. new word word-formation process description covid-19 acronym coronavirus disease 2019 covidiot blending covid + idiot covidient blending covid + obedient rona/ the rona clipping corona self-quarantine compounding self + quarantine iso clipping self-isolation wfh acronym work from home blursday compounding blur + s + day quaranteam blending quarantine + team covexit blending covid + exit new normal compounding new + normal morona blending moron + corona coronacation blending corona + vacation instaclass blending instagram + class coronials (multiple processes) blending + affixation corona + millennial + s zooming affixation zoom + ing zoom-bombing (multiple processes) compounding + affixation zoom + bomb + ing covideo party (multiple processes) blending + compounding covid + video + party doom-scrolling (multiple processes) compounding + affixation doom + scroll + ing an analysis of new english words created during covid-19 28 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 table 3 type of affixation of new words created during covid-19. new word root word affix type of affixation coronials corona + millennial s suffix zooming zoom ing suffix zoom-bombing zoom + bomb ing suffix doom-scrolling doom + scroll ing suffix as shown in table 2, there are two acronym words, seven blending words, two clipping words, three compounding words, one affixation word, and four multiple processes words. the four multiple processes words are two compounding words with affixation words, one blending word with an affixation word, and one blending word with a compounding word. the most word-formation process is blending words and the least word-formation process is clipping words. also in table 3, there are four words involved in affixation. types of affixation in these four words are suffixes. it is the affix at the end of the word. furthermore, in the process of collecting these new words, the researchers found that these words are very popular on social media and are used in general conversation. they are also used by books, news media, and articles related to covid-19. the spread of the new words was very fast, so the whole world also understood what was being said when someone mentioned the word. 5. discussion these new words were created because of the current situation in the world, namely the covid-19 pandemic. moreover, we live in an era where interaction is very easy, and technology is very sophisticated. then new vocabulary words are easier to create and spread so that people use the words as official words and are understandable by others. as mentioned in the literature review, crystal (2014) said neologism or coinage is the creation of new words caused by conditions in the world that have changed into the conversation with people. as we experience today, we are in the pandemic of covid-19. those new words were created because of the current conditions of the covid-19 pandemic in the world and those words were finally used in conversations by people. thereupon, related to the word-formation processes, all types of word-formation processes were not fully involved in the creation of neologisms from the perspective of covid-19 (asif, zhiyong, iram, & nisar, 2020). on the other hand, new english words collected in this research all involve word-formation. there are two acronym words, seven blending words, two clipping words, three compounding words, one affixation word, and four multiple processes words. also, the most common wordformation that the researchers found was blending words, also known as portmanteau words. that is because the process of blending words is often used in advertising, ersyalia nabila & tryanti r. abdulrahman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 29 journalism, and the media functioning to arouse our attention. this marginalized area is becoming more and more popular, and it contains a lot of english usages (mostafa, 2013). as a result, blending the words to make a new word seems to be a trend. besides, creating a word with a blending process is also not that complicated and simple. blending also includes combining two different forms to produce a new term. however, blending is usually achieved by taking only the beginning of one word and concatenating it to the end of another word (yule, 2020). furthermore, based on the rules of word formation, the combined part of the word can be the beginning, middle, and end of the word (zaim, 2015). besides blending words, two clipping words found in this research are „rona‟ which is shortened from „corona‟, and „iso‟ which is shortened from „self isolation‟. these two words are the result of the clipping process which is famous in some parts of the world due to the popularity of the word „corona‟ or „coronavirus‟. the speakers of australian english frequently use „rona‟ instead of corona as one would say: i am in iso (self-isolation) because of rona (levshina, 2020). interestingly, clipping is commonly used for frequent words compared to less frequent words. during pandemic covid-19, people started to shorten words in daily communication because language users follow the principle of least effort (zipf, 1949, as cited in bentz & ferrer-icancho, 2016). moreover, the clipped word such as rona is often extended from the coronavirus itself to the disease, pandemic, and the social crisis it has caused (wild, 2020). another finding in this research shows that some of the words are informal and unsuitable for formal situations. this is because some of these words were created on some social media where the users are mostly the young generation. sometimes it sounds weird, but that does not mean they are wrong, they are just newer. this confirms the theory that youth speech patterns sound strange to adults because they are not used to hearing them. sometimes new words or terms that are created are informal and not formal like a written language, so it might not yet be suitable for business letters. but that does not mean they are wrong or bad, they are just newer (birner, 2020). however, as mentioned in the research findings, those new words are very popular on social media and are used as general conversation. they are also used by books, news media, and articles related to covid-19. the spread of the new words was very fast, so the whole world also understood what was being said when someone mentioned the word. these new words are a part of the elements that make a language live and not die, and they help show the productive morphology of the language. they are describing the language of change (janssen, 2011). the language has also changed with the times. with this covid-19 pandemic, the language had also changed by creating new vocabularies. this is proof that language is not dead and will always live forever. furthermore, khan (2013) stated that neologism or coining new words is an important tool to study the variation or change in the language. by studying neologism, we learn where a word comes from, the invention of new things, how slang can be an analysis of new english words created during covid-19 30 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 initially accepted, the popularization of language, and the emergence of new technologies. new words must fill the gaps in language, and we are aware that neologism helps a language develop. 6. conclusion the results of this research show that the covid-19 pandemic has caused a change in human language and social life. the emergence of new words such as specialized terms and acronyms helps express people‟s feelings and opinions. it can be seen clearly that these words are very popular on social media and are used as general conversation. this all suggests that these words have been accepted by the community as people understand and use the new words during covid-19 pandemic. as this research focuses on linguistic change, particularly the process of wordformation to create new words, the results contribute to the development of language and linguistics related to the topic of neologism and new english words created during covid-19 pandemic. in addition, the findings also add new knowledge for language learners, so that they understand new english terms which consist of prefixes and suffixes, and help learners indicate word-formation processes including blending, clipping, acronym, compounding, and others. although many new words are found in this study, further research needs to be conducted in order to gain more new insights in regards to the covid-19 situations with other data and with different research methods. references abdulrahman, t. r. 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(2020). the study of language (7th ed.). new york, ny: cambridge university press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108582889 zaim, m. (2015). pergeseran sistem pembentukan kata bahasa indonesia: kajian akronim, bleding, dan kliping. linguistik indonesia, 33(2), 173–192. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.26499/li.v33i2.36 englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2021. vol. 9, no. 1, 63-79 islamic indonesian efl students’ responses on english-speaking countries luli sari yustina * uin imam bonjol padang, indonesia lulisariyustina@uinib.ac.id syayid sandi sukandi uin imam bonjol padang, indonesia syayid@gmail.com nurkhairat arniman uin imam bonjol padang, indonesia nurkhairat.arniman@gmail.com manuscript received a p r i l 1 5 , 2021, revised august 14, 2021, first published november 1, 2021, and available online november 7, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i1.9399 recommended apa citation yustina, l. s., sukandi, s.s., arniman, n. (2021). islamic indonesian efl students’ responses on english-speaking countries. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(1), 63-79. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i1.9399 abstract efl students learn english within the notion of english as an international language. the gap in this research is to study the learning of english as a language to the study of the culture of the english-speaking countries. this gap emerged after cross-culture understanding was taught in a one-semester course at an islamic state university in indonesia. phenomenology is the theory used in this research, within the qualitative research approach and descriptive statistics. 110 respondents were given the questionnaires, with open-ended questions asking four interrelated questions about the united states of america, the united kingdom, and australia as the three english-speaking countries. the respondents’ answers in the questionnaire were analysed by using codes, or themes, that later on show the frequency of each theme. the answers were categorized according to the themes and the percentage based on frequency. thus, the findings of this research highlighted that, indonesian muslim students have certain themes in looking at english-speaking countries, such as the united states of america, the united kingdom, and australia when they learn english as a foreign language. keywords: english as a foreign language; english-speaking countries; language understanding. * corresponding author mailto:syayid@gmail.com islamic indonesian efl students’ responses on english-speaking countries 64 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 1. introduction ever since the development of global literacy has emerged in almost every country in the world, this research is interested in investigating the basic but profound questions from their efl students: how do they perceive english-speaking countries as they learned english as the efl? how do the indonesian muslim students perceive the united states of america, the united kingdom, and australia based on topics they learned in the cross-culture understanding subject? efl students in indonesia recognize english as a foreign language. there is a demand for students to develop such intercultural communication skills in using english socially and proficiently. the first and foremost part of this research is the conception of language and culture that have strong ties to one another. such ties exist between english as a language and culture. as the research generally accepts critical assumptions (leedy, 1997), we assumed that belief or faith and everything around them is an important part of a culture, while language also plays an important role in culture with its verbal and non-verbal codes (liliweri, 2007). thus, without fully understanding such cultural codes, cultural misunderstanding becomes an unavoidable thing, and it will result in cultural conflict. in indonesia, the majority of the students have islam as their religion. their spiritual identity is known as muslims. in terms of the educational context, the quran and sunnah are essential and crucial sources of information on life and the hereafter for this type of student. "islam looks at education as a form of worship (ibadah) where muslims share a common set of values based on the quran (the fundamental and most reliable source for many fields of knowledge) and sunnah" (hashim & langgulung, 2008, p. 1). in line with this research, its value lies in the fact that the findings of this research could also be brought to the dynamics of efl teaching and learning in many other countries that also consider english as a foreign language, such as thailand or turkey. research shows that the discussion on culture has always become an essential element in foreign language teaching and learning (lie, 2000) and that is also connected to the process of learning english as a foreign language in indonesia. in brief, this research tries to fill the missing link, or the gap, between learning english as a foreign language and what efl students respond about the countries that acknowledge english as their official languages, such as the usa, the uk, and australia. hence, the research presents the findings with one essential purpose: to explore and interpret islamic efl students’ conception of english-speaking countries qualitatively. 2. literature review 2.1. english speaking countries: the usa, the uk, and australia historically, the dutch, as colonials, had ruled in indonesia for three hundred years and it banned the existence of private schools that trained carders to free indonesia from oppression (hashim & langgulung, 2008). in this sort of condition, some scholars luli sari yustina, syayid sandi sukandi, & nurkhairat arniman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 65 also argued that english in indonesia can be considered a second language. as martin (2016) mentioned in her article, most indonesian students were trained to speak like english native speakers (american or british), but to say that english teachers in indonesia tend to undermine the social and cultural backgrounds of second-language speakers of english should be reviewed properly. furthermore, martin (2016) also stated that the standardization of speaking like those in new york or london has made second-language speakers of english classified as inferior. additionally, she also stated that today, english is spoken worldwide, especially outside of the us, the uk, canada, new zealand, or australia. fortunately, the cultures of english-speaking people allow these efl students to be able to communicate on a personal level with the native speakers of english because other than verbal languages, they do still have non-verbal languages that might work across different languages. in short, to understand the cultures of people coming from different cultural backgrounds, we should start by looking at cultural needs. one of the needs is to communicate by using languages. the point is that before we teach english, getting to know what students perceive about english-speaking countries is important. 2.2. cross-culture understanding (ccu) and english language teaching between understanding culture and learning a language, there is a connection. language and how people perceive things around them are closely related (liliweri, 2007). it includes how indonesian efl students think and perceive english-speaking countries, as in line with viewing the indonesian language as the national one (zakaria, 2017). porter and samovar theorize that perception of culture relates to the internal process of how people perceive and think about what happens around them and it is constructed through belief, value, attitude, world view, and social organization (as cited in mulyana, 2006). culture can be viewed from a variety of angles, such as the written aspects (otwinowska-kasztelanic, 2011). if we look at the educational system of islamic institutions as part of indonesian, we can acknowledge that the core values are personality and universality (hashim & langgulung, 2008, p. 15-16). brita and ningsih (2014, p.7) also stated that the united states of america, britain, and australia are the majority of native english speakers in the world, and terminologically, english culture is different from indonesian culture because indonesian culture exists only in indonesia; meanwhile, english culture, due to colonization, can be seen in many parts of the world. additionally, abednia and crookes (2019) as well as tathahira (2020) stated that connecting critical literacy into the process of teaching and learning in second language classrooms will provide higher benefits for the students learning english as a language. after researching indonesian efl student teachers’ experiences in speaking english in jambi, indonesia, abrar et al. (2018) found out that language barriers, islamic indonesian efl students’ responses on english-speaking countries 66 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 psychological factors, learning environment, and practicing the language become interrelated elements influencing the fluidity of the english-speaking experience. in terms of culture and language teaching, research shows more colorful nuance in different countries. for example, research that had been completed by ahamdpour and kuhi (2019) in boukan, west azerbaijan, concluded that the way culture is treated in iranian high schools seemed to receive a negative response. their research was collected from two hundred and fifty female efl learners. despite that, theoretically, they also stated that culture and language cannot be separated. it usually takes a bit of time to help students reach the point of being intercultural. according to research by altan (2018), intercultural sensitivity constructs the functionality of intercultural communication competence in the sense of learning languages for economic, social, and cultural relationships adjustment of countries involved in cooperation. furthermore, aydemir and mede (2014) in their research, stated that there were significant implications for integrating the learning of target culture into the classroom teaching of english as a foreign language at a state university in turkey. while cedar (2012) researched 39 thai undergraduate students about responding to compliments in english. from cedar’s research, it was found that cultural transfer existed in the efl learning classroom after pre-test and post-test comparing thailand students and native english speakers in the united states. however, there is no explanation of what thai students thought about english-speaking cultures. creswell and sinley (2017) argued that being culturally sensitive is increasingly important for the growth of the worldly research community while most research that applies mixed-methods should reach the act of naturalizing the english-speaking countries. doman (2015) finished the research in the university of macau, on the struggles that most efl chinese students encountered while they were studying in a united states college and at college english program macau general education. he emphasized that factors that affect students’ level of ability in acquiring english are culture, motivation, anxiety, self-esteem, and gender. in hungary, research showed unique findings of the relationship between language and culture (dombi, 2016). he applied a qualitative research paradigm and briefly stated that intercultural interactions can exist very well, although no native speakers of english exist in the process of learning english. in line with this dombi’s research, gierke et al. (2018) emphasized that intercultural competence (ic) is a crucial skill to be mastered by efl students, and this skill needs to be taught flexibly in different countries. for example, north american students tend to select attitudes, such as respect and tolerance, knowledge, and interaction as well as communication as the external outcomes as the most important dimensions of intercultural competence (ic). meanwhile, american students claimed that being open-minded and respectful are signs of someone who has intercultural competence; meanwhile, someone who is tolerant and curious is valued by people who have stayed outside the usa, more than one month (gierke et al., 2018). in other luli sari yustina, syayid sandi sukandi, & nurkhairat arniman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 67 words, people coming from different cultures usually expect similar responses to their culture, but this is not the case in english language teaching and learning. intercultural communication ability is the key. heidari, ketabi, and zonobi (2014), in their insightful paper in iran, stated that the need for intercultural competence grows even further due to the existence of globalization. research on language and culture in south korea depicts findings from a different angle: the efl teachers. howard (2019) investigated that efl teachers in south korea possibly face marginalization and challenges of acculturation overseas and he also pointed out that such expatriate teachers may lead to critical gaps in terms of their professional identity and development as english teachers. moreover, in the setting of the asian region, jan and fang (2019) emphasized that in terms of different ethnic minority groups’ educational experience in asian multilingual contexts, much proper acknowledgment of cultural and linguistic diversity in asian societies should be encouraged. research conducted by khairutdinova et al. (2019) figured out that, in russia, the data from 355 school teachers in two russian regions – moscow and tatarstan – showed that tolerant attitudes were shown by teachers toward diverse groups religiously and culturally. in other words, efl teachers in russia recognize and respect students from other sub-cultures in the country. this attitude is in the same boat with research on novice efl teachers. as stated by kidwell (2019), novice efl teachers ought to prepare themselves before teaching language and culture, and there is a certain training on how to teach culture. thus, in the sense of efl teachers, cross-culture understanding already takes place and exists among them, but certainly, they should reach the point of being able to have an understanding of how to teach intercultural communication to their students. o’brien, (2019) emphasized in his research, that the understanding of crossculture or intercultural mindfulness can only be reached when the students are introduced to the context in which language is being used properly in its cultural nuance. in turkey, for example, özkan (2017) found that english teachers mostly come from non-native backgrounds these days, and that situation leads to the urgency of teaching cultures to the teachers. efl teachers are also in need of training on cultural understanding, especially for those who never seem to travel or study in an englishspeaking country. interesting research by pepanyan, meacham, and logan. (2019) about international students’ alienation in the us higher education, found that american students sometimes do not know how to approach international students considering their privacy and cultural norms of each international student. this situation is purely cultural. it usually leads to cultural misunderstanding if both sides do not want to have the initiative to understand the culture of one another. the combination of two english teachers coming from different cultural backgrounds teaching in an efl classroom sometimes does not help that much to islamic indonesian efl students’ responses on english-speaking countries 68 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 achieve the goal of the cross-culture understanding course. rao and chen (2020) stated that in a chinese context, the team-teachers that are made up of native-english-speaking teachers (nests) and non-native-english-speaking teachers (nnests) need presemester training before teaching in the classroom. also, research done by şentürk (2019) showed that among 60 foreign students studying turkish at bartın university school of foreign languages, students showed positive responses toward learning a foreign language because they understand the importance of the language. the success of foreign language acquisition is always started by a good motivation for learning a foreign language on the part of the students themselves. research completed by ross (2019) concluded that the reaction of the society toward the issues on diversity and difference in the european union shows that most people associate racism with older people and less-educated ones. according to research by yılmaz and özkan (2016) in turkey, there is a highlevel need for an intercultural curriculum, textbook, and teacher training programs to adjust the intercultural awareness in the english language teaching and learning process. thus, developing a sense of intercultural awareness in the efl classes would become an integral part that seems to be difficult to take out if only efl teachers and educational institutes saw students who were not only proficient in english but also capable of communicating across different cultures. this research, in brief, touches on the essential part of learning english as a foreign language in indonesia. asking the students’ responses about the englishspeaking countries seems to be challenging due to the feeling of being afraid of the authority and norms (sukandi, 2015). in it, the students were asked freely for their opinions, so their responses might bring a different angle to see how efl students expect from learning english. as educational practitioners ourselves, the researchers would claim that the findings certainly have their significance. in this case, (zulfikar, 2019) stated that experience provides the gate to reaching professional competence as educational practitioners. as such, getting to know the respondents’ responses in this matter could bring new ways to see what it means to learn english, the language of the english-speaking countries. 3. method this research is qualitative in its nature, while the survey is the approach applied to it. a questionnaire was used as a technique to collect the data. the form of questions in the questionnaire was open-ended questions. the reason for applying the survey was related to the notion of questioning people, in this research is the efl students, about their conceptions of english-speaking countries, while the questions raised to them, following what blaxter, hughes, and tight (2006) opinion, were the same for all respondents, provided in the distributed questionnaire one of the foci of qualitative research is to understand cultures (tracy, 2013). furthermore, pongtiku and kayame (2019) stated that social issues and realities of the world can become factors, or luli sari yustina, syayid sandi sukandi, & nurkhairat arniman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 69 problems to be studied, in the setting of qualitative research. in that way, the purpose of this research, like many other types of qualitative research (ghony & almanshur, 2016), is to describe and explore the initial responses of islamic indonesian efl students regarding the united states of america, the united kingdom, and australia as the three dominant english-speaking countries. from a broader perspective, it may also be categorized as research in the field of social science research—that is defined as research dealing with humans and their interactions (djojosuroto & sumaryati, 2010). technically, the roles of the researchers in this research were as planners, data collectors, data analysts, data interpreters, and reporters of the research results (moleong, 2005) therefore, a theory that relates to this qualitative research is phenomenology, which means that it studies the participants’ point of view (agustinova, 2015). scholars stated that phenomenology is best known as the cutting edge theory in qualitative research (djojosuroto & sumaryati, 2010). phenomenology is known as a theory that focuses on human subjective experiences and interpretations of the world (moleong, 2005). besides, it purely applies a qualitative approach toward the data collection and analysis, while the respondents in it did not receive any treatment at all and there was no manipulation of variables (ghony & almanshur, 2016). one of the approaches in cross-culture communication research is the interpretative approach. it is closely related to an inductive or emic approach, which means that the researcher is located within the culture that is being studied (liliweri, 2007; tracy, 2013). the purpose of this research is to describe and understand human behavior concerning their thoughts on the diversity of english-speaking countries, such as the united states of america, australia, and the united kingdom; even though the respondents to this research had never visited the three english-speaking countries. the reason why the researchers applied the interpretive approach in conducting the data analysis is that the process adheres to leedy's (1997, p. 106) holistic, contextbound, and personal view of english-speaking countries. the collected data were interpreted contextually along with the message written by the respondents in the openended questionnaire. besides, this article is categorized into descriptive research because it gives details about current conditions, situations, and events (postlethwaite, 2005). in other words, descriptive research is a form of research method (nazir, 2014). to analyze the data, the researchers applied qualitative analysis, while the numerical data in this research were used as a means to have the final description of the findings (blaxter et al., 2006). even though descriptive statistics are known to be one of the methods in quantitative studies (djojosuroto & sumaryati, 2010), the verbal data were coded, and then analyzed by applying the system of descriptive statistics for nominal or ordinal data in the form of proportions. in terms of method, this research was initiated by collecting required information from the participants, and the verbal information was listed in the form of codes or themes (creswell, 2014). islamic indonesian efl students’ responses on english-speaking countries 70 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 3.1. questionnaire as the research instrument the data were collected directly from the respondents by using an online questionnaire after a one-semester course ended. data on the initial responses will be linked to the representativeness of the data in the form of percentages. the form of data in this research is primary data. in other words, the data were collected directly from the respondents (sudarso, 2006). it used a questionnaire as the research instrument (djojosuroto & sumaryati, 2010). the questionnaire used in this research was an openended question. this type of question means that the respondents were given the right to answer as freely as they wish with answers that should be in line with the questions (nasution, 2003; suyanto & karnaji, 2006) the questions asked to the respondents are: 1. in a few sentences, what can you tell about the united states of america? 2. in a few sentences, what can you tell about the united kingdom? 3. in a few sentences, what can you tell about australia? 4. in your opinion, what do you like best from the cultures of english-speaking countries? the answers to the questions are briefly presented in the findings and discussion section of this article. 3.2. respondents and sampling technique after the respondents’ feedback had been collected, it was found that the respondents filled out the questionnaire from 2018/10/14 5:40:26 pm gmt+7 up to 2018/10/20 7:22:36 am gmt+7. the researchers selected respondents based on the total number of students in the cross-culture understanding subject in the 2018/2019 academic year. there were three parallel classes: a, b, and c. students in these parallel classes were regarded as the respondents in this research. because there are multilayer situations out there about english-speaking countries, therefore, the qualitative approach was used in this research (leedy, 1997). in terms of sampling, the researchers used total sampling, which means that the population of all students taking the cross-cultural understanding subject was given a questionnaire online. 4. findings and discussion the findings from this research dealt with the values of the initial responses. values in this case mean the core aspect of the respondents’ verbal written statement. in the theory of cross-culture communication, values are related to individual circumstances dealing with binary conditions: good or bad, right or wrong, appropriate or inappropriate (liliweri, 2007). categorizing each response into several codes, or themes is one of the most effective ways to illustrate the 110 responses from the population. the codes, or themes, can be seen in figure 1, figure 2, and figure 3 in this section. luli sari yustina, syayid sandi sukandi, & nurkhairat arniman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 71 figure 1. themes on the initial responses about the usa it can be seen that 28% of the respondents viewed the united states of america as a place where most people speak by using english. the second theme in figure 1 shows that 23% of the respondents recognized the united states of america as a place where multicultural society can be found. the third theme in rank is that 14% of the respondents viewed the united states of america as a federal government system. the fourth theme in rank is that 9% of the respondents viewed the united states of america as having a popular culture in the country. the fifth theme in rank is that 7% of the respondents viewed the united states of america has an image in terms of currency (american dollars). the sixth and seventh theme in rank is that 6% of the respondents viewed the united states of america has an image of its education and the place of the country. the eighth and ninth theme in rank is that only 3% of the respondents perceived the united states of america as having technology, and another 3% respond to the liberalism ideology in the country. the tenth theme in rank in figure 3 is: 1% of the respondents viewed the united states of america has major attention to sport at schools and universities. the eleventh theme that was not considered as the value in the initial responses about the united states of america is the no-answer theme, which is only 1% of the population. 28% 23% 3% 14% 6% 9% 7% 1% 6% 3% 1% english multicultural liberalism ideology federal place popular culture currency sport education technology no answer 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% islamic indonesian efl students’ responses on english-speaking countries 72 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 figure 2. themes on the initial responses about the uk we can list the themes in order of their rank. the first theme is that 19% of the respondents viewed the united kingdom as having british english. the second theme is: 16% of the respondents considered the united kingdom from the sense of place. the third theme is that 15% of the respondents viewed the united kingdom as having an image of the kingdom system. the fourth theme is: 11% of the respondents perceived the united kingdom has an image of the royal/monarchy system. the fifth and sixth themes are: 9% of the respondents saw the united kingdom has a relationship with europe, while another 9% show a no-answer response. the seventh theme is that 8% of the respondents considered the united kingdom has a multicultural society. the eighth and ninth theme is: 5% of the respondents view the united kingdom has the expression of tourism, and the other 5% is about education. the tenth theme is: 2% of the respondents viewed the united kingdom from the aspect of the economy. the eleventh theme is: 1% of the respondents chose the united kingdom from the description of its social or historical figures. figure 3. themes on the initial responses about australia in terms of australia, we can list the themes in the following rank. the first theme for the first rank in figure 3 is that 25% of the respondents viewed australia 19% 8% 11% 15% 16% 1% 5% 9% 2% 5% 9% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% british english multicultural royal / monarchy kingdom place figures tourism related to europe economy education no answer 15% 5% 7% 20% 25% 5% 6% 2% 6% 6% 2% 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% british english multicultural related to the british kangaroo & animals place aborigin ethnic tourism tradition of literature economy education no answer luli sari yustina, syayid sandi sukandi, & nurkhairat arniman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 73 from the aspect of the place, closer to indonesia. the second theme as in the second rank is: 20% of the respondents argued australia as a country that has an image of kangaroo and animals. the third theme for the third rank is: 15% of the respondents view australia as a country that has british english being spoken by australians. the fourth theme for the fourth rank is: 7% of the respondents chose australia as a country that has a relationship with the british. the fifth, sixth and seventh themes for the fifth rank are: 6% of the respondents perceived australia about tourism, economy, and education. the eighth and ninth theme for the sixth rank is: 5% of the respondents viewed australia as a country with aboriginal ethnic and the other 5% responded about australia in terms of its multicultural society. the tenth and eleventh theme for the seventh rank is: 2% of the respondents opinioned australia with the image of the tradition of literature, while the other 2% did not give any response or no answer. figure 4. initial responses on the english-speaking countries in general from the display of numerical findings and one sample of written verbal expression for each theme above, it is best understood that each country receives a different response. from the 110 respondents who filled out the questionnaire, each of the english-speaking countries has its uniqueness. nevertheless, the obvious theme that can be seen from the above displays is that the three countries have been seen as the countries that use english as the official language. 23% of the respondents viewed english-speaking countries in response to english as an international language. they noticed a friendly attitude or being considerate about people in english-speaking countries (17% of the respondents). the countries were also viewed through the lens of ethnicity and culture (15%). integrity (14%) had also been seen as an active behavior in the countries. the respondents stated that the countries have a different culture from indonesian students (8%), but the hardworking habits or independent (7%) received attention as well from the respondents. besides, time awareness (5%) becomes a feature to be seen in the english-speaking countries, along with the respondents’ awareness of the use and difference of american english to british english (5%). not many of the english as an international language; 23% american english # british english (accent); 5% friendly attitude / considerate; 17% different culture with indonesian students; 8% ethnic and culture; 15% hardworking habits (independent); 7% time awareness; 5% integrity; 14% arts in the countries; 4% sports; 1% no answer; 1% islamic indonesian efl students’ responses on english-speaking countries 74 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 respondents wrote their responses about the arts in the countries (4%) and this percentage also resembles how the respondents viewed sport in the countries (1%). of the 110 respondents, only 1 % did not give any response or answer. there are a variety of themes on how efl students recognize english-speaking countries, particularly in this research, the islamic indonesian efl students. for the united states of america, themes that came out from the verbal data were related to technology, education, sport, currency, popular culture, place, federal, liberalism ideology, multiculturalism, and english. for the united kingdom, themes that can be allocated from the students’ verbal responses were related to economy, education, europe, tourism, figures, place, kingdom, royal or monarchy, multicultural, and british english. for australia, the themes were related to economy, education, the tradition of literature, tourism, aborigine ethic, place, kangaroo or animals, close to british, multicultural, and british english. according to the students’ responses, themes that appear to be the aspects that they like from english-speaking countries were: 1) english as an international language; 2) friendly attitude or considerate; 3) ethnic and culture; 4) integrity; 5) different culture with indonesian students; 6) hardworking habits or independent; 7) time awareness; 8) accent of american english and british english; 9) sports. if we connect this notion to the term culture, then we certainly agree that the responses of the efl students are a reflection of how far they know about the countries that use english not only as a communication device but also as a lingua franca. anugrah and kresnowiati (2008) stated that culture is defined as everything that is done by humans as the result of the thought process and their moral consciousness. the themes reflected from what the students wrote in the questionnaire reflect that even efl students have never traveled to english-speaking countries, they have their opinions or responses regarding the countries. in line with this research, the theory of cross-culture understanding becomes true, in the sense that each student needs to know the englishspeaking countries before they learn how to use the language. in this respect, the function of theory in research is to fill out the space around an emerging issue (nazir, 2014). the issue is related to the variety of how efl students view english-speaking countries, so it eventually fills in the space of such an issue. culture also can be seen as knowledge and science used properly and providing benefits for people's lives (anugrah & kresnowiati, 2008). it is indeed the agreement of scholars in english studies to say that learning a foreign language means also learning the culture of the foreign language at the same time. the point is that english teachers need to let students know that english in the world is not only american english, british english, or australian english (pudyastuti & atma, 2014). the initial responses above, basically, are the reflection of what the efl students heard, watched, listened to, or read about english-speaking countries. the findings of this research reveal that an english-speaking country is different from one another in the circumstances of how its efl students recognize them. therefore, the luli sari yustina, syayid sandi sukandi, & nurkhairat arniman englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 | 75 significance of it may relate to generally acceptable interpretation and reach the point of representativeness on the side of efl students who have muslim identity at the most in indonesia (blaxter et al., 2006). dealing with the identity of muslim students, there is a strong relationship between learning english as a foreign language to what muslim students learnt in the educational institutions of indonesia. it might also be linked, or similar, to islamic or religious countries in the southeast asian region, such as malaysia. in their article, hashim & langgulung (2008, p. 16), clearly stated that: the muslim leaders have to recognize that the issue of the islamic curriculum in islamic education in muslim countries is very important because it is not just a matter of acquiring knowledge for earning a living in this world or sharpening the intellect for economic pursuits, but the most important thing is the perfection of the soul and the purification of personality and wisdom. islamic indonesian efl students not only learnt and studied the knowledge of their religion, islam, but they also comprehend other learning materials that improve their capacity as generations of future leaders. what is missing at the point, as it has been stated earlier, is that these muslim students, particularly are enthusiastic in learning english as a foreign language. the only conception that efl students have is that english is an international language. efl students need to be trained in how to recognize the importance of using english appropriately within its contexts. speaking in english in japan, for example, is different from speaking in english in spain. these sorts of situations become rich learning materials for efl students to grasp throughout their lives. the end gate of learning english as a process is when the efl students improve and adjust themselves to the stage of understanding global literacy. nakamura (2002, p. 64) argued that language and culture form a symbiotic relationship, and as such, educators and researchers have important tasks: to intellectually implement global literacy for the world living in peace. it is clear that allowing efl students to learn more about the english-speaking countries, including all of their particularities, and letting the students compare what they know about the english-speaking countries to what they already have as indonesians is indeed a remarkable pedagogical plan to do. 5. conclusion based on the thematic description of the verbal responses from the islamic indonesian efl students, as respondents in this research, two points of conclusions can be made. first, among eleven themes on the usa, the uk, and australia as listed above, the students responded about education, multiculturalism, and english almost equally about the three english-speaking countries. between the uk and australia, the students responded that these two countries were closely related in terms of economy, while the usa was regarded as a federal system when it links to the economy, tourism, place, multiculturalism, and british english. second, the very best thing that the islamic indonesian efl students’ responses on english-speaking countries 76 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol.9, no.1, november 2021 students like from english-speaking countries is english as an international language. they also responded to the friendly attitude or considerate behavior of the englishspeaking people from these three countries, followed by the ethnic and 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(2019). from an active learner to a reflective practitioner: learning to become a professional indonesian efl instructor. the qualitative report, 24(3), 3, 429-440. doi:10.46743/2160-3715/2019.3693 englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities november 2021. vol. 9, no. 1, 94-112 code switching of bilingual preschoolers in pakistan: a study of arabic and urdu alphabets muhammad ali shahid * the hope college of science & management, sillanwali, pakistan muhammadalishahid05@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1068-9609 anser mahmood university of lahore, sargodha campus, pakistan anser.mahmood@ell.uol.edu.pk https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9570-8404 manuscript received m a y 1 2 ,2021, revised july 28,2021, first published november 1, 2021, and available online november 7, 2021. doi: 10.22373/ej.v9i1.9570 recommended apa citation shahid, m. a., & mahmood, a. (2021). code switching bilingual preschoolers in pakistan: a study of arabic and urdu alphabets. englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities, 9(1), 94-112. https://doi.org/10.22373/ej.v9i1.9570 abstract urdu is the official language of pakistan, while arabic is the language of the holy quran, muslims' sacred book. pakistan, as a muslim country with a religious bond, makes it obligatory for muslims to recognize and interpret allah's commandments, as well as to pray and recite the holy quran. the most effective skill is oral communication. it has become one of the fundamental language learning skills, alongside listening, reading, and writing. pronunciation is the process of processing speech sounds to communicate. the current research study focuses on the code switching of bilingual preschoolers while learning the arabic and urdu alphabets. the study demonstrates why preschool children fail to recognize images of simple words in arabic and urdu at the same time and how this challenge can be tackled with the ingenuity of a committed teacher. the researcher used the oral proficiency test (opt) to assess the quality of the children's pronunciation, and he processed the data using setiyadi’s (2020) triangulation of method, which includes three data collection techniques: observation, interview, and questionnaire. the observation focused on how the teacher pronounced both alphabets and how the children responded by pronouncing the same at the top of their voices to make good use of articulators. later, an interview and a questionnaire were conducted to collect data that could be used to ensure the validity of the observational results. creswell and baez’s (2020) model of the structure of study was implemented. the research on bilingual preschoolers is significant in that it reveals that the children had difficulty in discerning resembling sounds from the * corresponding author mailto:muhammadalishahid05@gmail.com https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1068-9609 mailto:anser.mahmood@ell.uol.edu.pk https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9570-8404 muhammad ali shahid & anser mahmood englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9 , no. 1, november 2021 | 95 arabic and urdu alphabets and that this difficulty caused them to deviate from one alphabet to the other. speech therapists, pathologists, psychologists, bilingual scholars, and researchers will all benefit from the research. keywords: alphabets of arabic and urdu; oral proficiency test; triangulation of method; creswell and baez’s model of the structure of study 1. introduction the current study focuses on bilingual preschoolers in punjab, pakistan, who are learning the arabic and urdu alphabets. pakistan is a multilingual country, with urdu as the national language and provincial languages such as punjabi, balochi, sindhi, and pashto (ashraf, turner, & laar, 2021). according to previous research (e.g., meisel, 2008; müller & cantone, 2009), once children understand the basic structures of languages, they will be able to switch between two or more languages. that is, the ability of children to switch between two languages within a sentence is lined to their increased syntax capability. throughout the country, english as a second language is taught and spoken (awan, 2013). code-switching is common in bilingual and multilingual cultures (myers-scotton, 2017), and it can be heard in parents' conversations with their children (goodz, 1989). initially, code-switching was thought to be the result of a language deficit (weinreich, 1967), a coping strategy used by bilinguals to compensate for a lack of proficiency in one or both languages (heredia & altarriba, 2001). others claimed that code-switching jeopardized the "purity" of a language (myers-scotton, 2017). scholars today, on the other hand, largely reject these ideas, recognizing that code-switching is a systemic and nuanced linguistic phenomenon common in bilingual cultures (hoff & core, 2015; ritchie & bhatia, 2012; yow, tan, & flynn, 2018). code-switching may be a valuable method for bilingual caregivers to support their child's growth in both languages. long-term code-switching exposure, for example, may train infants to process dual-language information (orena, byers‐ heinlein, & polka, 2020). we do not know how many and what kinds of code switches infants are regularly exposed to. the first step in understanding how infant-directed code-switching affects language acquisition is determining the consistency and quantity of infant-directed code-switching. several studies have looked into the relationship between parents' frequency of code-switching and their children's vocabulary size, but the results have been mixed. according to some studies, code-switching can harm a child's vocabulary development (byers-heilein, 2012); while others claim that code-switching does not affect a child's vocabulary development (bail, morini, & newman, 2015; cabarjal & peperkamp, 2020). we are talking about several instances, which initially when participants have to make use of different rules, cadence, style, or language, so the term "code-switching" describes anything that the participants may agree on (esen, 2019). code switching bilingual preschoolers in pakistan: a study of arabic and urdu alphabetic 96 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no. 1, november 2021 tables of arabic and urdu alphabets arabic alphabet ﷽ خ khaa ح haa ج jeem ث thaa ت taa ب baa ا alif ص saad ش sheen س seen ز zaa ر raa ذ zaal د thaal ق quaf ف faa غ ghain ع ain ظ zuaa ط tuaa ض daad ی yaa ء hamza و waa ن noon م meem ل laam ک kaaf table of urdu alphabet اردو حروف تہجی چ chay ج jeem ث thay ٹ tay ت tay پ pay ب bay ا alif ز zay ڑ rhay ر ray ذ zaal ڈ dall د thaal خ khay ح hay ع ain ظ zuin ط tuain ض duad ص saad ش sheen س seen ژ zhuyi n ن noon م meem ل laam گ gaaf ک kaaf ق quaf ف fay غ ghain muhammad ali shahid & anser mahmood englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9 , no. 1, november 2021 | 97 ے bari yay ی choti yay ء hamza ہ ha و wao 1.1. reason of code switching the knowledge hub, whose owner and principal is madam farwa batool, is the research site for the current study. the school is in charge of pre-school children in the advanced class who are learning arabic and urdu fundamentals. since the arabic and urdu alphabets are the foundations of both languages, they have phonological similarities with minor differences in articulation. young children have difficulty distinguishing the sounds of letters from both alphabets. as a result, they often deviate from arabic to urdu or urdu to arabic sounds throughout their studies. 1.2. need for the research when learning the urdu and arabic alphabets at the same time, preschoolers fail to pronounce simple letters. the children's ability is limited by their confusion, which leads to poor outcomes. though the children are unaware of the misfortune that destroys their toil, a diligent teacher will assist them in overcoming this confusion with better results in pronouncing the alphabetical letters of arabic and urdu if he makes good use of comparative pronunciation of both alphabets. it is important to understand how children use code-switching because it has a range of educational ramifications. as they alternate between two languages, code-switching can expose the children's psychological state, such as ease and comfort or anxiety and distress. it may also be a sign of psychological, interpersonal, cognitive, and linguistic growth. research questions i. why do preschool children struggle to pronounce simple letters in both arabic and urdu at the same time? ii. how do preschool children solve the challenge of pronouncing simple letters in both arabic and urdu at the same time? 2. literature review zhou and wei (2007), in their study, address that when faced with multilingual demands, all bilinguals express their ability to act, know, and when only one language ability is required, bilinguals, in the study, zhou and wei discovered that no matter what, all bilinguals demonstrate their language abilities, both in terms of their ability to switch to know and the languages in which they can cope (van hell, 1998). chinese americans outnumber all other asian american ethnic groups in the united states. bilingual students' and non-native speakers of a second language's needs are both code switching bilingual preschoolers in pakistan: a study of arabic and urdu alphabetic 98 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no. 1, november 2021 increasing, necessitating increased use of code-switching. the has improved our understanding of how 1.5-generation chinese children and their parents interact with their languages, making these findings relevant to the question of language development and the first-generation chinese american populations. elena davidiak (2010), a phd candidate at the university of iowa, defended her thesis at a symposium in june. this study looked into the nature of code motion from one language to another sentence or within a single speech event. this study also looked at the various other possible causes of any disparities in a language's vocabulary levels between genders and ages, such as a lack of words. he was able to identify sociopedagogical functions commonly used in mixed statements, including or opposing a statement and information, affirming or demanding, and disclaiming, or explaining specific ways, by using various socio-phallogalic phrases, such as choosing an individual as an addressee, changing the subject, explanations, providing support, and arguing. according to studies, code-switching in the manner that is commonly used harms a child's fluency and comprehension of another language. this is only one aspect of trilingual code-switching, which allows the speaker to examine the three modes of communication (including the use of multiple languages without speaking them) and, while involving elements of two or more languages, does not necessitate speaking the same language. tanaka and park (2012) conducted research to describe previous studies before reporting the current study's findings, which looked at how if at all, their parents' beliefs about language acquisition influenced their children's use of code-switching. the findings revealed that parents' beliefs influence their children's language learning experiences and code-switching behaviour. byers-heinlein (2012) reveals in her biopic of her own family that her family's frequent use of codeswitching affected their child's language. she spoke french and codemixed english and german frequently. her daughter was secretly listening in on their conversation and paraphrasing everything they said. her husband also used codemixing and codeswitch rift to communicate in english and french. she openly declares that their conversations are a linguist's dream, a code-dream. they are both set in these multilingual conversations, which can be quite amusing at times. according to the findings of the study, when children listen to their parents' conversations at home while speaking naturally without understanding what they are doing with the language shift, codemixing and codeswitching pervade their children's language unknowingly. olajoke and abuya (2013) investigated the presence of code-switching in children in their third year of schooling in the study. even though various scholars have focused on this, no research has been conducted to determine the appearance of codeswitching in the environment of young children and its consequences. it is the first language of the majority of the population, and the second language of the remainder (l2). adolescents at this stage of language acquisition code-switch for a variety of reasons, demonstrating that the outward expression of code-forms in this age group muhammad ali shahid & anser mahmood englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9 , no. 1, november 2021 | 99 differs significantly from adults. among the numerous appealing case studies presented in the paper, the book includes several studies that pay special attention to this idea, a specific research project in gaining critical insights into factors that code-switching is known as an unavoidable embellishment in children's language learning. akturk-drake’s (2015) doctoral dissertation seeks to advance our understanding of adoption as a research technique by investigating how structural and non-structural factors interact to determine whether a specific donor-language structure will be adopted. three studies in the dissertation look at how two distinct classes of initial borrowers from different donor languages integrate into the same phonological system: elite bilinguals in turkey and heritage bilinguals in sweden. by investigating the incorporation of multiple systems by initial bilingual borrowers, this dissertation sought to answer the question of whether a donor language illicit phonological structure can be adapted but not adopted in the recipient language. because they were thought to be likely to be initial borrowers and borrowers in many language contact contexts, two classes of bilinguals were chosen as borrowers: elite bilinguals and heritage bilinguals. another reason for choosing these bilingual groups was the cultural disparity that gave rise to these two groups' bilingualism. suek (2017) propounded that code-mixing and code-switching are common in bilingual [or language-twisting] people. a bilingual person is more likely to engage in this behaviour as a result of several factors, including their linguistic structure, pragmatics, and language competence. simultaneous bilingualism is defined as a child's ability to distinguish between two languages based on the age at which they are exposed to them, demonstrating that rather than developing a single type of language, they develop several. in terms of vocabulary, code-switching, and code-mixing, the hypothesis is that programmers do not use correct terminology and do not acquire appropriate linguistic and sociolinguistic skills. according to the most recent scientific research, bilinguals appear to be able to handle both languages effortlessly, with no evidence of linguistic misunderstanding or failure. according to the respondents, this power does not affect their mental development. trisnawati (2017) explained in the article how speaking two languages and living in a diverse culture does not result in the loss of one's cultural identity. it's fascinating to learn how people who live in more diverse communities communicate in a variety of settings. this paper aimed to collect data from a variety of multicultural/multilingual settings to advance research in this area. language, the community itself, family involvement, and involvement with other children who shared the same language were discovered to be three of the three primary factors influencing bilingual identification. green (2018) presented a model that expands on previous work's basic description of code-switching to include neurocognitive details about how speakers create and use it. the main difference between the controls is how frequently they are used, and this is what determines which languages are used. this paper delves deeply code switching bilingual preschoolers in pakistan: a study of arabic and urdu alphabetic 100 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no. 1, november 2021 into the origins and changes, as well as the fundamental starting points of each of these interstates, their interactions with one another, and how they began and evolved. green (2018) puts forward that indicators of intra-sentential code-switching include anatomical corpus-based markers of both extraand intra-sentential code for different language combinations, which vary with intra-sentential mutual reinforcement (or rivalry). while there is unequivocal evidence for bi-directionality code concordance in single-word utterances, many utterances do not. it is proposed that different languages use different levels of language activation, which are insufficient to adequately represent how language is used. we require a code-switching model that allows bilinguals to use multiple languages and allows for simultaneous activation. mamin (2020) discussed what teachers believe about code-switching. the study attempted to determine whether libyan efl learners and kurdish efl learners hold similar or dissimilar beliefs about the use of l1 in their language classrooms, as well as what beliefs these groups hold. for data collection, a questionnaire based on teachers' beliefs was used. the study included forty efl teachers from two different contexts. the purpose of the study was to reveal significant differences in the two groups' beliefs about the use of l1 for subject success, classroom management, and other purposes. finally, there was no discernible difference between the two groups. kremin, alves, orena, polka, and byers-heinlein (2021), keeping in mind that previous studies were lacking in investigating bilingual parents' code-switching when speaking to their children in everyday conversation, they suggested that parents' code moved more between sentences than within sentences with their children aged 10 to 18 months. the most common obvious motive for code-switching is to improve their children's comprehension and vocabulary. when these findings were combined, the study suggested that bilingual parents' codes switched in ways that promote successful bilingual language acquisition. the current study is being conducted on children while they are attempting to develop their alphabet, and it looks into the possibility of using existing arabic and urdu fonts in the process. this study confirmed a previously discovered principle that explains why many children do not recognise images in arabic and urdu and proposed a possible solution in which a professional commitment can increase the impact of teachers' approaches to the situation. 3. method to address the research questions and stimulate the model arabic-urdu codeswitching environment, the current study used a phenomenological approach to qualitative research methodology. the research design was qualitative-cumquantitative. however, the majority of the research was conducted using a quantitative design. the researcher chose a class of preschoolers at random purposive sampling from "the knowledge hub" the private-public school in garden town, sillanwali. the research activities were participated in by 45 candidates, 18 males and 27 females. in muhammad ali shahid & anser mahmood englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9 , no. 1, november 2021 | 101 any case, because the study did not go into correlational plan, it is not mentionable to say how many males and females there were. the researcher gave the 45 bilingual students letters from both alphabets to pronounce, and the researcher recorded their responses. the researcher used the oral proficiency test (opt) to assess the quality of the children's pronunciation, and he processed the data using setiyadi's (2020) triangulation method, which includes three data collection techniques: observation, interview, and questionnaire. the observation focused on how the teacher pronounced both alphabets and how the children responded by pronouncing the same at the top of their voices to make good use of articulators. later, an interview and a questionnaire were conducted to collect data that could be used to ensure the validity of the observational results. creswell and baez (2020) proposed the following components of the structure of study i. identifying the research problem, ii. review of the literature, iii. specifying the purpose of the research, iv. data collection, v. data analyzing and interpretation, and reporting and evaluating the research. 3.1. data analysis the researcher employed, according to miles, huberman and saldana (1994), three-phased data analysis in the present study. 3.1.1. data reduction in the process of organization of data, observation was the key instrument in the present study whereas interviews and questionnaires were used as the supporting components of data collection. every instrument-based data was analyzed turn by turn until the conclusion. 3.2. observation-based data the researcher employed observation-based data to know about the process of teaching and learning pronunciation concerning arabic and urdu alphabetic. the researcher was a keen observer when the teacher was conducting the class. the following discussion identified the data based on observation. 3.2.1. first observation the research made the first observation on 8 april 2021 at 1:00 pm on monday when the class teacher of taking the class of the children on arabic and urdu alphabetic. the teacher had planned the lesson very well whose details underlie below. 3.2.1.1. introduction of the lesson the teacher casually started the class with a very warm greeting from the students who seem to be in all elements very eager to study. after preliminary greeting and taking roll call in friendly manners, the teacher indulged in small talk is frank code switching bilingual preschoolers in pakistan: a study of arabic and urdu alphabetic 102 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no. 1, november 2021 enough to make them feel at ease during the class. it means that the teacher in a psychological manner created a friendly environment in the class. 3.2.1.2. the teaching of the lesson after reviewing the previous knowledge, the teacher introduced the students that they were going to learn arabic and urdu alphabetic again but this time both the alphabetic with comparison at the same time in the same class. the teacher pronounced the alphabetic one by one at the top of her voice and asked the students to follow the suit, saying the same letters aloud and feeling the difference in the pronunciation between the two. the students tried their level best to articulate the sound with the same precision but could not and muddle up the sounds of both the alphabetic. they could not restrain them in phonological boundaries and code switched from arabic to urdu and urdu to arabic interchangeably. the teacher in a very loving manner helped the students correct the pronunciation mistakes, drilled the lesson to make them familiar with the alphabetic, and asked them to repeat the sound at the top of their voices. 3.2.1.3. closing the lesson on closing the lesson, the teacher advised the students to make drills at home articulating each letter aloud. 3.2.2. second observation 3.2.2.1. introduction of the lesson the research made the first observation on 10 april 2021 at 1:00 pm on saturday when the teacher of taking the revision class on arabic and urdu alphabetic. the teacher had planned the second lesson based on the first one very well whose details underlie below. 3.2.2.2. the teaching of the lesson in this activity, the researcher took the review of the previous lesson and reminded them to take care of muddle up sounds while practising both the sounds. the teacher wrote the alphabetic on the whiteboard with different colours and asked them to repeat the same sounds aloud after she felt the difference of the same sounds. finally, the teacher motivated the students to feel at ease in discerning the muddle up alphabetic and arabic and urdu. 3.2.2.3. closing the lesson the teacher closed the class with kind advice to make drills at home and left them with prayers and best wishes. muhammad ali shahid & anser mahmood englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9 , no. 1, november 2021 | 103 3.2. interview of the teacher in the present study, the interview was the supporting component of the data of the observation. the researcher interviewed the teacher that aimed at knowing the problems faced by her while teaching the young kids. the interview contained five questions. results of the interview clarified that the teacher had to face a tough time with a bilingual class of young kids. the teacher claimed that it was because of the young and tender age of the kid that they got confused in discerning both the alphabetic. 3.3. oral proficiency test (questionnaire) a questionnaire was the third component of data of the observation, but in this study, the teacher implemented oral proficiency test to get a deeper insight into the children’s problems in pronouncing muddle up alphabetic. feedback on the opt revealed to the researcher that only the reading aloud technique would not produce the desired outcome. the teacher should have taught the lesson following the techniques of pronunciation as stress, rhythm and intonation proposed by kelly (2001). 3.4. data display it is the second component of the qualitative data analysis propounded by miles, et al. (1994). in the present study, data collected through the triangulation of method was explained and organized in the extended text for evaluation for presentation in the illustration tables. 3.5. observation report based on the seven-point procedure, according to adita (2015), of teaching and learning pronunciation by using the reading aloud technique, the researcher very keenly observed the activities by the teacher in the class and prepared a report which lies below. (see the attached questionnaire in the appendices) 4. findings the checklist of both the observations manifested that the researcher did the work very well with keen observation and apt attention and notified the minute details regarding the teaching and learning process and made written documentation to support observation results. 4.1. interview report it manifested that the researcher did the work very well with keen observation and apt attention. the interview was the second component of the triangulation method. in this research, the researcher employed interviews to support the data of observation. he composed the interview items based on the technique of teaching pronunciation, code switching bilingual preschoolers in pakistan: a study of arabic and urdu alphabetic 104 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no. 1, november 2021 basics of phonetics and phonology and problems of young kids being bilingual learners and finally the problem of the teacher for not being the trained teacher. the research intended to find out the problems faced by the teacher and students in both the observations. the researcher found out that the teacher did apply the reading aloud technique but not being well versed in the method of teaching pronunciation to the bilingual preschoolers who could not discern the muddle up sounds as expected by the teachers. 4.1.1. teachers’ interview result the teacher was unfamiliar with the fundamentals of phonetics and phonology. as she was not a trained teacher of pronunciation, she concentrated on the listen-andfollow method. the students did listen to the pronunciation of both alphabetic, but due to their young age, they were unable to overcome the problem of bilingualism. although the students enjoyed the activities, they were unable to distinguish between alphabetic. 4.2. questionnaire report a questionnaire is was the third component of the triangulation method. as the subjects in this study were very young, the research employed an oral proficiency test in place of an interview to support the data of observation. the researcher aimed to get a deeper insight into the students’ problems in learning alphabetic in the same class. the researcher himself with the presence of the class teacher and the principal of the school took note of the proceedings of the class and concluded opt. result of opt (questionnaire) age: 3-4 years old preschoolers: girls and boys observation items responses yes no 1. how many students can pronounce the alphabetic before the teacher as it is? 35 10 2. how many students can understand arabic alphabetic? 30 15 3. how many students can understand urdu alphabetic? 40 05 4. how many students can feel the difference between arabic and urdu alphabetic? 25 20 5. how many students enjoyed the activities? 45 00 6. how many students are punjabi speakers by birth? 30 15 muhammad ali shahid & anser mahmood englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9 , no. 1, november 2021 | 105 7. how many students are urdu speakers by birth? 15 30 oral proficiency test spss results statistics table 3-4 year s old boy s and girl s how many students can pronounc e the alphabeti c before the teacher as it is? how many students can understand arabic alphabetic ? how many students can understand urdu alphabetic ? how many students can feel the difference between arabic and urdu alphabetic ? how many students enjoyed the activities ? how many student s are punjabi speaker s by birth? how many student s are urdu speaker s by birth? n valid 0 0 45 45 45 45 45 45 45 missin g 46 46 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 the oral proficiency test was administered to a total of 45 participants: 18 boys and 27 girls. according to the statistics, all 45 participants in the study answered all 7 questions on the questionnaire. in any case, not a single case was missing. frequency tables 3-4 years old frequency percent missing system 46 100.0 the participants in this study were boys and girls ranging in age from three to four years, according to the table. one case is system missing. boys and girls frequency percent missing system 46 100.0 the number of boys and girls who took part in the research activities for data collection totaled 45, with 18 boys and 27 girls taking part in each activity. how many students can pronounce the alphabetic before the teacher as it is? frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid yes 35 76.1 77.8 77.8 no 10 21.7 22.2 100.0 total 45 97.8 100.0 missing system 1 2.2 total 46 100.0 in response to question no.1, 35 students answered affirmatively, while 10 students answered negatively. the results indicate that 76.1 percent of participants were code switching bilingual preschoolers in pakistan: a study of arabic and urdu alphabetic 106 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no. 1, november 2021 confident in their ability to pronounce the alphabet before the lesson, while 21.7 percent of participants were unable to do so. how many students can understand arabic alphabetic? frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid yes 30 65.2 66.7 66.7 no 15 32.6 33.3 100.0 total 45 97.8 100.0 missing system 1 2.2 total 46 100.0 question no.2 had 30 students who answered positively, accounting for 65.2 percent of the total and 32.6 percent who did not understand the arabic alphabetic. how many students can understand urdu alphabetic? frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid yes 39 84.8 86.7 86.7 no 6 13.0 13.3 100.0 total 45 97.8 100.0 missing system 1 2.2 total 46 100.0 in response to question no.3, a good number of 39 students provided the researcher with positive responses, demonstrating that 84.8 of the total number of students find learning urdu alphabetic to be simple. how many students can feel the difference between arabic and urdu alphabetic? frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid yes 25 54.3 55.6 55.6 no 20 43.5 44.4 100.0 total 45 97.8 100.0 missing system 1 2.2 total 46 100.0 the results of question no.4 were astonishingly in the opposite direction. with only 25 students participating, 54.3 percent of students were successful in distinguishing between arabic and urdu alphabets, whereas a large number of students (43.5 percent) failed to distinguish between the two types of alphabets. how many students enjoyed the activities? frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid yes 45 97.8 100.0 100.0 missing system 1 2.2 total 46 100.0 muhammad ali shahid & anser mahmood englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9 , no. 1, november 2021 | 107 how many students enjoyed the activities was a very interesting and important question in question no.5. ’. the fact that all of the students participated at 100 percent demonstrates that they were all eager to learn something new. the teacher was successful in enticing them to participate in class. how many students are punjabi speakers by birth? frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid yes 30 65.2 66.7 66.7 no 15 32.6 33.3 100.0 total 45 97.8 100.0 missing system 1 2.2 total 46 100.0 question no. 6 did not pique our curiosity either. because the bilingual learners came from punjabi and urdu-speaking backgrounds, the questionnaire included a question about how many students are punjabi speakers, which was answered with 65.2 percent frequency, indicating that two-thirds of the total student population comes from punjabi backgrounds. how many students are urdu speakers by birth? frequency percent valid percent cumulative percent valid yes 15 32.6 33.3 33.3 no 30 65.2 66.7 100.0 total 45 97.8 100.0 missing system 1 2.2 total 46 100.0 question no. 7 is a follow-up to question no. 6 in terms of content. it demonstrates that only one-third of the total 45 students were from the urdu-speaking community, as shown in the graph. urdu is a softer language than punjabi, and it is spoken by more people. the two activities were accessible to all 45 students who registered. the teacher took special care to ensure that no one's grade was reduced due to a lack of participation and that no one was overlooked. miss zara was the one who made it happen. the following findings were obtained through the use of a questionnaire. when it comes to answering questions, the majority of students (77%) receive poor grades, while a smaller percentage (22%) provides correct answers. in response to question no. 2, the results show that 66.7 percent of the students agree, while only 33.35 percent disagree with the researcher. to answer question no. 3, which asks how many users are confident in their answers, the majority are, with less than 13% doubting they could say that. even though only a reasonable number of students (55.6%) responded positively, a sizable (44.4%) number of students (many, not 55.6%) responded negatively (in question 4). on question no. 5, nearly all of the test subjects agreed with the researcher. many people were pleased when the researcher said "the majority," and a quarter was pleased when it said that many people were pleased in question no. 6 when code switching bilingual preschoolers in pakistan: a study of arabic and urdu alphabetic 108 | englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9, no. 1, november 2021 it said that 66.7 percent of respondents expressed enthusiasm. this response, on the other hand, drew a lot of attention, whereas the third option drew even more criticism (i.e., a large number of respondents were dissatisfied with it, particularly regarding question 7. 5. discussion by administering the oral proficiency test, the researchers discovered that bilingual preschoolers have a greater challenge in discerning resembling sounds in the arabic and urdu alphabets, which causes them to deviate from one alphabet to the other. a trained teacher with skills in both arabic and urdu alphabetic should be engaged to minimise this problem. he will depict a simpler picture for students with similarities and differences. people tend to believe that vocabulary or code-switching increases along with negative personality traits. because they are unwilling to try, children believe their brains are lazy and believe they will be unable to think of it in a different language. the home language should be one, two, or an expanded language programme. while learning two languages, some children are excellent students. this causes them to know one language better, but they also know two. it is assumed that a child's most comfortable language will be his or her dominant one. a language may persist in the life of a child even if they do not regularly use it. speaking two languages is like any other skill. to get good at it, kids will need plenty of assistance from their parents. the language barrier makes it difficult to comprehend and communicate thoughts in another language. this letter-based research addresses the same issue: children without enough practise cannot simultaneously speak and understand two languages, and they begin to favour one or rely on the other. even for young children, when the alphabets speak similar languages, it can be difficult to keep up. the teacher in the current study had good intentions of assisting students in understanding methodology and phonology, but she was found lacking in methodology and phonics preparation. despite the teacher's hard work and efforts, the opt results were heartbreaking. when the children learned to speak two languages in school, their parents had limited influence. due to their young age, they were unable to extract the mother tongue's vibrations and thus didn't learn alphabets in school. 6. conclusion the current study sought to discover why bilingual preschoolers find it difficult to pronounce simple letters in both arabic and urdu at the same time, as well as how they overcome the challenge of pronouncing simple letters in both arabic and urdu simultaneously. the research on bilingual preschoolers is significant in that it reveals that the children had difficulty in discerning resembling sounds from the arabic and urdu alphabets and that this difficulty caused them to deviate from one alphabet to the other. speech therapists, pathologists, psychologists, bilingual scholars, and researchers muhammad ali shahid & anser mahmood englisia: journal of language, education, and humanities | vol. 9 , no. 1, november 2021 | 109 will all benefit from the research. the study only included 45 people. for more and better findings and results, the magnitude of the subjects and duration of the research can be increased to a longitudinal research thesis. according to the findings of the current study, teachers assigned to preschoolers or primary classes should be trained in their respective fields so that they can handle and solve preschooler problems at an early stage. when problems are not addressed, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, for teachers to solve them, and students notice a lack of progress throughout their educational careers. only trained teachers are insufficient; audio-visual aids are also required for better and more effective learning for preschoolers and primary school students. conflict of the research the current study's conflict was that trained and qualified teachers are not provided in primary schools, particularly in the private sector, which exacerbates the problem of students with bilingual or multilingual backgrounds accumulating in the class. the teacher is responsible for resolving the problem of bilingualism or multilingualism, which can only be handled by a trained and guided teacher. funding nobody else, no institution, and no charitable organization contributed to the current study's funding. all expenses were paid for by the researcher. acknowledgement the acknowledgement of the current study is without a doubt owed to madam farwa batool, principal of the knowledge hub, 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